8 May 2023 (MIA)

– World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day

1788 – The French Parliament is suspended to be replaced by the creation of forty-seven new courts.

1794 – Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme Générale, is tried, convicted, and guillotined all on the same day in Paris.

1821 – Greek War of Independence: The Greeks defeat the Turks at the Battle of Gravia Inn.

1842 – A train derails and catches fire in Paris, killing between 52 and 200 people.

1846 – Mexican–American War: The Battle of Palo Alto: Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the war.

1861 – American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia is named the capital of the Confederate States of America.

1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named “Coca-Cola” as a patent medicine.

1901 – The Australian Labour Party is established.

1902 – In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.

1912 – Paramount Pictures is founded.

1914 – Gligor Smokvarski, Macedonian composer who wrote the first national ballet play Macedonian History, was born in the village of Budinarci, near Berovo.

1924 – The Klaipėda Convention is signed formally incorporating Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory) into Lithuania.

1927 – Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off aboard The White Bird biplane.

1933 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement.

1941 – The German Luftwaffe launches a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby.

1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Kerch Peninsula: The German 11th Army begins Operation Trappenjagd (Bustard Hunt) and destroys the bridgehead of the three Soviet Armies (44th, 47th, and 51st) defending the Kerch Peninsula, in the eastern part of the Crimea.

1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.

1945 – Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre.

1945 – World War II: V-E Day, combat ends in Europe. German forces agree in Reims, France, to an unconditional surrender.

1945 – End of the Prague uprising, celebrated now as a national holiday in the Czech Republic.

1946 – Estonian school girls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blow up the Soviet memorial which stood in front of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn.

1963 – South Vietnamese soldiers of Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem open fire on Buddhists defying a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, killing nine and sparking the Buddhist crisis.

1970 – The Hard Hat Riot occurs in the Wall Street area of New York City as blue-collar construction workers clash with demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War.

1972 – Four Black September terrorists hijack Sabena Flight 571. Israeli Sayeret Matkal commandos recapture the plane the following day.

1973 – A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.

1978 – The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler.

1980 – The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox.

1984 – The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

1987 – The Loughgall ambush: The SAS kills eight Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a civilian during an ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland.

1988 – A fire at Illinois Bell’s Hinsdale Central Office triggers an extended 1AESS network outage once considered the “worst telecommunications disaster in US telephone industry history”.

1992 – The Republic of Philippines recognises the Republic of Macedonia.

1995 – The Republic of Macedonia and Singapore establish diplomatic relations.

1997 – A China Southern Airlines Flight 3456 crashes on approach into Bao’an International Airport, killing 35 people.