January 8 in History

Emperor Huai of Jin (simplified Chinese: 晋怀帝; traditional Chinese: 晉懷帝; pinyin: Jìn Huái Dì; Wade–Giles: Chin Huai-ti; 284 – March 14, 313), personal name Sima Chi (司馬熾), courtesy name Fengdu (豐度), was an emperor of the Jin dynasty. Emperor Huai was captured in July 311 (Disaster of Yongjia) and later executed in 313 under the order of Liu Cong, ruler of the Xiongnu state of Han-Zhao.

Æthelred I (alt. Aethelred, Ethelred; Old English: Æthel-ræd, lit. 'noble counsel'; 845/848 – Late April 871) was King of Wessex from 865 until his death in 871. He was the fourth of five sons of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, four of whom in turn became king. Æthelred succeeded his elder brother Æthelberht and was followed by his youngest brother, Alfred the Great. Æthelred had two sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold, who were passed over for the kingship on their father's death because they were still infants. Æthelwold later unsuccessfully disputed the throne with Alfred's son and successor, Edward the Elder. Æthelred's accession coincided with the arrival of the Viking Great Heathen Army in England. Over the next five years the Vikings conquered Northumbria and East Anglia, and at the end of 870 they launched a full-scale attack on Wessex. In early January 871, Æthelred was defeated at the Battle of Reading. Four days later, he scored a victory in the Battle of Ashdown, but this was followed by two defeats at Basing and Meretun. He died shortly after Easter. Alfred was forced to pay off the Vikings, but he scored a decisive victory over them seven years later at the Battle of Edington. Æthelred's reign was important in the history of Anglo-Saxon coinage. Wessex and Mercia were close allies when he became king, and he carried the alliance further by adopting the Mercian Lunettes design, thus creating a unified coinage design for southern England for the first time. The common design foreshadowed the unification of England over the next sixty years and the reform coinage of King Edgar a century later.

Francesco Grimaldi (French: François; English: Francis), called il Malizia (from Italian: "the malicious") was the Genoese leader of the Guelphs who captured the Rock of Monaco on the night of 8 January 1297. He was the son of Guglielmo Grimaldi by his wife Giacobina or Giacoba, a Genoese noble.

A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by the pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden seal (bulla) traditionally appended to authenticate it.

Louis XII (27 June 1462 – 1 January 1515), also known as Louis of Orléans, was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples (as Louis III) from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles I, Duke of Orléans, and Marie of Cleves, he succeeded his second cousin once removed and brother-in-law, Charles VIII, who died childless in 1498. Louis was the second cousin of King Louis XI, who compelled him to marry the latter's disabled and supposedly sterile daughter Joan. By doing so, Louis XI hoped to extinguish the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois. When Louis XII became king in 1498, he had his marriage with Joan annulled by Pope Alexander VI and instead married Anne, Duchess of Brittany, the widow of Charles VIII. This marriage allowed Louis to reinforce the personal Union of Brittany and France. Louis of Orléans was one of the great feudal lords who opposed the French monarchy in the conflict known as the Mad War. At the royal victory in the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier in 1488, Louis was captured, but Charles VIII pardoned him and released him. He subsequently took part in the Italian Wars, initiating a second Italian campaign for the control of the Kingdom of Naples. Louis conquered the Duchy of Milan in 1500 and pushed forward to the Kingdom of Naples, which fell to him in 1501. Proclaimed King of Naples, Louis faced a new coalition gathered by Ferdinand II of Aragon and was forced to cede Naples to Spain in 1504. Louis, who remained Duke of Milan after the second Italian War, was interested in further expansion in the Italian Peninsula and launched a third Italian War (1508–1516), which was marked by the military prowess of the Chevalier de Bayard. Louis XII did not encroach on the power of local governments or the privileges of the nobility, in opposition with the long tradition of the French kings to attempt to impose absolute monarchy in France. A popular king, Louis was proclaimed "Father of the People" (French: Le Père du Peuple) for his reduction of the tax known as taille, legal reforms, and civil peace within France. Louis XII died in 1515 without a male heir. He was succeeded by his cousin and son-in-law Francis I from the Angoulême cadet branch of the House of Valois.

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti.

The Jacobite rising of 1745 was an attempt to regain the British throne for the exiled House of Stuart. The last in a series of Jacobite risings that began in March 1689, it proved to be the end of Jacobitism as a major factor in British politics.

George Washington was a Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War against the British Empire. He is commonly known as the Father of His Country for his role in bringing about American independence.

The Dutch Cape Colony, officially known as the Cape of Good Hope Waystation, was a colony of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Batavian Republic in Southern Africa. Centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name, it was founded in 1652 by a VOC expedition under Jan van Riebeeck to serve as a re-supply and layover port for VOC vessels trading with Asia. The Cape was under VOC rule from 1652 to 1795 and Batavian rule from 1803 to 1806. Much to the dismay of the VOC's shareholders, who focused primarily on making profits from the Asian trade, the Cape Colony rapidly expanded into a settler colony in the years after its founding.

The War of 1812 was a conflict initiated by the United States against the United Kingdom and its allies fought mainly in North America and at sea during the wider Napoleonic Wars. The United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on 17 February 1815.

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. He rose to fame as a U.S. Army general and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. His political philosophy, which dominated his presidency, became the basis for the rise of Jacksonian democracy. His legacy is controversial: being praised as an advocate for white working Americans and preserving the union of states, and criticized for his racist policies, particularly towards Native Americans. Born in the colonial Carolinas before the American Revolutionary War, Jackson became a frontier lawyer, married Rachel Donelson, and briefly represented Tennessee in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. After resigning, he served as a Tennessee Superior Court justice from 1798 to 1804. He founded The Hermitage and became a wealthy planter who profited from the forced labor of hundreds of enslaved African Americans. As commander of the Tennessee militia, he led troops in the Creek War of 1813–1814, winning the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and negotiating the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which forced the indigenous Creek to cede vast tracts of the present day states of Alabama and Georgia. In the concurrent war against the British, Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 made him a national hero. He later commanded United States forces during the First Seminole War; his campaign was one of the factors that prompted Spain to negotiate the cession of Florida to the United States. Jackson briefly served as Florida's first territorial governor before returning to the Senate. He ran for president in 1824, winning a plurality of the popular and electoral vote. Because no candidate secured the electoral majority, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams with the support of Henry Clay, who later joined Adams's cabinet. Jackson's supporters, who alleged that Adams and Clay had formed a "corrupt bargain", created a new political coalition that would become the Democratic Party. Jackson ran again in 1828, defeating Adams in a landslide victory despite issues such as his slave trading and "irregular" marriage. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act. This act, which has been described as ethnic cleansing, displaced tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands east of the Mississippi River. It resulted in thousands of deaths in what has become known as the Trail of Tears. Jackson faced a challenge to the integrity of the federal union when South Carolina threatened to nullify a high protective tariff set by the federal government. He threatened the use of military force to enforce the tariff, but the crisis was defused when it was amended. In 1832, he vetoed a bill by Congress to reauthorize the Second Bank of the United States, viewing the Bank as a branch of government run by the elite. After a lengthy struggle, the Bank was dismantled. In 1835, Jackson became the only U.S. president to pay off the national debt. After leaving office, he supported the presidencies of Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk, as well as the annexation of Texas. Opinions about Jackson are often polarized. Supporters characterize him as a defender of democracy and the U.S. Constitution, while critics point to his reputation as a demagogue who ignored the law when it suited him. Scholarly rankings of U.S. presidents historically placed Jackson high in the ranking of presidents. However, in the late 20th century his reputation declined, and in the 21st century his ranking has fallen.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.

African Americans or Black Americans, also formerly called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group. As defined by the United States census, they are Americans who have ancestry from "any of the Black racial groups of Africa". African Americans constitute the third-largest racial and ethnic group in the U.S., following White Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the overall Black population was estimated at 42,951,595, representing approximately 12.63% of the total U.S. population.

Crazy Horse (Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó [tˣaˈʃʊ̃kɛ wɪtˈkɔ], lit. 'His-Horse-Is-Crazy'; c. 1840 – September 5, 1877) was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band and one of the most renowned Native American figures of the nineteenth century. Known for his commitment to defending Lakota lands and lifeways, he emerged as a central figure in the northern Great Plains during a period of intense conflict with the United States. Crazy Horse resisted U.S. expansion into the Powder River Country, rejecting treaty settlements and reservation life, and became widely respected for both his tactical skill and his personal humility, which included a lifelong avoidance of being photographed. He played leading roles in several major engagements, including the 1866 Fetterman Fight, in which a combined Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho force annihilated a U.S. Army detachment, and the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, where he helped lead the combined Native forces that defeated the 7th Cavalry under George Armstrong Custer. His reputation as a warrior and strategist earned him admiration among his own people and grudging respect from his adversaries. After months of pursuit during the Great Sioux War of 1876–1877, Crazy Horse surrendered to U.S. forces in May 1877, seeking to secure the survival of his band amid famine and military pressure. Tensions with military authorities and rival Lakota leaders soon followed. In September 1877, after being brought to Camp Robinson in northwestern Nebraska, he was fatally wounded by a bayonet in the course of an alleged struggle with a guard while being confined to the post guardhouse. His death quickly became the subject of conflicting accounts, but he has since endured as a symbol of Lakota resistance and cultural integrity.

Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards to assist in summarizing information and, later, in accounting. His invention of the punched card tabulating machine, patented in 1884, marks the beginning of the era of mechanized binary code and semiautomatic data processing systems, and his concept dominated that landscape for nearly a century. Hollerith founded a company that was amalgamated in 1911 with several other companies to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. In 1924, the company was renamed "International Business Machines" (IBM) and became one of the largest and most successful companies of the 20th century. Hollerith is regarded as one of the seminal figures in the development of data processing.

William McKinley (January 29, 1843 – September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades. McKinley successfully led the U.S. in the Spanish–American War and oversaw a period of American expansionism, with the annexations of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and American Samoa. McKinley was the last president to have served in the American Civil War; he was the only one to begin his service as an enlisted man and end it as a brevet major. After the war, he settled in Canton, Ohio, where he practiced law and married Ida Saxton. In 1876, McKinley was elected to Congress, where he became the Republican expert on the protective tariff, believing protectionism would bring prosperity. His 1890 McKinley Tariff was highly controversial and, together with a Democratic Party redistricting aimed at gerrymandering him out of office, led to his defeat in the Democratic landslide of 1890. He was elected governor of Ohio in 1891 and 1893, steering a moderate course between capital and labor interests. McKinley secured the Republican nomination for president in 1896 amid a deep economic depression and defeated his Democratic rival William Jennings Bryan after a front porch campaign in which he advocated "sound money" (the gold standard unless altered by international agreement) and promised that high tariffs would restore prosperity. McKinley's presidency saw rapid economic growth. He rejected free silver in favor of keeping the nation on the gold standard, and raised protective tariffs, signing the Dingley Tariff of 1897 to protect manufacturers and factory workers from foreign competition and securing the passage of the Gold Standard Act of 1900. McKinley's foreign policy emulated the era's overseas imperialism of the great powers in Oceania, Asia, and the Caribbean Sea. The United States annexed the independent Republic of Hawaii in 1898, and it became the Territory of Hawaii in 1900. McKinley hoped to persuade Spain to grant independence to rebellious Cuba without conflict. Still, when negotiations failed, he requested and signed Congress's declaration of war to begin the Spanish–American War of 1898, in which the United States saw a quick and decisive victory. As part of the peace settlement, Spain turned over to the United States its main overseas colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, while Cuba was promised independence but remained under American control until 1902, after McKinley's death. In the Philippines, a pro-independence rebellion began; it was eventually suppressed. McKinley acquired what is now American Samoa when his administration partitioned the Samoan Islands with the empires of Britain and Germany in the Tripartite Convention, during a period of warming ties between the UK and US known as the Great Rapprochement. McKinley defeated Bryan again in the 1900 presidential election in a campaign focused on imperialism, protectionism, and free silver. His second term ended early when he was shot on September 6, 1901, by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. McKinley died eight days later and was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, whose popularity overshadowed McKinley's legacy. Historians regard McKinley's 1896 victory as a realigning election in which the political stalemate of the post-Civil War era gave way to the Republican-dominated Fourth Party System, beginning with the Progressive Era. The United States retains control over the major territories McKinley annexed, aside from the Philippines which became independent in 1946. McKinley is generally ranked among the middle tier of presidents.

The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election resulted in Nelson Mandela being elected as President of South Africa. Founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress, the organisation was formed to advocate for the rights of black South Africans. When the National Party government came to power in 1948, the ANC's central purpose became to oppose the new government's policy of institutionalised apartheid. To this end, its methods and means of organisation shifted; its adoption of the techniques of mass politics, and the swelling of its membership, culminated in the Defiance Campaign of civil disobedience in 1952–53. The ANC was banned by the South African government between April 1960 – shortly after the Sharpeville massacre – and February 1990. During this period, despite periodic attempts to revive its domestic political underground, the ANC was forced into exile by increasing state repression, which saw many of its leaders imprisoned on Robben Island. Headquartered in Lusaka, Zambia, the exiled ANC dedicated much of its attention to a campaign of sabotage and guerrilla warfare against the apartheid state, carried out under its military wing, uMkhonto weSizwe, which was founded in 1961 in partnership with the South African Communist Party (SACP). The ANC was condemned as a terrorist organisation by the governments of South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom. However, it positioned itself as a key player in the negotiations to end apartheid, which began in earnest after the ban was repealed in 1990. For much of that time, the ANC leadership, along with many of its most active members, operated from abroad. After the Soweto Uprising of 1976, the ANC remained committed to achieving its objectives through armed struggle. These circumstances significantly shaped the ANC during its years in exile. In the post-apartheid era, the ANC continues to identify itself foremost as a liberation movement, although it is also a registered political party. Partly due to its Tripartite Alliance with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), it had retained a comfortable electoral majority at the national level and in most provinces, and has provided each of South Africa's five presidents since 1994. South Africa is considered a dominant-party state. However, the ANC's electoral majority has declined consistently since 2004, and in the 2021 local elections, its share of the national vote dropped below 50% for the first time ever. Over the last decade, the party has been embroiled in a number of controversies, particularly relating to widespread allegations of political corruption among its members. Following the 2024 general election, the ANC lost its majority in parliament for the first time in South Africa's democratic history. However, it still remained the largest party, with just over 40% of the vote. The party also lost its majority in Kwa-Zulu Natal, Gauteng and Northern Cape. Despite these setbacks, the ANC retained power at the national level through a grand coalition referred to as the Government of National Unity, including parties which together have 72% of the seats in Parliament. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national president, has served as president of the ANC since 18 December 2017.

San Diego is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, next to the Mexican border. It is the eighth-most populous city in the U.S. and second-most populous city in California with a population of over 1.4 million, while the San Diego area with over 3.3 million residents is the 18th-largest metropolitan area in the country. San Diego is the county seat of San Diego County. It is known for its mild Mediterranean climate, extensive beaches and parks, long association with the United States Navy, and recent emergence as a wireless, electronics, healthcare, and biotechnology development center.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only Democrat to serve as president during the Progressive Era, when Republicans dominated the presidency and legislative branches. As president, Wilson made significant economic reforms and led the United States through World War I. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonian idealism. Born in Staunton, Virginia, Wilson grew up in the Southern United States during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. After earning a PhD in history and political science from Johns Hopkins University, Wilson taught at several colleges prior to being appointed president of Princeton University, where he emerged as a prominent spokesman for progressivism in higher education. Wilson is considered one of the founding fathers of the field of public administration due to his 1887 article "The Study of Administration". Wilson served as the governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913, during which he broke with party bosses and won the passage of several progressive reforms. In the 1912 election, Wilson defeated the incumbent Republican president, William Howard Taft, and the third-party nominee and former president Theodore Roosevelt, becoming the first Southerner to win the presidency since Zachary Taylor in the 1848 election. During his first year as president, Wilson authorized the widespread imposition of racial segregation inside the federal bureaucracy, and his opposition to women's suffrage drew protests. His first term was largely devoted to pursuing the passage of his progressive New Freedom domestic agenda. His first major priority was the Revenue Act of 1913, which began the modern income tax, and the Federal Reserve Act, which created the Federal Reserve System. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the U.S. declared neutrality as Wilson tried to negotiate peace between the Allied and Central Powers. Wilson was narrowly re-elected in the 1916 election, defeating Republican nominee Charles Evans Hughes. In April 1917, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany in response to its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare that sank American merchant ships. Wilson concentrated on diplomacy, issuing the Fourteen Points that the Allies and Germany accepted as a basis for post-war peace. He wanted the off-year elections of 1918 to be a referendum endorsing his policies but instead the Republicans took control of Congress. After the Allied victory in November 1918, Wilson attended the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson successfully advocated for the establishment of a multinational organization, the League of Nations, which was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles that he signed; back home, he rejected a Republican compromise that would have allowed the Senate to ratify the Versailles Treaty and join the League. Wilson had intended to seek a third term in office but had a stroke in October 1919 that left him incapacitated. His wife and his physician controlled Wilson, and no significant decisions were made. Meanwhile, his policies alienated German- and Irish-American Democrats and the Republicans won a landslide in the 1920 election. In February 1924, he died at age 67. Into the 21st century, historians have criticized Wilson for supporting racial segregation, although they continue to rank Wilson as an above-average president for his accomplishments in office. Conservatives in particular have criticized him for expanding the federal government, while others have praised him decreasing the power of large corporations and have credited him for establishing modern liberalism.

The Great Steel Strike of 1919 was an attempt by the American Federation of Labor to organize United States Steel, the leading company in the American steel industry. The AFL formed a coalition of 24 unions, all of which had grown rapidly during World War I. In the lead role would be the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers (AA) with a five-member steering committee. The strike began on September 22, 1919, and finally collapsed on January 8, 1920. The opposition led by Elbert H. Gary, president of U.S. Steel had triumphed.

Bảo Đại (Vietnamese: [ɓâw ɗâjˀ], chữ Hán: 保大, lit. "keeper of greatness", 22 October 1913 – 31 July 1997), born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy (chữ Hán: 阮福永瑞), was the 13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of Vietnam. From 1926 to 1945, he was de jure emperor of Đại Nam, which consisted of the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin within French Indochina, covering the present-day central and northern Vietnam. Bảo Đại ascended the throne in 1932. The Japanese ousted the Vichy French administration in March 1945 and kept Bảo Đại as emperor, under whose authority the Empire of Vietnam was proclaimed. He abdicated in August 1945 after Japan surrendered. From 1949 to 1955, Bảo Đại was the chief of state of the anti-communist State of Vietnam. He was criticized for being too closely associated with France and spending much of his time outside Vietnam. He was eventually ousted in a referendum in 1955 by Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm, who was later supported by the United States.

Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Faisal Al Saud (Arabic: عَبْدُ الْعَزِيزِ بْنُ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ بْنِ فَيْصَلٍ آلِ سُعُود; 15 January 1876 – 9 November 1953), known in the Western world as Ibn Saud (Arabic: ابن سعود; Ibn Suʿūd), and known with his kunya Abu Turki (Arabic: أَبُو تُرْكِي), was a Najdi war leader, statesman, and religious leader who became the founder and first King of Saudi Arabia, reigning from 23 September 1932 until his death in 1953. He had ruled parts of the kingdom since 1902, having previously been Emir, Sultan, King of Nejd, and King of Hejaz. Ibn Saud was the son of Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, Emir of Nejd, and Sara bint Ahmed Al Sudairi. The family were exiled from their residence in the city of Riyadh in 1890. Ibn Saud reconquered Riyadh in 1902, starting three decades of conquests that made him the ruler of nearly all of central and north Arabia. He consolidated his control over Najd in 1921, then conquered the Hejaz in 1925. He extended his dominions into what later became the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. Ibn Saud's victory and his support for Islamic revivalists would greatly bolster pan-Islamism across the Islamic world. Concording with Wahhabi beliefs, he ordered the demolition of several shrines, the Al-Baqi Cemetery and the Jannat al-Mu'alla. As King, he presided over the discovery of petroleum in Saudi Arabia in 1938 and the beginning of large-scale oil production after World War II. He fathered many children, including 45 sons, and all of the subsequent kings of Saudi Arabia as of 2026.

The anarchist insurrection of January 1933 was an attempted revolution carried out by Spanish anarchists, with the intention of overthrowing the government of Spain and establishing libertarian communism. The suppression of the Alt Llobregat insurrection in January 1932 led to the arrest and deportation of numerous anarchists, as well as an internal split within the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). The Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), which supported insurrectionary anarchism, gained control over the CNT, marginalising the moderate treintista faction. With the passage of new labour laws by the Republican government, the CNT's activities were repressed throughout the country and it went into a period of decline. But after contributing to the prevention of an attempted coup by General José Sanjurjo, the CNT experienced a resurgence in support and anarchist deportees were permitted to return to Spain. Due to the slow, bureaucratic implementation of land reform and the regulation of trade unions by the new labour laws, workers' and peasants' dissatisfaction with the left-wing government increased. In December 1932, when the possibility of a general strike by railway workers arose, the Catalan anarchist Joan Garcia Oliver began planning another insurrection. A premature explosion of stockpiled grenades in Barcelona made the authorities aware of the planned insurrection. By the time the insurrection broke out on 8 January 1933, leading anarchists had been arrested and the police were on high alert throughout the city, resulting in the uprising being suppressed by the following morning. Insurrections subsequently broke out throughout Catalonia, Valencia, Aragon and Andalusia, but they were likewise suppressed. In the Andalusian town of Casas Viejas, Assault Guards carried out a massacre against the town's peasantry, killing both insurgents and uninvolved bystanders. In the suppression of the uprising, thousands of anarchists were imprisoned and dozens were killed. The insurrection provoked the treintistas to break off from the CNT and form the Opposition Unions. An investigation into the Casas Viejas incident found the government of Manuel Azaña culpable for the massacre, which caused it to lose support from the far-left and emboldened political opposition from the right-wing. A new right-wing government led by Alejandro Lerroux was subsequently elected, provoking the outbreak of the anarchist insurrection of December 1933.

On 8 January 1936, Reza Shah of Iran issued a decree known as Kashf-e hijab (also Romanized as Kashf-e hijāb and Kashf-e hejāb, Persian: کشف حجاب, lit. 'Unveiling') banning all Islamic veils (including hijab and chador), an edict that was swiftly and forcefully implemented. The government also banned many types of male traditional clothing. The ban was enforced for a period of five years (1936–1941); after this, women were free to dress as they wished for forty years until the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when the reverse ban against unveiling was introduced. One of the enduring legacies of Reza Shah is turning dress into an integral problem of Iranian politics.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The Commonwealth of the Philippines was an unincorporated territory and commonwealth (dependency) of the United States that existed from 1935 to 1946. It was established following the Tydings–McDuffie Act to replace the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands and was designed as a transitional administration in preparation for full Philippine independence. Its foreign affairs remained managed by the United States.

Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov was a Soviet politician. He was the Soviet Union's "propagandist-in-chief" after the Second World War, and was responsible for developing the Soviet cultural policy, the Zhdanov Doctrine, which remained in effect until the death of Joseph Stalin. Zhdanov was considered Stalin's most likely successor but died before him.

Operation Auca was an attempt by five Evangelical Christian missionaries from the United States to bring Christianity to the Waorani or Huaorani people of the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador. The Waorani, also known pejoratively as Aucas, were an isolated tribe known for their violence, against both their own people and outsiders who entered their territory. With the intention to evangelize the previously uncontacted Waorani, the missionaries began making regular flights over Waorani settlements in September 1955, dropping gifts, which were reciprocated. After several months of exchanging gifts, on January 3, 1956, the missionaries established a camp at "Palm Beach", a sandbar along the Curaray River, a few kilometers from Waorani settlements. Their efforts came to an end on January 8, 1956, when all five—Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming, and Roger Youderian—were attacked and speared by a group of Waorani warriors. The news of their deaths was broadcast around the world, and Life magazine covered the event with a photo essay.

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces against Nazi Germany and its puppet state of Vichy France in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 to restore democracy back in France. Following the 1958 Algiers putsch, he came out of retirement at the request of President René Coty, who appointed him Prime Minister. He commissioned a new 1958 French constitution which was approved by voters in a swift majority, during a referendum, establishing the French Fifth Republic. He was subsequently elected the President of France later that year, a position he held until his resignation in 1969.

A referendum on self-determination for Algeria was held in France on 8 January 1961. Self-determination was approved by 75% of voters overall and 70% in Algeria. Voter turnout was 92%. The referendum question was worded as follows:"Approuvez-vous le projet de loi soumis au peuple français par le président de la République et concernant l'autodétermination des populations algériennes et l'organisation des pouvoirs publics en Algérie avant l'autodétermination ?""Do you approve the bill submitted to the French people by the President of the Republic and concerning the self-determination of the populations of Algeria and the organization of the public authorities in Algeria prior to self-determination?"

Lyndon Baines Johnson, also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He served as the 37th vice president under John F. Kennedy from 1961 to 1963, before assuming the presidency upon Kennedy's assassination. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson served in Congress until 1961, where he built a reputation as a talented and persuasive legislator. His presidency saw the passing of landmark civil rights legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the creation of "Great Society" programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and a major escalation in U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

The President of Pakistan is the head of state of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The president is the nominal head of the executive and the federal parliament, the first citizen of the country, and the supreme commander of the Pakistan Armed Forces. Serving as the ceremonial head of the federation, the president is bound to act on advice of the prime minister and the federal cabinet. Asif Ali Zardari is the 14th and current president, having assumed the presidency on 10 March 2024.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

The Watergate scandal, or simply Watergate, was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. On June 17, 1972, operatives associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign were caught burglarizing and planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington, D.C.'s Watergate complex. Nixon's efforts to conceal his administration's involvement led to an impeachment process and ultimately to his resignation in August 1974.

Ella Rosa Giovianna Oliva Grasso was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 83rd governor of Connecticut from January 8, 1975, to December 31, 1980, after rejecting past offers of candidacies for Senate and governor. She was the first woman elected governor in Connecticut and the fourth woman to be elected governor of a U.S. state. She is also the first female governor to not be the spouse or widow of a former governor. She resigned as governor due to her battle with ovarian cancer.

A series of three terrorist bombings in Moscow on 8 January 1977 killed seven people and seriously injured 37 others. No one claimed responsibility for the bombings, although three members of an Armenian nationalist organization were executed early in 1979 after a KGB investigation and a secret trial. Some Soviet dissidents said that the suspects had an alibi. Soon after the event Andrei Sakharov issued a public appeal, expressing concern that the bombings might "be a new provocation on the part of the organs of repression". According to historian Jay Bergman, "who actually caused the explosion has never been determined conclusively".

The Bell System held a virtual monopoly over telephone infrastructure in the United States from around the early 20th century until January 8, 1982. It consisted of the parent American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), which directly provided long-distance service, while local service was provided by 24 local Bell Operating Companies, which were owned whole or in part by AT&T, while its manufacturing subsidiary Western Electric produced almost all of its equipment, which was largely designed at the research and development subsidiary Bell Labs. As a result, AT&T had substantial control over the United States' communications infrastructure.

The Kegworth air disaster occurred when British Midland Airways Flight 092, a Boeing 737-400, crashed onto the motorway embankment between the M1 motorway and A453 road near Kegworth, Leicestershire, England, while attempting to make an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport on 8 January 1989.

An astronaut is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and space tourists. In the United States, it is a designated term used by three agencies: NASA, the FAA, and the military. The term is also used for people who are trained to fly in a spacecraft after passing certain training courses, regardless of their experience of space travel.

The Antonov An-32 is a turboprop twin-engined military transport aircraft. Its first flight was in July 1976 and was displayed at the 1977 Paris Air Show. A variant of the An-24, it was given upgraded equipment and more powerful Ivchenko AI-20 engines, and is oriented towards flying in adverse weather conditions. The aircraft was produced from 1980 to 2012, and remains in service. It is the fourth member of the Antonov An-24 family, succeeding the An-24, An-30 and An-26, and coming before the cancelled An-132.

George Walker Bush is an American former politician, businessman, and Air Force veteran who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He is the eldest son of George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States.

Turkish Airlines Flight 634 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Istanbul Atatürk Airport to Diyarbakır Airport in southeastern Turkey. On 8 January 2003 at 20:19 EET, the aircraft operating the flight, a British Aerospace Avro RJ100, struck the ground on final approach approximately 900 metres (3,000 ft) short of the runway threshold during inclement weather conditions. In the following collision with a slope, a post-crash fire broke out, killing 75 of the 80 occupants, including the entire crew. This is the deadliest aviation accident to involve the BAe 146.

Air Midwest Flight 5481 was a Beechcraft 1900D which crashed upon takeoff while on a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Greenville–Spartanburg International Airport in Greer, South Carolina. On the morning of January 8, 2003, the Beechcraft stalled while departing the airport and crashed into an aircraft hangar, killing all 21 passengers and crew aboard and injuring one person on the ground.

RMS Queen Mary 2 (QM2) is a British ocean liner which has been the flagship of Cunard since April 2004 and, as of 2026, remains the only ship built and used for service as an ocean liner still in active service. Queen Mary 2 sails regular transatlantic crossings between Southampton and New York City, in addition to short cruises and an annual world voyage.

USS San Francisco (SSN-711) is a Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine, the third vessel of the United States Navy to be named for San Francisco, California.

The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda is a guerrilla and political movement fighting for the independence of the Angolan Territory of Cabinda. Formerly under Portuguese administration, with the independence of Angola from Portugal in 1975, the territory became an exclave province of the newly independent Angola. The FLEC fights the Cabinda War in the region occupied by the former kingdoms of Kakongo, Loango, and N'Goyo.

Gabrielle Dee Giffords is an American retired politician and gun violence prevention advocate. She served as a member of the United States House of Representatives representing Arizona's 8th congressional district from January 2007 until January 2012, when she resigned due to a severe brain injury suffered during an assassination attempt. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the third woman in Arizona's history to be elected to the U.S. Congress.

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, commonly known as "El Chapo", is a Mexican former drug lord and the former top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Guzmán is believed to be responsible for the deaths of over 34,000 people, and was considered to be the most powerful drug trafficker in the world until he was extradited to the United States and sentenced to life in prison.

West Air Sweden Flight 294 was a cargo flight of a Bombardier CRJ200 from Oslo to Tromsø, Norway, that crashed on 8 January 2016. A malfunction in one of the inertial reference units had produced erroneous attitude indications on one of the instrument displays. The crew's subsequent response resulted in spatial disorientation, leading to the loss of control of the aircraft. Both crew members on board were killed.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Tehran to Kyiv, operated by Ukraine International Airlines. On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 flying the route was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shortly after takeoff, killing all 176 occupants on board.

The La Vega raid was a police raid that occurred on 8 January 2021 in La Vega Parish, Caracas, Venezuela. The objective of the raid was to take control of La Vega Parish, which was controlled by a criminal organization, led by Leonardo José Polanco Angulo; he was a drug lord, known as "El Loco Leo". Members of the Venezuelan National Police (PNB), the Special Action Forces (FAES) and the Venezuelan National Guard seized control of the parish, killing a number of people in the neighborhood. According to investigative journalists and human rights organizations, the death toll was 23 people. By 11 January, no member of the Nicolás Maduro administration had made a statement about the events or announced a death toll.

Jair Messias Bolsonaro is a Brazilian politician and former military officer who served as the 38th president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023. He previously served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1991 to 2019.