Events on April 8 57
Year 217
Roman Emperor Caracalla is assassinated. He is succeeded by his Praetorian Guard prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus.
Year 632
King Charibert II is assassinated at Blaye (Gironde), along with his infant son Chilperic.
Year 1232
Mongol-Jin War: The Mongols begin their siege on Kaifeng, the capital of the Jin dynasty.
Year 1665
English colonial patents are granted for the establishment of the Monmouth Tract, for what would eventually become Monmouth County in northeastern New Jersey.
Year 1740
War of Jenkins' Ear: Three British ships capture the Spanish third-rate Princesa, taken into service as HMS Princess.
Year 1808
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Baltimore is promoted to an archdiocese, with the founding of the dioceses of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown (now Louisville) by Pope Pius VII.
Year 1832
Black Hawk War: Around three-hundred United States 6th Infantry troops leave St. Louis, Missouri to fight the Sauk Native Americans.
Year 1864
American Civil War: Battle of Mansfield: Union forces are thwarted by the Confederate army at Mansfield, Louisiana.
Year 1886
William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.
Year 1895
In Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. the Supreme Court of the United States declares unapportioned income tax to be unconstitutional.
Year 1904
The French Third Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland sign the Entente cordiale.
Year 1904
British mystic Aleister Crowley transcribes the first chapter of The Book of the Law.
Year 1904
Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times.
Year 1913
The 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution, requiring direct election of Senators, becomes law.
Year 1916
In Corona, California, race car driver Bob Burman crashes, killing three (including himself), and badly injuring five spectators.
Year 1918
World War I: Actors Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin sell war bonds on the streets of New York City's financial district.
Year 1929
Indian independence movement: At the Delhi Central Assembly, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt throw handouts and bombs to court arrest.
Year 1935
The Works Progress Administration is formed when the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 becomes law.
Year 1942
World War II: Siege of Leningrad: Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.
Year 1943
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, freezes wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless the war effort would be aided thereby, and bars rate increases by common carriers and public utilities.
Year 1945
World War II: After an air raid accidentally destroys a train carrying about 4,000 Nazi concentration camp internees in Prussian Hanover, the survivors are massacred by Nazis.
Year 1946
Électricité de France, the world's largest utility company, is formed as a result of the nationalisation of a number of electricity producers, transporters and distributors.
Year 1952
U.S. President Harry Truman calls for the seizure of all domestic steel mills to prevent a nationwide strike.
Year 1954
A Royal Canadian Air Force Canadair Harvard collides with a Trans-Canada Airlines Canadair North Star over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, killing 37 people.
Year 1954
South African Airways Flight 201 A de Havilland DH.106 Comet 1 crashes into the sea during night killing 21 people.
Year 1959
A team of computer manufacturers, users, and university people led by Grace Hopper meets to discuss the creation of a new programming language that would be called COBOL.
Year 1959
The Organization of American States drafts an agreement to create the Inter-American Development Bank.
Year 1960
The Netherlands and West Germany sign an agreement to negotiate the return of German land annexed by the Dutch in return for 280 million German marks as Wiedergutmachung.
Year 1968
BOAC Flight 712 catches fire shortly after take off. As a result of her actions in the accident, Barbara Jane Harrison is awarded a posthumous George Cross, the only GC awarded to a woman in peacetime.
Year 1970
Bahr El-Baqar primary school bombing: Israeli bombers strike an Egyptian school. Forty-six children are killed.
Year 1974
At Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run to surpass Babe Ruth's 39-year-old record.
Year 1975
Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.
Year 1987
Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis resigns amid controversy over racially charged remarks he had made while on Nightline.
Year 1992
Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announces that he has AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries.
Year 1999
Haryana Gana Parishad, a political party in the Indian state of Haryana, merges with the Indian National Congress.
Year 2004
War in Darfur: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups.
Year 2006
Shedden massacre: The bodies of eight men, all shot to death, are found in a field in Shedden, Elgin County, Ontario. The murders are soon linked to the Bandidos Motorcycle Club.
Year 2008
The construction of the world's first building to integrate wind turbines is completed in Bahrain.
Year 2013
The Islamic State of Iraq enters the Syrian Civil War and begins by declaring a merger with the Al-Nusra Front under the name Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham