May 8 in History

William Coddington was an early magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He served as the judge of Portsmouth and Newport in that colony, governor of Portsmouth and Newport, deputy governor of the four-town colony, and then governor of the entire colony. Coddington was born and raised in Lincolnshire, England. He accompanied the Winthrop Fleet on its voyage to New England in 1630, becoming an early leader in Boston. There he built the first brick house and became heavily involved in the local government as an assistant magistrate, treasurer, and deputy.

Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne was a French clergyman, bishop, cardinal, politician and finance minister of King Louis XVI.

The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence fought by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire from 1821 to 1829. In 1826, the Greeks were assisted by the British Empire, the Kingdom of France, and the Russian Empire, while the Ottomans were aided by their vassals, especially by the Eyalet of Egypt. The war led to the formation of modern Greece, which in subsequent years would be expanded to its current size. The revolution is commemorated by Greeks around the world as independence day on 25 March.

The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because it refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco, signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna after he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas was de facto an independent country, but most of its Anglo-American citizens who had moved from the United States to Texas after 1822 wanted to be annexed by the United States.

John Stith Pemberton was an American pharmacist, chemist, and Confederate States Army officer who is best known as the inventor of Coca-Cola. On May 8, 1886, he developed an early version of a beverage that would later become Coca-Cola, but sold the rights to Asa Griggs Candler for roughly 2,300 dollars shortly before his death in 1888.

The Irish Literary Theatre was a short-lived theatrical project that existed from 1899 to 1901. Its purpose was to establish a national stage for Irish plays performed by Irish performers to amplify the Irish cultural identity and encourage authors to write works of serious depth. It was founded by W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, George Moore and Edward Martyn as part of the Irish Literary Revival and it was centered in Dublin.

Edward George Honey was an Australian journalist who suggested the idea of five minutes of silence in a letter to a London newspaper in May 1919, about 6 months before the first observance of the Two-minute silence in London.

The Klaipėda Convention was an international agreement between Lithuania and the countries of the Conference of Ambassadors signed in Paris on May 8, 1924. According to the convention, the Klaipėda Region became an autonomous region under unconditional sovereignty of Lithuania.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and to later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā, first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.

The 11th Army was a World War II field army.

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands, officially the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, are an Australian external territory located in the Indian Ocean, comprising a small archipelago approximately midway between Australia and Sri Lanka and relatively close to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The territory's dual name reflects that the islands have historically been known as either the Cocos Islands or the Keeling Islands.

The Prague uprising was a partially successful attempt by the Czech resistance movement to liberate the city of Prague from German occupation in May 1945, during the end of World War II. The preceding six years of occupation had fuelled anti-German sentiment and the rapid advance of Allied forces from the Red Army and the United States Army offered the resistance a chance of success.

The Halifax VE-Day riots, 7–8 May 1945, in Halifax and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, began as a celebration of the World War II victory in Europe. This rapidly evolved into a rampage by several thousand servicemen, merchant seamen, and civilians, who looted the City of Halifax. Although a subsequent Royal Commission chaired by Justice Roy Kellock blamed lax naval authority and specifically Rear-Admiral Leonard W. Murray, it is generally accepted that the underlying causes were a combination of bureaucratic confusion, insufficient policing, and antipathy between the military and civilians, fueled by the presence of 25,000 servicemen who had strained Halifax wartime resources to the limit.

The Tollund Man is a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 5th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950, preserved as a bog body near Silkeborg on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark. The man's physical features were so well preserved that he was mistaken for a recent murder victim. Twelve years before his discovery, another bog body, Elling Woman, was found in the same bog.

Nine unarmed Buddhist civilians were shot on 8 May 1963 in the city of Huế, South Vietnam, at the hands of the army and security forces of the government under President Ngô Đình Diệm, a Catholic. The army and police fired guns and launched grenades into a crowd of Buddhists who had been protesting against a government ban on flying the Buddhist flag on the day of Phật Đản, which commemorates the birth of Gautama Buddha.

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the most influential band in popular music and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and the recognition of popular music as an art form. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock 'n' roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways. The band also explored music styles ranging from folk and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. As pioneers in recording, songwriting and artistic presentation, the Beatles revolutionised many aspects of the music industry and were often publicised as leaders of the era's youth and sociocultural movements.

The Wounded Knee Occupation, also known as Second Wounded Knee, began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, United States, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The protest followed the failure of an effort of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) to use impeachment to remove tribal president Richard Wilson, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of opponents. Protesters also criticized the United States government's failure to fulfill treaties with Native American people, and demanded the reopening of treaty negotiations with the goal of fair and equitable treatment of Native Americans.

Mount Everest is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at its summit. Its height was most recently measured in 2020 by Chinese and Nepali authorities as 8,848.86 m.

Denis Lortie is a former Canadian Forces corporal. In 1984, he stormed into the Parliament Building in Quebec City and opened fire with several firearms, killing three government employees and wounding thirteen others. The National Assembly's serjeant-at-arms, René Jalbert, volunteered himself to serve as a hostage, and conversed with Lortie for several hours before convincing him to surrender to authorities.

The Thames Barrier is a retractable barrier system built to protect the floodplain of most of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea. It has been operational since 1982. When needed, it is closed (raised) during high tide; at low tide, it can be opened to restore the river's flow towards the sea. Built about 2 miles east of the Isle of Dogs, its northern bank is in Silvertown in the London Borough of Newham and its southern bank is in the New Charlton area of the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Illinois Bell Telephone Company, LLC is the Bell Operating Company serving Illinois. It is owned by AT&T through AT&T Teleholdings, formerly Ameritech.

Phage therapy, viral phage therapy, or phagotherapy is the therapeutic use of bacteriophages for the treatment of pathogenic bacterial infections. This therapeutic approach emerged at the beginning of the 20th century but was progressively replaced by the use of antibiotics in most parts of the world after the Second World War. Bacteriophages, known as phages, are a form of virus that attach to bacterial cells and inject their genome into the cell. The bacteria's production of the viral genome interferes with its ability to function, halting the bacterial infection. The bacterial cell causing the infection is unable to reproduce and instead produces additional phages. Phages are very selective in the strains of bacteria they are effective against.