THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― OCTOBER 8

October 8 is the 281st day of the year (282nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 84 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Thursday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Tuesday or Wednesday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Friday or Sunday (56).

NATIONAL PIEROGI DAY 

1604 – Supernova 1604, also known as Kepler's Supernova, Kepler's Nova or Kepler's Star, was a supernova that occurred in the Milky Way, in the constellation Ophiuchus. Appearing in 1604, it is the most recent supernova to have been unquestionably observed by the naked eye in our own galaxy, occurring no farther than 6 kiloparsecs or about 20,000 light-years from Earth.

1856 – The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860. It was fought over similar issues as the First Opium War.

1871 – On this day in 1871, flames spark in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary, igniting a two-day blaze that kills between 200 and 300 people, destroys 17,450 buildings, leaves 100,000 homeless and causes an estimated $200 million (in 1871 dollars; $3 billion in 2007 dollars) in damages.

1896 – Dow Jones starts reporting an average of selected industrial stocks.

1915 – WWI Battle of Loos: almost 430,000 French, British and Germans killed. The first British use of poison gas occurred and the battle was the first mass engagement of New Army units. By comparison, 405,000 Americans were killed during the entirety of WWII.

1918 – United States Corporal Alvin C. York single-handedly kills over 20 German soldiers and captures an additional 132 at the head of a small detachment in the Argonne Forest near the Meuse River in France. The exploits later earned York the Congressional Medal of Honor.

1919 – The first transcontinental air race in the United States begins, with 63 planes competing in the round-trip aerial derby between California and New York. As 15 planes departed the Presidio in San Francisco, California, 48 planes left Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York.

1933 – Coit Tower is dedicated in San Francisco as a monument to firefighters.

1945 – US President Harry S. Truman announced atomic bomb secret had been shared with Britain and Canada.

1956 – On October 8, 1956, New York Yankees right-hander Don Larsen pitches the first perfect game in the history of the World Series. Larsen’s performance anchored his team’s third-straight win against their cross-town rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Yankees ended up winning the championship, the last all-New York World Series until 2000, in seven games.

1967 – A Bolivian guerrilla force led by Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara is defeated in a skirmish with a special detachment of the Bolivian army. Guevara was wounded, captured, and executed the next day.

1970 – The best-known living Russian writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wins the Nobel Prize for literature. Born in 1918 in the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn was a leading writer and critic of Soviet internal oppression. Arrested in 1945 for criticizing the Stalin regime, he served eight years in Russian prisons and labor camps. Upon his release in 1953 he was sent into "internal exile" in Asiatic Russia. After Stalin's death, Solzhenitsyn was released from his exile and began writing in earnest. His first publication, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1963), appeared in the somewhat less repressive atmosphere of Nikita Khrushchev's regime (1955-1964). The book was widely read in both Russia and the West, and its harsh criticisms of Stalinist repression provided a dramatic insight into the Soviet system.

1998 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes to proceed toward impeaching President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. By December 1998, the Republican-led House had gathered enough information from an investigation committee to vote in favor of impeachment, which in turn sent the case to the Senate.

2001 – U.S. President George W. Bush announces the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security.

TODAY'S BIRTHS

1850 – Henry Louis Le Châtelier, French chemist and academic (d. 1936)

1890 – Edward Vernon "Eddie" Rickenbacker, American soldier and pilot, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1973)

1893 – Clarence Williams, American pianist and composer (d. 1965)

1895 – Juan Domingo Perón, Argentinian general and politician, 29th President of Argentina (d. 1974)

1917 – Daniel Edward "Danny" Murtaugh, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 1976)

1920 – Frank Herbert, American journalist, photographer, and author (d. 1986)

1950 – Robert "Kool" Bell, American singer-songwriter and bass player

From Wikipedia and Google, except as noted.