December 8 facts for kids

December 8 is the 342nd day of the year (343rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 23 days remain until the end of the year.

This page tells you about important things that happened on December 8th throughout history. You'll learn about famous people born on this day, important events, and special holidays celebrated around the world.

Historical Events

Ancient Times and Middle Ages

• 395 – A large battle took place at Canhe Slope, where the Northern Wei army defeated the Later Yan kingdom.
• 757 – The famous poet Du Fu returned to the court of Emperor Xuanzong in Chang'an. He had escaped the city during a big rebellion.
• 877 – Louis the Stammerer was crowned king of the West Frankish Kingdom in France.
• 1504 – Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah wrote a special religious opinion called the Oran fatwa. It suggested making Islamic law easier for Muslims in Spain who were forced to change their religion.

1600s to 1900s

• 1660 – For the first time, a woman acted on an English public stage. It was either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall, playing Desdemona in Shakespeare's play Othello.
• 1851 – Government troops in Santiago, Chile, won a battle against rebels at Loncomilla. This marked the end of the 1851 Chilean Revolution.
• 1854 – Pope Pius IX officially declared the idea of the Immaculate Conception. This belief states that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born without Original Sin.
• 1864 – Pope Pius IX issued an important document called Quanta cura. It talked about the power of the Catholic Church and disagreed with many liberal ideas of the time.
• 1907 – King Gustaf V became the new king of Sweden.
• 1912 – Leaders of the German Empire met to discuss the possibility of war breaking out.
• 1914 – World War I: The British Royal Navy defeated the German East Asia Squadron in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean.
• 1922 – Four leaders of the Irish Republican Army were executed by the new Irish Free State. Their names were Liam Mellows, Rory O'Connor, Joe McKelvey, and Dick Barrett.
• 1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7th "a date which will live in infamy". The U.S. then declared war on Japan.
• 1941 – World War II: Japanese forces attacked several places at the same time. These included the Shanghai International Settlement, Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. This happened around the same time as the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• 1943 – World War II: The German 117th Jäger Division destroyed the monastery of Mega Spilaio in Greece. They also executed 22 monks and visitors.
• 1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his "Atoms for Peace" speech. This led to a program where America shared nuclear power equipment and information with schools and research places worldwide.
• 1955 – The Flag of Europe was officially adopted by the Council of Europe.
• 1962 – Workers at several New York City newspapers went on strike for 114 days.
• 1963 – Pan Am Flight 214, a Boeing 707 plane, crashed near Elkton, Maryland, after being struck by lightning. All 81 people on board died.
• 1966 – The Greek ship Heraklion sank in a storm in the Aegean Sea, causing over 200 deaths.
• 1969 – Olympic Airways Flight 954 crashed into a mountain in Greece, killing 90 people. It was the worst crash ever for a Douglas DC-6 plane.
• 1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Navy attacked West Pakistan's port city of Karachi.
• 1972 – United Airlines Flight 553, a Boeing 737, crashed near Chicago Midway International Airport, killing 45 people. This was the first time a Boeing 737 had ever crashed.
• 1974 – People in Greece voted in a plebiscite to end the monarchy and become a republic.
• 1980 – John Lennon, a famous singer from The Beatles, was killed in New York City.
• 1985 – The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was created. It's a group of countries in South Asia that work together.
• 1987 – Cold War: The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. This treaty aimed to reduce nuclear weapons.
• 1987 – A traffic accident involving an Israeli army tank transporter killed four Palestinian refugees and injured seven others near the Israel–Gaza Strip border. This event is often seen as one of the things that started the First Intifada.
• 1988 – A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II plane crashed into an apartment building in Germany. Five people died and 50 were injured.
• 1990 – The Galileo spacecraft flew past Earth for the first time on its way to Jupiter.
• 1991 – The leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine signed an agreement to dissolve the Soviet Union and create the Commonwealth of Independent States.
• 1992 – The Galileo spacecraft flew past Earth for a second time.
• 2001 – Singapore's Internal Security Department stopped a plot by a group called Jemaah Islamiyah to bomb foreign embassies in Singapore.
• 2004 – The Cusco Declaration was signed in Cusco, Peru. This agreement created the South American Community of Nations, a group of South American countries working together.
• 2010 – SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft. This happened with the second launch of their Falcon 9 rocket and the first launch of their Dragon capsule.
• 2010 – The Japanese solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS flew past the planet Venus.
• 2013 – Riots broke out in Little India, Singapore, after a fatal accident.
• 2013 – The band Metallica performed a show in Antarctica. This made them the first band to perform on all seven continents.
• 2019 – The first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported in China.

Famous Births

Born Before 1900

• 65 BC – Horace, a famous Roman poet.
• 1021 – Wang Anshi, a Chinese economist and chancellor.
• 1412 – Astorre II Manfredi, an Italian lord.
• 1418 – Queen Jeonghui, a Queen of Korea.
• 1542 – Mary, Queen of Scots, a queen of Scotland.
• 1765 – Eli Whitney, an American engineer who invented the cotton gin.
• 1815 – Adolph Menzel, a German painter.
• 1832 – Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, a Norwegian author and playwright who won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1861 – William C. Durant, an American businessman who founded General Motors and Chevrolet.
• 1861 – Georges Méliès, a French actor and director, known for early special effects in movies.
• 1865 – Jean Sibelius, a famous Finnish composer.
• 1886 – Diego Rivera, a well-known Mexican painter.
• 1894 – E. C. Segar, an American cartoonist who created Popeye.
• 1894 – James Thurber, an American humorist and cartoonist.

Born After 1900

• 1911 – Lee J. Cobb, an American actor.
• 1916 – Richard Fleischer, an American film director.
• 1919 – Julia Bowman, an American mathematician.
• 1922 – Lucian Freud, a German-English painter.
• 1925 – Sammy Davis, Jr., a famous American actor, singer, and dancer.
• 1925 – Jimmy Smith, an American jazz organist.
• 1930 – Maximilian Schell, an Austrian-Swiss actor and director.
• 1935 – Dharmendra, a popular Indian actor.
• 1936 – David Carradine, an American actor.
• 1939 – James Galway, a famous Irish flute player.
• 1941 – Geoff Hurst, an English footballer.
• 1943 – Jim Morrison, an American singer and poet, lead singer of The Doors.
• 1945 – John Banville, an Irish novelist.
• 1947 – Gregg Allman, an American musician.
• 1947 – Thomas Cech, an American chemist and academic who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• 1949 – Nancy Meyers, an American film director and screenwriter.
• 1950 – Rick Baker, an American makeup artist known for special effects.
• 1951 – Bill Bryson, an American essayist and travel writer.
• 1953 – Kim Basinger, a well-known American actress.
• 1956 – Andrius Kubilius, a Lithuanian politician and former Prime Minister.
• 1957 – Phil Collen, an English guitarist from the band Def Leppard.
• 1961 – Ann Coulter, an American political commentator.
• 1962 – Marty Friedman, an American-Japanese guitarist.
• 1963 – Wendell Pierce, an American actor.
• 1964 – Teri Hatcher, an American actress.
• 1966 – Les Ferdinand, an English footballer.
• 1966 – Sinéad O'Connor, a famous Irish singer-songwriter.
• 1968 – Mike Mussina, an American baseball player.
• 1973 – Corey Taylor, an American singer from the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
• 1975 – Kevin Harvick, an American race car driver.
• 1976 – Dominic Monaghan, a German-British actor.
• 1977 – Ryan Newman, an American race car driver.
• 1978 – Ian Somerhalder, an American actor.
• 1982 – Nicki Minaj, a famous Trinidadian-American rapper and actress.
• 1985 – Dwight Howard, an American basketball player.
• 1986 – Amir Khan, an English boxer.
• 1989 – Drew Doughty, a Canadian ice hockey player.
• 1993 – AnnaSophia Robb, an American actress.
• 1994 – Raheem Sterling, an English footballer.
• 1996 – Scott McTominay, a Scottish footballer.
• 1998 – Owen Teague, an American actor.

Notable Deaths

Died Before 1900

• 899 – Arnulf of Carinthia, a Frankish king.
• 1292 – John Peckham, an Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 1550 – Gian Giorgio Trissino, an Italian poet and diplomat.
• 1643 – John Pym, an English politician.
• 1691 – Richard Baxter, an English minister and hymn-writer.
• 1709 – Thomas Corneille, a French playwright.
• 1768 – Jean Denis Attiret, a French painter and missionary.
• 1830 – Benjamin Constant, a Swiss-French philosopher.
• 1859 – Thomas De Quincey, an English author.
• 1864 – George Boole, an English mathematician and philosopher.
• 1885 – William Henry Vanderbilt, an American businessman and philanthropist.
• 1894 – Pafnuty Chebyshev, a Russian mathematician.

Died After 1900

• 1903 – Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher and sociologist.
• 1907 – King Oscar II of Sweden.
• 1914 – Maximilian von Spee, a German admiral.
• 1922 – Joe McKelvey and three other important Irish Republican Army officers were executed during the Irish Civil War.
• 1942 – Albert Kahn, a famous American architect.
• 1952 – Charles Lightoller, an English sailor who survived the Titanic sinking.
• 1958 – Tris Speaker, an American baseball player.
• 1978 – Golda Meir, a Ukrainian-Israeli educator and the fourth Prime Minister of Israel.
• 1980 – John Lennon, a famous English singer-songwriter and guitarist.
• 1982 – Marty Robbins, an American country singer-songwriter.
• 1983 – Keith Holyoake, a New Zealand politician and former Prime Minister.
• 1994 – Antônio Carlos Jobim, a Brazilian singer-songwriter and pianist.
• 2001 – Betty Holberton, an American computer scientist and programmer.
• 2004 – Dimebag Darrell, an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.
• 2013 – John Cornforth, an Australian-English chemist and academic who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• 2015 – Douglas Tompkins, an American businessman who co-founded The North Face.
• 2016 – John Glenn, an American astronaut and senator. He was the first American to orbit Earth.
• 2019 – Juice Wrld, an American rapper and singer.
• 2019 – Caroll Spinney, an American puppeteer and actor, known for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.
• 2021 – Robbie Shakespeare, a Jamaican bass guitarist and record producer.
• 2023 – Ryan O'Neal, an American actor.

Holidays and Observances

• Battle Day (Falkland Islands)
• Bodhi Day (Japan) – A Buddhist holiday celebrating the day Buddha achieved enlightenment.
• CARICOM–Cuba Day (Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Cuba) – Celebrates friendship and cooperation.
• Christian feast day:
  • Feast of the Immaculate Conception (a public holiday in some countries) – Celebrates the belief that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was conceived without original sin.
    • Festival of Lights (Lyon) – A light festival in Lyon, France, connected to the Immaculate Conception.
    • Mother's Day (Panama)
• Constitution Day (Romania)
• Constitution Day (Uzbekistan)
• Day of Finnish Music (Finland) – Celebrates Finnish music and the birthday of composer Jean Sibelius.
• Hari-Kuyō (Kansai region, Japan) – A Japanese festival to thank and honor old and broken needles.
• National Youth Day (Albania)
• Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Day (Ethiopia)

See also

In Spanish: 8 de diciembre para niños