8 July 2024 (MIA)

1099 – Some 15,000 starving Christian soldiers begin the siege of Jerusalem by marching in a religious procession around the city as its Muslim defenders watch.

1283 – Roger of Lauria, commanding the Aragonese fleet defeats an Angevin fleet sent to put down a rebellion on Malta.

1497 – Vasco da Gama sets sail on the first direct European voyage to India.

1579 – Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, is discovered underground in the city of Kazan, Tatarstan.

1663 – Charles II of England grants John Clarke a Royal charter to Rhode Island.

1709 – Peter I of Russia defeats Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava, thus effectively ending Sweden’s time as a major power in Europe.

1716 – The Battle of Dynekilen forces Sweden to abandon its invasion of Norway.

1730 – An estimated magnitude 8.7 earthquake causes a tsunami that damages more than 1,000 km (620 mi) of Chile’s coastline.

1758 – French forces hold Fort Carillon against the British at Ticonderoga, New York.

1760 – British forces defeat French forces in the last naval battle in New France.

1775 – The Olive Branch Petition is signed by the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies of North America.

1776 – Church bells (possibly including the Liberty Bell) are rung after John Nixon delivers the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

1808 – Joseph Bonaparte approves the Bayonne Statute, a royal charter intended as the basis for his rule as king of Spain.

1822 – Chippewas turn over a huge tract of land in Ontario to the United Kingdom.

1853 – The Perry Expedition arrives in Edo Bay with a treaty requesting trade.

1859 – King Charles XV & IV accedes to the throne of Sweden–Norway.

1864 – Ikedaya Incident: The Choshu Han shishi’s planned Shinsengumi sabotage on Kyoto, Japan at Ikedaya.

1874 – The Mounties begin their March West.

1876 – White supremacists kill five Black Republicans in Hamburg, South Carolina.

1879 – Sailing ship USS Jeannette departs San Francisco carrying an ill-fated expedition to the North Pole.

1889 – The first issue of The Wall Street Journal is published.

1892 – St. John’s, Newfoundland is devastated in the Great Fire of 1892.

1898 – The death of crime boss Soapy Smith, killed in the Shootout on Juneau Wharf, releases Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip.

1912 – Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Couceiro leads an unsuccessful royalist attack against the First Portuguese Republic in Chaves.

1932 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.

1933 – The first rugby union test match between the Wallabies of Australia and the Springboks of South Africa is played at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town.

1937 – Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan sign the Treaty of Saadabad.

1947 – At a UN Security Council meeting, Soviet representative Andrei Gromyko proposed a resolution on the civil war in Greece which, among other things, called on Greece to stop discriminating against Macedonians and Albanians and to give them the right to express their national identity and educate their children in their native languages.

1947 – Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico in what became known as the Roswell UFO incident.

1948 – The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits into a program called Women in the Air Force (WAF).

1960 – Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.

1962 – Ne Win besieges and dynamites the Rangoon University Student Union building to crush the Student Movement.

1966 – King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng of Burundi is deposed by his son Prince Charles Ndizi.

1968 – The Chrysler wildcat strike begins in Detroit, Michigan.

1970 – Richard Nixon delivers a special congressional message enunciating Native American self-determination as official US Indian policy, leading to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.

1982 – Assassination attempt against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Dujail.

1988 – The Island Express train travelling from Bangalore to Kanyakumari derails on the Peruman bridge and falls into Ashtamudi Lake, killing 105 passengers and injuring over 200 more.

1994 – Kim Jong-il begins to assume supreme leadership of North Korea upon the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.

2011 – Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.

2014 – Israel launches an offensive on Gaza amid rising tensions following the killing of Israeli teenagers.

2020 – Australian city of Melbourne goes back into lockdown for six weeks after second outbreak of 700 active case.

2021 – Global known death toll from COVID-19 passes 4 million (equal to all deaths in battle since 1982).

2021 – US President Joe Biden says US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by August 31, despite increased Taliban gains across the country.