August 8

1264 –  During the Reconquista, moslem mudéjar forces rebel rebel, overrun and occupy the Alcázar Castle of Jerez de la Frontera, in southern Spain, after defeating the Castilian garrison.

1503 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England. This is what sets up the way for her grandson, James VI to become King of Scotland and England when his cousin Elizabeth dies childless a hundred years later.

1585 – John Davis, chief navigator for Queen Elizabeth, enters Cumberland Sound in Nunavut, north of the Labrador Sea, in search of the Northwest Passage

1794 – Joseph Whidbey, Sailing Master in the Royal Navy, leads an expedition starting from Juneau, Alaska in the search of the Northwest Passage

1831 – The Treaty of Wapakoneta is signed by the Shawnee tribe, exchanging land in Ohio for land west of the Mississippi River.

1863 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis refuses upon receipt, a letter of resignation by General Robert E. Lee after his defeat at Gettysburg.

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first public flight at the racecourse at Le Mans, France.

1918 – The Battle of Amiens begins the Hundred Days Offensive, a string of almost continuous Allied victories through the German front lines

1942 – 6 of the 8 German saboteurs caught after landing on Long Island are executed by electrocution at the Washington D.C. District Jail.

1945 – The London Charter is signed by France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, establishing the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials.

1946 – The Convair B-36 bomber makes its first flight

1974 – President Nixon announces on nationwide television his resignation from the office of the President effective noon the next day.

1988 – The first night baseball game in the history of Chicago’s Wrigley Field takes place between the Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies, but the game is rained out in the fourth inning.

1993 – A 7.8 Mw  earthquake hits Guam causing  $250 million in damage and injuring 71 people.

2000 – The Confederate submarine CSS H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface 136 years after sinking

2007 – An EF2 force tornado touches down in Kings County and Richmond County, New York, the most powerful tornado in New York to date and the first in Brooklyn since 1889.

2015 – A deranged man murders his son, the boy’s mother -his former girlfriend – and her current husband and their 5 children at their home in northern Harris County, Texas. The prosecution, conceding the man was mentally disabled, drops pursuing the death penalty and he is sentenced to prison for life without parole.

2022 – The FBI raids former President Donald Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.