What happened on April 8 ?
Events
217 - Roman emperor Caracalla is assassinated (and succeeded) by his Praetorian Guard prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus.
1492 - Death of Lorenzo de' Medici, dubbed "The Magnificent", ruler of Florence and patron of arts.
1730 - Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in New York City, is dedicated.
1767 - Ayutthaya kingdom falls to Burmese invaders.
1820 - The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Melos.
1832 - Black Hawk War: Around 300 United States 6th Infantry troops leave Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri to fight the Sauk Native Americans.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Mansfield - Union General Nathaniel Banks' Red River Campaign is thwarted by Confederate General Richard Taylor's forces at Mansfield, Louisiana.
1886 - William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Home Rule bill into the House of Commons.
1893 - First recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania when the Geneva College Covenanters defeat the New Brighton YMCA.
1895 - The United States Supreme Court declares income tax to be unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
1899 - Martha Place becomes the first woman to be executed in an electric chair.
1904 - The French Third Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland sign the Entente cordiale.
1904 - Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times.
1913 - The 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified requiring direct election of Senators.
1916 - In Corona, California, car racer Bob Burman crashes through a crowd barrier at the last Boulevard Race, killing himself, his mechanic and a track policeman, and badly injuring five spectators.
1918 - World War I: Actors Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin sell war bonds on the streets of New York, New York's financial district.
1929 - Indian Independence Movement: At Delhi Central Assembly, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt throw handouts, and bombs in a corridor not to cause injury and courted arrest.
1935 - The Works Progress Administration is formed when the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 becomes law.
1942 - World War II: Siege of Leningrad - Soviet Union forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.
1945 - At the POW camp at Flossenbürg, pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is hanged.
1952 - In a radio address to the nation from the White House, President Harry S. Truman calls for the seizure of all steel mills in the United States in order to prevent a nationwide strike.
1953 - Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta is convicted by Kenya's British rulers.
1967 - In Vienna, Austria, Sandie Shaw wins the twelfth Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom singing "Puppet on a String".
1974 - At the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron breaks baseball great's Babe Ruth's record by hitting his 715th home run.
1975 - Frank Robinson of the Cleveland Indians manages his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.
1985 - Bhopal disaster: India files suit against Union Carbide for the disaster which killed an estimated 2,000 and injured another 200,000.
1987 - Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis resigns amid great controversy over racially-charged remarks he had made while on Nightline.
1989 - South Africa: In Johannesburg, the Progressive Federal Party, Independent Party, National Democratic Movement and the force of "Ontevrede Afrikaners" or dissatisfied Afrikaners merge to form the Democratic Party.
1992 - Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announces to the world that he has AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries.
1999 - Haryana Gana Parishad, a political party in the Indian state of Haryana, merges with the Indian National Congress.
2004 - Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups.
2005 - Funeral of Pope John Paul II.
2006 - Shedden massacre: A farmer near Shedden, Ontario, Canada finds the bodies of eight men, all shot to death, in a field. The murders are soon linked to the Bandidos motorcycle gang.
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