On This Day — 8 July

2000s

2022

Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is shot and killed with an improvised firearm due to resentment against the Unification Church.

Shinzo Abe

2014

Israel launches an offensive on Gaza amid rising tensions following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers.

Israel

2014

The Brazil national football team suffers its joint-worst defeat, losing 7–1 to Germany in the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup, in a match dubbed the Mineiraço.

Brazil national football team

2011

Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

2003

Sudan Airways Flight 139 crashes near Port Sudan Airport during an emergency landing attempt, killing 116 of the 117 people on board.

Sudan Airways Flight 139

1900s

1994

Kim Jong Il begins to assume supreme leadership of North Korea upon the death of his father, Kim Il Sung.

Kim Jong Il

1994

Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on an international science mission.

Space Shuttle Columbia

1990

West Germany win the FIFA World Cup final against defending champions Argentina, with Andreas Brehme scoring the game's only goal.

Germany national football team

1988

The Island Express train travelling from Bangalore to Kanyakumari derails on the Peruman bridge and falls into Ashtamudi Lake, Kerala in India killing 105 passengers and injuring over 200 more.

Island Express (train)

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1982

A failed assassination attempt against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein results in the Dujail Massacre over the next several months.

Dujail massacre

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1980

The inaugural 1980 State of Origin game is won by Queensland who defeat New South Wales 20–10 at Lang Park.

1980 State of Origin game

1980

Aeroflot Flight 4225 crashes near Almaty International Airport in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (present day Kazakhstan), killing all 166 people on board.

Aeroflot Flight 4225

1972

Israeli Mossad assassinate Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani.

Mossad

1970

Richard Nixon delivers a special congressional message enunciating Native American self-determination as official US Indian policy, leading to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.

Richard Nixon

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1968

The Chrysler wildcat strike begins in Detroit, Michigan.

Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement

1966

King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng of Burundi is deposed by his son Prince Charles Ndizi.

List of kings of Burundi

1965

Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 21 is destroyed by a bomb near 100 Mile House, Canada, killing 52.

Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 21

1962

Ne Win besieges and blows up the Rangoon University Student Union building to crush the Student Movement.

Ne Win

1960

Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.

Francis Gary Powers

1948

The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits into a program called the Women's Air Force (WAF).

United States Air Force

1947

Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico in what became known as the Roswell UFO incident.

Unidentified flying object

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1937

Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan sign the Treaty of Saadabad.

Treaty of Saadabad

1933

The first rugby union test match between the Wallabies of Australia and the Springboks of South Africa is played at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town.

Rugby union

1932

The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.

Dow Jones Industrial Average

1912

Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Couceiro leads an unsuccessful royalist attack against the First Portuguese Republic in Chaves.

Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Cabral Couceiro

1800s

1898

The death of crime boss Soapy Smith, killed in the Shootout on Juneau Wharf, releases Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip.

Soapy Smith

1892

St. John's, Newfoundland is devastated in the Great Fire of 1892.

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

1889

The first issue of The Wall Street Journal is published.

The Wall Street Journal

1879

Sailing ship USS Jeannette departs San Francisco carrying an ill-fated expedition to the North Pole.

USS Jeannette (1878)

1876

The Hamburg massacre prior to the 1876 United States presidential election results in the deaths of six African-Americans of the Republican Party, along with one white assailant.

Hamburg massacre

1874

The Mounties begin their March West.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

1864

Ikedaya Incident: The Choshu Han shishis planned Shinsengumi sabotage on Kyoto, Japan at Ikedaya.

Ikedaya incident

1859

King Charles XV & IV accedes to the throne of Sweden–Norway.

Charles XV

1853

The Perry Expedition arrives in Edo Bay with a treaty requesting trade.

Perry Expedition

1822

Chippewas turn over a huge tract of land in Ontario to the United Kingdom.

Ojibwe

Before 1800

1776

Church bells (possibly including the Liberty Bell) are rung after John Nixon delivers the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

Liberty Bell

1775

The Olive Branch Petition is signed by the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies of North America.

Olive Branch Petition

1760

British forces defeat French forces in the last naval battle in New France.

Battle of Restigouche

1758

French forces hold Fort Carillon against the British at Ticonderoga, New York.

Fort Carillon

1741

Reverend Jonathan Edwards preaches to his congregation in Enfield, Connecticut his most famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"; an influence for the First Great Awakening.

Jonathan Edwards (theologian)

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1730

An estimated magnitude 8.7 earthquake causes a tsunami that damages more than 1,000 km (620 mi) of Chile's coastline.

1730 Valparaíso earthquake