THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― AUGUST 8

August 8 is the 220th day of the year (221st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 145 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Thursday or Friday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Sunday (56). 

NATIONAL FROZEN CUSTARD DAY 


1576 – The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg observatory is laid on the island of Hven. 

1786 – Mont Blanc on the French-Italian border is climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard. 

1863 – American Civil War: Following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which is refused upon receipt). 

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1918 – World War I: The Battle of Amiens begins a string of almost continuous Allied victories with a push through the German front lines (Hundred Days Offensive). 

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 frollowing WWII. 

1974 – President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day.

1989 – Space Shuttle program: STS-28 Mission: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission. 

2000 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor and 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence. 

2008 – The Summer Olympics officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad were opened in Beijing, China. 

2013 – A suicide bombing at a funeral in the Pakistani city of Quetta kills at least 31 people.

2015 – Eight people are killed in a shooting in Harris County, Texas. 

2016 – Terrorists attack a government hospital in Quetta, Pakistan with a suicide blast and shooting, killing between 70 and 94 people, and injuring around 130 others. 

TODAY'S BIRTHS

1879 – Bob Smith, American physician and surgeon, co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous (d. 1950)

1879 – Emiliano Zapata, Mexican general and politician (d. 1919)

1896 – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, American author and academic (d. 1953)

1919 – Dino De Laurentiis, Italian actor and producer (d. 2010)

1920 – Jimmy Witherspoon, American jump blues singer (d. 1997)

1938 – Jack Baldwin, English chemist and academic

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted.