Events on September 8 66
Year 617
Battle of Huoyi: Li Yuan defeats a Sui dynasty army, opening the path to his capture of the imperial capital Chang'an and the eventual establishment of the Tang dynasty.
Year 1198
Philip of Swabia, Prince of Hohenstaufen, is crowned King of Germany (King of the Romans)
Year 1253
Pope Innocent IV canonised Stanislaus of Szczepanów, killed by king Bolesław II.
Year 1264
The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Bolesław the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.
Year 1380
Battle of Kulikovo: Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance.
Year 1514
Battle of Orsha: In one of the biggest battles of the century, Lithuanians and Poles defeat the Russian army.
Year 1565
St. Augustine, Florida was founded by Spanish admiral and Florida's first governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.
Year 1655
Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge, making it the first time the city is captured by a foreign army.
Year 1727
A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell in Cambridgeshire, England kills 78 people, many of whom are children.
Year 1761
Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Year 1781
American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina, the war's last significant battle in the Southern theater, ends in a narrow British tactical victory.
Year 1796
French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Bassano: French forces defeat Austrian troops at Bassano del Grappa.
Year 1810
The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon.
Year 1831
William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Year 1860
The steamship PS Lady Elgin sinks on Lake Michigan, with the loss of around 300 lives.
Year 1863
American Civil War: Second Battle of Sabine Pass: On the Texas-Louisiana border at the mouth of the Sabine River, a small Confederate force thwarts a Union invasion of Texas.
Year 1883
The Northern Pacific Railway (reporting mark NP) was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana. Former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in an event attended by rail and political luminaries.
Year 1888
In London, the body of Jack the Ripper's second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found.
Year 1900
Galveston hurricane: A powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
Year 1905
The 7.2 Mw Calabria earthquake shakes Southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing between 557 and 2,500 people.
Year 1914
World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war.
Year 1921
Margaret Gorman, a 16-year-old, wins the Atlantic City Pageant's Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America.
Year 1923
Honda Point disaster: Nine US Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast. Seven are lost, and twenty-three sailors killed.
Year 1925
Rif War: Spanish forces including troops from the Foreign Legion under Colonel Francisco Franco landing at Al Hoceima, Morocco.
Year 1934
Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner SS Morro Castle kills 137 people.
Year 1935
US Senator from Louisiana Huey Long is fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building.
Year 1941
World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin the siege of Leningrad.
Year 1943
World War II: The O.B.S. (German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone) in Frascati is bombed by USAAF.
Year 1943
World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.
Year 1945
Cold War: United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
Year 1951
Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.
Year 1952
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation makes its first televised broadcast on the second escape of the Boyd Gang.
Year 1960
In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
Year 1962
Last run of the famous Pines Express over the Somerset and Dorset Railway line (UK) fittingly using the last steam locomotive built by British Railways, 9F locomotive 92220 Evening Star.
Year 1966
The landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premieres with its first-aired episode, "The Man Trap".
Year 1971
In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
Year 1974
Watergate scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
Year 1975
Gays in the military: US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is given a general discharge, later upgraded to honorable.
Year 1978
Black Friday, a massacre by soldiers against protesters in Tehran, results in 700-3000 deaths, it marks the beginning of the end of the monarchy in Iran.
Year 1988
Yellowstone National Park is closed for the first time in U.S. history due to ongoing fires.
Year 1989
Partnair Flight 394 dived into the North Sea, killing 55 people. The investigation showed that the tail of the plane vibrated loose in flight due to sub-standard connecting bolts that had been fraudulently sold as aircraft-grade.
Year 1994
USAir Flight 427, on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, suddenly crashes in clear weather killing all 132 aboard; resulting in the most extensive aviation investigation in world history and altering manufacturing practices in the industry.
Year 2004
NASA's unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash-lands when its parachute fails to open.
Year 2005
Two Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft from EMERCOM land at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base; the first time Russia has flown such a mission to North America.