On This Day
What Happened on February 8 in History
8 events that happened on February 8, oldest first. Every entry is written in our own words and links to its source.
Colonial America and the Revolution
1587 (Old Style date)
Mary, Queen of Scots is beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England.
Held captive in England for nearly two decades, Mary was convicted of taking part in the Babington Plot to kill her cousin Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth signed the death warrant reluctantly, and Mary's son later became King James I of England.
Source: history.com
1725
Peter the Great, the czar who pushed Russia toward Europe, dies in St. Petersburg.
Peter reorganized the army and government, built a navy, and founded St. Petersburg as a new capital facing the West. He took the title of emperor in 1721 after victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War.
Source: history.com
The Young Republic and the Civil War Era
1862
Union forces capture Roanoke Island, giving the North a foothold on the North Carolina coast.
An amphibious expedition led by General Ambrose Burnside landed on the island and overran its Confederate defenders after two days of fighting. The victory gave the Union control of the sounds behind the Outer Banks and a base for further operations in North Carolina.
Source: history.com
1887
President Grover Cleveland signs the Dawes Act, breaking up tribal lands into individual allotments.
The General Allotment Act divided reservation land into parcels assigned to individual Native Americans and opened the leftover land to white settlers. Promoted as a path to assimilation, it led to a steep loss of land held by tribes over the following decades and was largely reversed by the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.
Source: history.com; archives.gov
The Early 1900s and the World Wars
1904
Japan opens the Russo-Japanese War with a surprise attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur.
Japanese torpedo boats struck Russian warships anchored at Port Arthur in Manchuria before a formal declaration of war, after talks over rival claims in Korea and Manchuria broke down. Japan's victory in 1905 made it the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European one, and the peace treaty was brokered by Theodore Roosevelt.
Source: history.com
1924
Nevada carries out the first execution by lethal gas in the United States.
Gee Jon, convicted of a murder linked to a feud between rival Chinese American groups, was put to death in a gas chamber at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. The state had adopted the method as a supposedly more humane alternative, and other states later followed.
Source: history.com
The Cold War
1968
State troopers fire on student protesters in Orangeburg, South Carolina, killing three young men.
Students from South Carolina State College had been protesting a segregated bowling alley for several nights when highway patrolmen opened fire on a crowd gathered on campus. The Orangeburg Massacre came two years before the Kent State shootings but drew far less national attention at the time.
Source: history.com
The Modern Era
1996
President Bill Clinton signs the Telecommunications Act of 1996 at the Library of Congress.
The law was the first major rewrite of American communications law since 1934, aiming to open telephone, cable and broadcasting markets to more competition. It also required the V-chip in new television sets, and parts of its rules on online indecency were later struck down by the Supreme Court.
Source: presidency.ucsb.edu; archive.nytimes.com