History of the Day for:
January 8
- 1642: Astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.
- 1815: U.S. forces led by Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans.
- 1838: The first telegraph message was sent using dots and dashes.
- 1867: African American males were given the right to vote in the United States.
- 1889: Dr. Herman Hollerith received the first U.S. patent for a tabulating machine.
- 1918: Mississippi became the first state to ratify a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting the sale, manufacture or transportation of liquor; President Woodrow Wilson presented fourteen specific war aims for World War I, which later became the basis of the Treaty of Versailles which would end the war.
- 1935: Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Miss.
- 1962: Jack Nicklaus, 21, placed 50th in the Los Angeles Open, his first pro appearance, winning $33.33.
- 1963: The "Mona Lisa," on loan from France, was first unveiled in America at the National Gallery of Art.
- 1966: The Who and the Kinks performed on the last "Shindig" TV show on ABC.
- 1968: Jacques Cousteau's first undersea special aired on U.S. network TV.
- 1975: Judge John J. Sirica ordered the prison release of Watergate figures John W. Dean III, Herbert W. Kalmbach and Jeb Stuart Magruder.
- 1982: AT&T settled the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.
- 1985: The U.S. Post Office issued a set of stamps to mark the 50th Anniversary of the birth of Elvis Presley.
- 1992: President Bush got ill, collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo, and threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister's lap.
- 1993: NBC decided to offer "The Tonight Show" to David Letterman after repeatedly assuring Jay Leno he had the job; Michael Jordan scored his 20,000th career point.
- 1994: Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.
- 1996: An Antonov 32 cargo turboprop powered plane crashes into the central market in Kinshasa, Zaire killing more than 350 people.
- 2002: President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.
- 2004: The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
- 2005: The nuclear sub USS San Francisco (SSN-711) collides with an undersea mountain at full speed south of Guam. One man is killed, but the sub surfaces and is repaired.
- 2006: A magnitude 6.9 earthquake with its epicenter just off the Greek island of Kythira hits much of the country and is felt throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean Sea.
- 2009: A 6.2 degrees earthquake hit Costa Rica´s region of Volcan Poás, with an epicenter near Cinchona. It was caused by Varablanca-Angel fault.