Today is Thursday, Aug. 8, the 221st day of 2024. There are 145 days left in the year.
On Aug. 8, 2023, a series of wind-driven wildfires broke out on the Hawaiian island of Maui, destroying the town of Lahaina and killing more than 100 people.
In 1814, during the War of 1812, peace talks between the United States and Britain began in Ghent, Belgium.
In 1876, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric pen—the forerunner of the mimeograph machine.
In 1908, Wilbur Wright makes the Wright Brothers’ first public flying demonstration, at Le Mans racecourse in France.
In 1911, President William Howard Taft signed a measure raising the number of U.S. representatives from 391 to 433, effective with the next Congress, with a proviso to add two more when New Mexico and Arizona became states.
In 1963, Britain’s “Great Train Robbery” took place as thieves made off with 2.6 million pounds in banknotes.
In 1969, photographer Iain Macmillan took the iconic photo of The Beatles that would appear on the cover of their album “Abbey Road.”
In 1974, President Richard Nixon, facing damaging new revelations in the Watergate scandal, announced he would resign the following day.
In 1988, Chicago’s Wrigley Field hosted its first-ever night baseball game; the contest between the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies would be rained out in the fourth inning.
In 2000, the wreckage of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which sank in 1864 after attacking the Union ship Housatonic, was recovered off the South Carolina coast and returned to port.
In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the U.S. Supreme Court’s first Hispanic and third female justice.
In 2022, FBI agents executed a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar al Lago in Palm Beach, Florida; over 13,000 government documents, including 103 classified documents, were seized.
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