08 October History
- 876 - Charles the Bald is defeated at the Battle of Andernach.
- 1690 - Belgrade is retaken by the Turks.
- 1840 - King William I of Holland abdicates.
- 1855 - Arrow, a ship flying the British flag, is boarded by Chinese who arrest the crew, thus beginning the Second Chinese War.
- 1862 - The Union is victorious at the Battle of Perryville, the largest Civil War combat to take place in Kentucky.
- 1871 - The Great Chicago Fire begins in southwest Chicago, possibly in a barn owned by Patrick and Katherine O'Leary. Fanned by strong southwesterly winds, the flames raged for more than 24 hours, eventually leveling three and a half square miles and wiping out one-third of the city. Approximately 250 people were killed in the fire; 98,500 people were left homeless; 17,450 buildings were destroyed.
- 1897 - Journalist Charles Henry Dow, founder of the Wall Street Journal, begins charting trends of stocks and bonds.
- 1900 - Maximilian Harden is sentenced to six months in prison for publishing an article critical of the German Kaiser.
- 1906 - Karl Ludwig Nessler first demonstrates a machine in London that puts permenant waves in hair. The client wears a dozen brass curlers, each wearing two pounds, for the six-hour process.
- 1919 - The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives pass the Volstead Prohibition Enforcement Bill.
- 1922 - Lilian Gatlin becomes the first woman pilot to fly across the United States.
- 1956 - Don Larson of the New York Yankees pitched the first perfect game in World Series history against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
- 1968 - U.S. forces in Vietnam launch Operation Sealord, an attack on North Vietnamese supply lines and base areas.
08 October Birthdays
- 1810 - James Wilson Marshall, discoverer of gold in California.
- 1890 - Eddie Rickenbacker, U.S. fighter pilot in World War I, aviation pioneer.
- 1895 - Juan Peron, Argentinean dictator.
- 1917 - Rodney Porter, British biochemist and Nobel Proze winner.
- 1926 - Cesar Milstein, molecular biologist.
- 1941 - Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader.