On This Day — 8 June

2023

Former US President Donald Trump is indicted on federal charges of misusing classified information.

Donald Trump

2007

Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of a trade ship, the MV Pasha Bulker.

Newcastle, New South Wales

2007

Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-117 carrying two truss segments and solar arrays to the International Space Station.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

2004

The first Venus Transit in well over a century takes place, the previous one being in 1882.

2004 transit of Venus

2001

Mamoru Takuma kills eight and injures 15 in a mass stabbing at an elementary school in the Osaka Prefecture of Japan.

Mamoru Takuma

1995

Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.

Captain (United States O-3)

1992

The first World Oceans Day is celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

World Oceans Day

1992

GP Express Airlines Flight 861 crashes on approach to Anniston Regional Airport in Anniston, Alabama, killing three.

GP Express Airlines Flight 861

1987

New Zealand's Labour government establishes a national nuclear-free zone under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.

New Zealand

1984

Homosexuality is decriminalized in the Australian state of New South Wales.

Homosexuality

1983

Reeve Aleutian Airways Flight 8 loses one of its propellers in flight resulting in damage to the flight controls. The Lockheed L-188 Electra makes an emergency landing at Anchorage International Airport and there are no injuries.

Reeve Aleutian Airways Flight 8

1982

Bluff Cove Air Attacks during the Falklands War: Fifty-six British servicemen are killed by an Argentine air attack on two landing ships, RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram.

Bluff Cove air attacks

1982

VASP Flight 168 crashes in Pacatuba, Ceará, Brazil, killing 128 people.

VASP Flight 168

1972

Vietnam War: Nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc is burned by napalm, an event captured by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut moments later while the young girl is seen running naked down a road, in what would become an iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning photo.

Vietnam War

1968

James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested at London Heathrow Airport.

James Earl Ray

1967

Six-Day War: The USS Liberty incident: A United States Navy spy ship is attacked by the Israeli Air Force and Navy, resulting in 34 deaths and 171 wounded.

Six-Day War

1966

An F-104 Starfighter collides with XB-70 Valkyrie prototype no. 2, destroying both aircraft during a photo shoot near Edwards Air Force Base. Joseph A. Walker, a NASA test pilot, and Carl Cross, a United States Air Force test pilot, are both killed.

Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

1966

Topeka, Kansas, United States is devastated by a tornado that registers as an "F5" on the Fujita scale, exceeding US$200 million in damages. Seventeen people are killed, over five hundred more injured, and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed.

Topeka, Kansas

1961

Marriage of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent to Katharine Worsley at York Minster.

Wedding of Prince Edward and Katharine Worsley

1959

USS Barbero and the United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.

USS Barbero

1953

An F5 tornado hits Beecher, Michigan, United States, killing 116, injuring 844, and destroying 340 homes.

1953 Flint–Beecher tornado

1953

The United States Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co. that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.

Supreme Court of the United States

1949

George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in the United States

George Orwell

1943

World War II: The two-day Battle of Porta between the Royal Italian Army and the Greek People's Liberation Army begins.

Battle of Porta

1942

World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.

Imperial Japanese Navy

1941

World War II: The Allies commence the Syria–Lebanon Campaign against the possessions of Vichy France in the Levant.

Allies of World War II

1940

World War II: The completion of Operation Alphabet, the evacuation of Allied forces from Narvik at the end of the Norwegian campaign.

World War II

1929

Margaret Bondfield is appointed Minister of Labour. She is the first woman appointed to the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.

Margaret Bondfield

1906

Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.

Theodore Roosevelt

1887

Herman Hollerith applies for US patent #395,781 for the 'Art of Compiling Statistics', which was his punched card calculator.

Herman Hollerith

1867

Coronation of Franz Joseph as King of Hungary following the Austro-Hungarian compromise (Ausgleich).

Franz Joseph I

1862

American Civil War: A Confederate victory by forces under General Stonewall Jackson at the Battle of Cross Keys, along with the Battle of Port Republic the next day, prevents Union forces from reinforcing General George B. McClellan in his Peninsula campaign.

Confederate States of America

1861

American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.

American Civil War

1856

A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island, commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.

Pitcairn Islands

1794

Maximilien Robespierre inaugurates the French Revolution's new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large organized festivals all across France.

Maximilien Robespierre

1789

James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in Congress.

James Madison

1783

Laki, a volcano in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine.

Laki

1776

American Revolutionary War: Continental Army attackers are driven back at the Battle of Trois-Rivières.

American Revolutionary War

1772

Alexander Fordyce flees to France to avoid debt repayment, triggering the credit crisis of 1772 in the British Empire and the Dutch Republic.

Alexander Fordyce

1663

Portuguese Restoration War: Portuguese victory at the Battle of Ameixial ensures Portugal's independence from Spain.

Portuguese Restoration War

1191

King Richard I of England arrives in Acre, beginning the Third Crusade.

Richard I of England

1042

Edward the Confessor becomes King of England – the country's penultimate Anglo-Saxon king.

Edward the Confessor

793

Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of Norse activity in the British Isles.

Lindisfarne

452

Attila leads a Hun army in the invasion of Italy, devastating the northern provinces as he heads for Rome.

Attila

218

Battle of Antioch: With the support of the Syrian legions, Elagabalus defeats the forces of emperor Macrinus.

Battle of Antioch (218)