08 November History
- 392 - Theodosius of Rome passes legislation prohibiting all pagan worship in the empire.
- 1226 - Louis IX succeeds Louis VIII as king of France.
- 1576 - The 17 provinces of the Netherlands form a federation to maintain peace.
- 1620 - The King of Bohemia is defeated at the Battle of Prague.
- 1685 - Fredrick William of Brandenburg issues the Edict of Potsdam, offering Huguenots refuge.
- 1793 - The Louvre opens in Paris. But wasn't it already a Palace and it merely opens to the people?
- 1861 - Charles Wilkes seizes Confederate commissioners John Slidell and James M. Mason from the British ship Trent.
- 1864 - President Abraham Lincoln is re-elected in the first wartime election in the United States.
- 1887 - Doc Holliday, who fought on the side of the Earp brothers during the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral 6 years earlier, dies of tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
- 1889 - Montana becomes the 41st state of the Union.
- 1900 - Theodore Dresier's first novel Sister Carrie is published by Doubleday, but is recalled from stores shortly due to public sentiment.
- 1904 - President Theodore Roosevelt is elected president of the United States. He had been vice president until the shooting death of President William McKinley.
- 1910 - The Democrats prevail in congressional elections for the first time since 1894.
- 1923 - Adolf Hitler attempts a coup in Munich, the "Beer Hall Putsch," and proclaims himself chancellor and Ludendorff dictator. .
- 1932 - Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected 32nd president of the United States.
- 1938 - Crystla Bird Fauset of Pennsylvania, becomes the first African-American woman to be elected to a state legislature.
- 1942 - The United States and Great Britain invade Axis-occupied North Africa.
- 1960 - John F. Kennedy is elected 35th president, defeating Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the closest election, by popular vote, since 1880.
- 1966 - Republican Edward Brooke of Massachusetts becomes the first African American elected to the Senate in 85 years.
- 1983 - Wilson B. Goode is elected as the first black mayor of the city of Philadelphia.
- 1988 - George H. Bush is elected the 41st president of the United States.
08 November Birthdays
- 1656 - Edmond Halley, mathematician and astronomer who predicted the return of the comet that bears his name.
- 1847 - Bram Stoker, author (Dracula).
- 1878 - Marshall Walter Taylor, "Major Taylor," the world's fastest bicycle racer for a 12-year period.
- 1879 - Leon Trosky, Russian Communist leader.
- 1884 - Hermann Rorshach, Swiss psychiatrist, inventor of the inkblot test.
- 1900 - Albert Friedrich Frey-Wyssling, Swiss botanist and molecular biology pioneer.
- 1900 - Margaret Mitchell, American writer who found success in her first and only novel, Gone With the Wind.
- 1909 - Katherine Hepburn, American actress who won four Oscars. Her movies included Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story and The African Queen.
- 1916 - Peter Ulrich Weiss, German novelist and dramatist (Marat/Sade, The Investigation).
- 1922 - Christiaan Barnard, South African surgeon, performed the first human heart transplant operation.