February 8th in History
Skylab 4
Today in History
- The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated (1910)
- D. W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation premiers (1915)
- The first US execution by gas chamber takes place (1924)
- World War II: Japan invades Singapore (1942)
- Queen Elizabeth II orders that her family would be known as the House of Windsor (1960)
- The US bans economic transactions with Cuba (1963)
- Black students protesting racial segregation are attacked and killed in Orangeburg, South Carolina (1968)
- The NASDAQ opens (1971)
- The Skylab 4 crew, last to visit the Skylab space station, return to Earth after 84 days in space (1974)
Birthdays
- Daniel Bernoulli, mathematician and physicist (1700)
- William Tecumseh Sherman, US general (1820)
- Jules Verne, author (1928)
- Martin Buber, philosopher (1878)
- Charlie Ruggles, actor (1886)
- King Vidor, filmmaker (1894)
- Bill Finger, co-creator of Batman (1914)
- Lana Turner, actress (1921)
- Audrey Meadows, actress (1922)
- Jack Lemmon, actor (1925)
- Neal Cassady, author, character in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1926)
- James Dean, actor (1931)
- John Williams, composer (1932)
- Ted Koppel, television journalist and anchor (1940)
- Nick Nolte, actor (1941)
- Tom Rush, singer-songwriter (1941)
- Robert Klein, comedian (1942)
- Mary Steenburgen, actress (1953)
- John Grisham, lawyer and author (1955)
- Gary Coleman, actor (1968)
- Seth Green, actor (1974)
Deaths
- Mary, Queen of Scots (1587)
- Peter the Great, Russian tsar (1725)
- Peter Kropotkin, anarchist (1921)
- Connie Mack, baseball manager (1956)
- John von Neumann, mathematician and physicist (1957)
- Del Shannon, singer-songwriter (1990)
- Iris Murdoch, novelist (1999)
- Julius Schwartz, comics editor and publisher (2004)
- Anna Nicole Smith, model and reality star (2007)
Holidays and Celebrations
- Parinirvana Day (Mahayana Buddhism)
- Preseren Day (Slovakia)
- Propose Day (India)
February 8 is the 39th day of the year. There are 326 days (327 in leap years) remaining until the end of the year.