Events on August 8 46
Year 870
Treaty of Meerssen: King Louis the German and his half-brother Charles the Bald partition the Middle Frankish Kingdom into two larger east and west divisions.
Year 1503
King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Year 1576
The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg observatory is laid on the island of Hven.
Year 1588
Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: The naval engagement ends, ending the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England.
Year 1647
The Irish Confederate Wars and Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Battle of Dungan's Hill: English Parliamentary forces defeat Irish forces.
Year 1709
Bartolomeu de Gusmão demonstrates the lifting power of hot air in an audience before the king of Portugal in Lisbon, Portugal.
Year 1786
Mont Blanc on the French-Italian border is climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard.
Year 1794
Joseph Whidbey leads an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska.
Year 1844
The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, headed by Brigham Young, is reaffirmed as the leading body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
Year 1863
American Civil War: Following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which is refused upon receipt).
Year 1870
The Republic of Ploiești, a failed Radical-Liberal rising against Domnitor Carol of Romania.
Year 1908
Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It is the Wright Brothers' first public flight.
Year 1918
World War I: The Battle of Amiens begins a string of almost continuous Allied victories with a push through the German front lines (Hundred Days Offensive).
Year 1942
Quit India Movement is launched in India against the British rule in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for swaraj or complete independence.
Year 1945
The London Charter is signed by France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, establishing the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials.
Year 1946
First flight of the Convair B-36, the world's first mass-produced nuclear weapon delivery vehicle, the heaviest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft, with the longest wingspan of any military aircraft, and the first bomber with intercontinental range.
Year 1963
Great Train Robbery: In England, a gang of 15 train robbers steal £2.6 million in bank notes.
Year 1963
The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), the current ruling party of Zimbabwe, is formed by a split from the Zimbabwe African People's Union.
Year 1967
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is founded by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Year 1969
At a zebra crossing in London, photographer Iain Macmillan takes the iconic photo that becomes the cover image of the Beatles' album Abbey Road.
Year 1973
Kim Dae-jung, a South Korean politician and later president of South Korea, is kidnapped.
Year 1974
President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day.
Year 1988
The 8888 Uprising begins in Rangoon (Yangon), Burma (Myanmar). Led by students, hundreds of thousands join in nationwide protests against the one-party regime. On September 18, the demonstrations end in a military crackdown, killing thousands.
Year 1989
Space Shuttle program: STS-28 Mission: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission.
Year 1990
Iraq occupies Kuwait and the state is annexed to Iraq. This would lead to the Gulf War shortly afterward.
Year 1991
The Warsaw radio mast, at one time the tallest construction ever built, collapses.
Year 1993
The 7.8 Mw Guam earthquake shakes the island with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), causing around $250 million in damage and injuring up to 71 people.
Year 1998
Iranian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan is raided by Taliban leading to the deaths of ten Iranian diplomats and a journalist.
Year 2000
Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor and 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence.
Year 2007
An EF2 tornado touches down in Kings County and Richmond County, New York, the most powerful tornado in New York to date and the first in Brooklyn since 1889.
Year 2008
A EuroCity express train en route from Kraków, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic strikes a part of a motorway bridge that had fallen onto the railroad track near Studénka railway station in the Czech Republic and derails, killing eight people and injuring 64 others.
Year 2009
A tour helicopter and a private Piper aircraft collide over the Hudson River near Frank Sinatra Park in Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S; all three people on the helicopter and all six aboard the Piper are killed, 40 blocks south of where US Airways Flight 1549 ditched after suffering multiple bird strikes just 7 months earlier.
Year 2010
China Floods: A mudslide in Zhugqu County, Gansu, China, kills more than 1,400 people.
Year 2013
A suicide bombing at a funeral in the Pakistani city of Quetta kills at least 31 people.
Year 2016
Terrorists attack a government hospital in Quetta, Pakistan with a suicide blast and shooting, killing between 70 and 94 people, and injuring around 130 others.