08 December History
- 1660 - The first Shakespearian actress to appear on an English stage (she is believed to be a Ms. Norris) makes her debut as Desdemona.
- 1861 - CSS Sumter captures the whaler Eben Dodge in the Atlantic. The American Civil War is now affecting the Northern whaling industry.
- 1863 - Union General William Averell's cavalry destroys railroads in the southwestern part of West Virginia.
- 1914 - The German cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nurnberg, and Liepzig are sunk by a British force in the Battle of the Falkland Islands.
- 1920 - President Woodrow Wilson declines to send a representative to the League of Nations in Geneva.
- 1932 - Japan tells the League of Nations that it has no control over her designs in China.
- 1941 - Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita begins his attack against the British army at Singapore.
- 1943 - U.S. carrier-based planes sink two cruisers and down 72 planes in the Marshall Islands.
- 1944 - The United States conducts the longest, most effective air raid on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima.
- 1948 - The United Nations approves the recognition of South Korea.
- 1967 - In the biggest battle yet in the Mekong Delta, 365 Viet Cong are killed.
- 1968 - South Vietnam's Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky arrives in Paris for peace talks.
- 1980 - John Lennon is shot to death outside his Manhattan apartment building.
- 1982 - The Washington, D.C., police shoot and kill a man threatening to blow up the Washington Monument.
08 December Birthdays
- 65 BC - Quintus "Horance" Horatius Flaccus, Roman poet and satirist best known for his three books Odes.
- 1542 - Mary, Queen of Scotland (1542-67).
- 1626 - Christina, Queen of Sweden (1644-54).
- 1765 - Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin.
- 1894 - James Thurber, American writer, cartoonist and editor (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty).
- 1906 - Richard Llewellyn, author (How Green Was My Valley).
- 1913 - Delmore Schwartz, poet and writer.