January 8

1297 On January 8, 1297, the Genoese leader of the Guelphs Francesco Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, led his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco. In doing so Grimaldi established his family as the rulers of Monaco. Since gaining its independence from the Republic of Genoa in 1297, Monaco has been ruled by the Grimaldi family, making that line the oldest ruling family in Europe.

Rainier I of Grimaldi - first souvereign Grimaldi ruler of Monaco

1324 By the age of 60 the Italian explorer Marco Polo was living in luxury in a Venetian palace with his family.  In 1323, Polo was confined to bed, due to illness. Despite physicians' efforts, he died on January 8, 1324. His last words were "I have not told half of what I saw." Polo was buried in the San Lorenzo church in the sestiere of Castello (Venice).

1454 On January 8, 1454, the papal bull Romanus Pontifex awarded Portugal exclusive trade and colonization rights to all of Africa south of Cape Bojador, a headland on the northern coast of Western Sahara. Over the next two centuries, the Portuguese created a great trading empire on the coasts of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and India. The Portuguese eventually weakened after the Dutch rose as the major power in the Indian Ocean trading world.

1547 The first Lithuanian-language book, Simple Words of Catechism by Martynas Mažvydas was published in Königsberg on January 8, 1547. Martynas Mažvydas was a Protestant pastor and a significant figure in the cultural and religious history of Lithuania.

1642 Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher Galileo Galilei lived the last years of  his life in his small villa in the hilltop village of Arcetri in the hills above Florence. Galileo irreversibly damaged his retinas by looking at the sun and its sunspots for too long and by the age of 74, cataracts had robbed him completely of sight and was in constant pain from arthritis. Galileo died peacefully in his sleep on January 8, 1642.

Tomb of Galileo, Santa Croce, Florence. By stanthejeep, Wikipedia

1697 Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead was the last person in UK to be executed for blasphemy on January 8, 1697. A 20-year-old student from Edinburgh, Thomas Aikenhead was prosecuted for denying the veracity of the Old Testament and the legitimacy of Christ's miracles. Aikenhead was haid to have died Bible in hand, "with all the marks of a true penitent."

1790 George Washington delivered the first State of the Union Address on January 8, 1790.  However, it's important to note that it was not called the "State of the Union" at that time. The term "State of the Union" was not commonly used until later years. Washington's address was given in New York City, which was then the temporary capital of the United States.

1815 When British forces threatened New Orleans in the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson took command of the defenses, including militia from several western states and territories. Jackson's 4,000 militiamen and 16 heavy cannons behind barricades of cotton bales opposed 10,000 British regulars marching across an open field, led by General Edward Pakenham. The Battle of New Orleans was a total American victory and made Andrew Jackson a national hero.

E. Percy Moran, The Battle of New Orleans (1910)

1820 Following decades of maritime conflict, a group of tribal confederations in the south-eastern Persian Gulf, previously known to the British as the "Pirate Coast", became known as the Trucial States. This was established with the signing of a Perpetual Treaty of Maritime Peace between the sheikhdoms, or emirates and the British, which was first signed at mid-day on January 8, 1820. They remained an informal British protectorate until 1971 when the United Arab Emirates was formed.

1835 The United States national debt was zero for the first and only time during the presidency of Andrew Jackson on January 8, 1835. For a brief period, there were no outstanding obligations. However, this situation did not last long, and the national debt was reintroduced in subsequent years.

1886 The Severn Tunnel was opened by the Great Western Railway on January 8, 1886. Running for more than four miles under the Severn River, it remained the longest mainline rail tunnel in the UK for 121 years until the building of tunnels for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

1889 American inventor Herman Hollerith was inspired by conductors using holes punched in different positions on a railway ticket to record traveler details such as gender and approximate age to invent the recording of data on a medium that could then be read by a machine. He developed his electromechanical punched card tabulator to assist in summarizing information and, later, accounting. Hollerith was issued US patent #395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' on January 8, 1889.

Replica of an early Hollerith punched card tabulator and sorting box Photo by Adam Schuster

1902 Flirting in public has been illegal in New York since the state introduced a bill outlawing it on January 8, 1902. The law prohibited men turning around on a street and “looking at a woman in that way”. Offenders could be fined $25.

1921 Following World War I Arthur Hamilton Lee (Conservative MP for Fareham 1900–18, later Viscount Lee of Fareham) and his American wife, Ruth donated their country home Chequers as a country retreat for the serving Prime Minister. The Lees left Chequers on January 8, 1921 after a final dinner at their country home. A political disagreement between the Lees and the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, soured the hand-over, which went ahead nevertheless.

Chequers

1935 Elvis Aron Presley was born on January 8, 1935 in the Mississippi city of Tupelo. Elvis was actually one half of a set of twins. His twin brother, later named Jesse Garon Presley, died during birth, which was not terribly uncommon for a family in 1935 Mississippi. With no other siblings, Elvis was raised an only child. Known as "The King of Rock n' Roll," he rose to prominence in the late 1950s to become the best-selling solo music artist of all time. 

1940 Britain introduced food rationing during World War II on January 8, 1940. Because of rationing, the British people were forced to rustle up dreary meals from spam, powdered egg (eggs were rationed to one person per week) and home-grown vegetables.

Child's ration book, used in Britain during World War II

1941 Scouts and Girl Guides founder Robert Baden-Powell lived his last years in Nyeri, Kenya, where he died aged 83 on January 8, 1941. He is buried there, in St. Peter's Cemetery. Baden-Powell's gravestone bears a circle with a dot in the centre "☉", which is the trail sign for "Going home", or "I have gone home."

1942 The physicist Stephen Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, which was 300 years to the day after Galileo died. Hawking suffered from a rare early-onset, slow-progressing form of motor neuron disease that gradually paralyzed him over the decades. For much of his life, he communicated using a single cheek muscle attached to a speech-generating device.

1947 The influential rock musician David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, London, on January 8, 1947 to Margaret Mary "Peggy" Jones, a cinema usherette, and Haywood Stenton "John" Jones, a publicity director for an orphanage. David Bowie's first TV appearance was in November 1964, when, aged 17, he gave an interview on BBC's Tonight show as spokesman for The Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Boys.

1956 In early January 1956, Jim Elliot, pilot Nate Saint, and three other missionaries landed a plane on a river sandbar in the rain forests of Ecuador in order to make contact with the isolated ‘Auca’ Indians. Days later on January 8th, the five young men become martyrs when they were all speared to death. The tragic death of the five young missionaries greatly impacted the lives of Christians around the world. Many were greatly affected by the fact that they paid the ultimate sacrifice for Christ.

1963 The Mona Lisa, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, was first exhibited in the United States at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C for three weeks from January 8, 1963. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy attended the opening gala in Washington. 

1975 When Ella T. Grasso was elected governor of Connecticut in 1974, she became the first woman in the US to win a governorship without succeeding her husband. She was sworn in on January 8, 1975. Grasso served two terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1970 to 1974 before running for governor.

1981 A local farmer Renato Nicolaï reported a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France on January 8, 1981, which was claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time." He saw a saucer-shaped object about eight feet in diameter land about 50 yards (46 m) away at a lower elevation. Nicolaï claimed the object took off almost immediately, rising above the treeline. It left burn marks on the ground where it had supposedly sat.

1993 When on January 8, 1993, the US postal service issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring Elvis Presley's 58th birthday, fans mailed envelopes with first-day issues of the stamp to fictitious addresses so that they would receive their letters back, marked with the words "return to sender".

1993 Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr A. Serebrov packed a Nintendo Game Boy and his personal copy of Tetris for his 1993 mission aboard the Mir space station. On January 8, 1993, he became the first person to ever play a video game in space.

1995 Russian Valeri Polyakov left Earth on the January 8, 1994 Soyuz TM -18 flight, to be a doctor-cosmonaut on the Mir space station. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, setting a record 437 day long spaceflight.

Valeri Polyakov By Mil.ru,

1996 The current flag of Seychelles was adopted on January 8, 1996. The flag consists of five oblique bands of blue, yellow, red, white, and green, radiating from the bottom of the hoist side towards the upper fly side. The colors used are the official colors of the nation's two major political parties–SPUP and the SDP.

2008 The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II on January 8, 2004. She set sail four days later on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the United States, carrying 2,620 passengers. As of 2020, Queen Mary 2 is the only passenger ship operating as an ocean liner.

2020 Justin Bieber revealed on January 8, 2020 that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection spread by infected ticks. In an Instagram post he explained that people who had said he looked like he was on drugs, "failed to realize I've been recently diagnosed with Lyme disease." The pop star had reportedly spent much of 2019 undiagnosed, as doctors struggled to find what’s wrong.