Historical Events for Year 2008
Events 1 - 94 of 94
Jan 1st - A New Hampshire law legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples comes into effect.
Jan 1st - Malta and Cyprus officially adopt the Euro currency and become the fourteenth and fifteenth Eurozone countries.
Jan 8th - New Jersey officially apologizes for slavery, becoming the first Northern state to do so.
Jan 21st - Black Monday in worldwide stock markets. FTSE 100 had its biggest ever one-day points fall, European stocks closed with their worst result since 9/11, and Asian stocks drop as much as 15%.
Jan 21st - The Eyak language in Alaska becomes extinct as its last native speaker dies.
Feb 5th - A major tornado outbreak across the Southern United States leaves at least 58 dead, the most since the May 31, 1985 outbreak that killed 88.
Feb 8th - Nebraska bans electric chair as sole execution method.
Feb 10th - The 2008 Namdaemun fire severely damages Namdaemun, the first National Treasure of South Korea.
Feb 11th - In East Timor, assassination attempts were made on Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos-Horta. Both failed.
Feb 13th - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes an historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations.
Feb 14th - Northern Illinois University shooting: a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university resulting in 24 casualties; 6 fatalities (including gunman) and 18 injured.
Feb 17th - Kosovo declares independence from Serbia.
Feb 19th - Toshiba announces its formal recall of its HD DVD video formatting, ending the format war between it and Sony's Blu-Ray Disc
Feb 23rd - a B-2 Spirit of the USAF crashes at Guam. The crew survived but the aircraft was written off, making it the most expensive air crash in human history (the aircraft alone cost $1.2Bn). The B-2 had a perfect safety record before the crash; not one B-2 ever crashed.
Feb 24th - Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba after nearly fifty years.
Feb 28th - Former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra is arrested on corruption charges upon returning to Thailand after months of exile.
Mar 2nd - Riots in Yerevan, Armenia concerning the Armenian presidential election, 2008 come to a fatal end, with police forces clashing with civilians in their peaceful protest, resulting in 8 deaths.
Mar 13th - Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000.00 an ounce for the first time.
Mar 17th - New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer resigns after a scandal involving a high-end prostitute. David Paterson becomes acting New York State governor.
Dictator Fidel Castro Mar 19th - GRB 080319B: A cosmic burst that is the farthest object visible to the naked eye was briefly observed on this day.
Mar 22nd - The French Swimmer Alain Bernard sets the world record of 47.50 for the 100 m freestyle long course after winning the European LC Championships 2008.
Mar 24th - Bhutan officially becomes a democracy, with its first ever general election.
Mar 31st - Aloha Airlines, a bankrupt airline, permanently ends passenger service
Apr 4th - The raid on the FLDS owned ranch called the YFZ Ranch in Texas, 401 children were taken into custody. 133 woman were taken into state custody also, the total number of woman and children is 534.
Apr 8th - The construction of the world's first building to integrate wind turbines completes, in Bahrain.
Apr 16th - Start of Papal Journey of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States
Apr 20th - Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
Apr 21st - The United States Air Force retires the F-117 Nighthawk.
Apr 30th - Two skeletal remains found near Ekaterinburg, Russia were confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia and one of his sisters.
May 1st - The London Agreement on translation of European patents, concluded in 2000, enters into force in 14 of the 34 Contracting States to the European Patent Convention.
May 2nd - Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Myanmar killing over 130,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless.
May 6th - Chaiten Volcano erupts in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people.
May 12th - 2008 Wenchuan earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people
May 15th - California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional.
265th Pope Benedict XVI May 23rd - The International Court of Justice (ICJ) awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries.
May 28th - The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly of Nepal formally declares Nepal a republic, ending the 240-year reign of the Shah dynasty.
May 31st - Usain Bolt breaks the world record in the 100m sprint, with a wind-legal (+1.7m/s) 9.72 seconds.
Jun 1st - A fire at the backlot of Universal Studios Hollywood destroys several icons from movies, such as Courthouse Square, the clock tower from Back to the Future, and the King Kong exhibit on the studio tour.
Jun 8th - The Akihabara massacre took place on the Sunday-pedestrian-zoned Chūōdōri street. A man killed seven in an attack on a crowd using a truck and a dagger.
Jun 10th - The Gora Prai airstrike by the United States reportedly kills 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops.
Jun 11th - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made an official historic apology to Canada's First Nations in regard to a residential school abuse in which children were isolated from their homes, families and cultures for a century.
Jun 12th - Ireland rejects the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum, thus putting into question the reform programme of the European Union.
Jun 17th - First day of legal same-sex marriage in California
Jun 25th - Atlantis Plastics shooting, An employee shot and killed five people after an argument, which ended in the gunman's suicide in Henderson, Kentucky.
Jun 26th - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. Heller that the ban on handguns in the District of Columbia is unconstitutional.
Jun 27th - Bill Gates steps down as Chairman of Microsoft Corporation to work full time for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Jun 29th - Thomas Beatie, the world's first pregnant man, gives birth to a daughter.
Jul 2nd - Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other FARC hostages are rescued by the Colombian armed forces.
Jul 10th - Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski is acquitted of all charges by a UN Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.
Microsoft Founder Bill Gates Jul 21st - Bosnian-Serb war criminal Radovan Karadžić is arrested in Serbia and is indicted by the UN's ICTY tribunal.
Jul 23rd - Cape Verde joins the World Trade Organization, becoming its 153rd member.
Jul 28th - The historic Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier burns down for a second time in 80 years.
Aug 6th - Access 31 TV stops broadcasting in Perth, Western Australia.
Aug 6th - A military junta led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stages a coup d'etat in Mauritania, overthrowing president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi
Aug 7th - Georgia launches a military offensive to surround and capture the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, from Russian control, starting the South Ossetia War.
Aug 8th - Georgian invasion into South Ossetia. Begin of five-day war between Georgia and Russia.
Aug 16th - Usain Bolt sets a new 100 metres dash world record of 9.69 seconds at the Beijing 2008 summer olympics.
Aug 18th - President Of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf resigned due to pressure from opposition.
Aug 20th - Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. 146 people are killed in the crash, 8 more die afterwards. Only 18 people survive.
Aug 26th - Russia unilaterally recognizes the independence of the former Georgian breakaway republics Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Aug 27th - Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be nominated by a major political party for President of the United States
Sep 7th - The US Government takes control of the two largest largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Sep 10th - The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in the history of mankind is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland.
Sep 13th - Hurricane Ike makes landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast of the United States, causing heavy damage to Galveston Island, Houston and surrounding areas.
44th US President Barack Obama Sep 16th - Rentrer en soi announces that they would be breaking up.
Sep 17th - The IAU named another dwarf planet, Haumea
Sep 21st - Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the two last remaining independent investment banks on Wall Street, become bank holding companies as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Sep 21st - President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa resigns from office, effective September 25.
Sep 21st - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel formally resigns from office, effective as soon as his successor Tzipi Livni has successfully assembled a new government.
Sep 21st - The final home game is played at Yankee Stadium against the Baltimore Orioles.
Sep 25th - China launches the spacecraft Shenzhou 7.
Sep 26th - Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes first person to fly a jet engine-powered wing across the English Channel.
Sep 27th - CNSA astronaut Zhai Zhigang becomes the first Chinese person to perform a spacewalk while flying on Shenzhou 7.
Sep 28th - SpaceX launches the first ever private spacecraft, the Falcon 1 into orbit.
Sep 29th - Following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history.
Oct 3rd - The $700 billion bailout bill for the US financial system is signed by President Bush.
Oct 13th - HM Treasury infused £37 billion ($64 billion, 47 billion euros) of new capital-bailout into Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Lloyds TSB and HBOS Plc, to avert a financial sector collapse.
Oct 22nd - India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.
Oct 24th - "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.
Oct 29th - Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to 5.
Oct 29th - The Philadelphia Phillies defeat the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 5 of the 2008 World Series to become champions of Major League Baseball.
Nov 4th - Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States
Nov 11th - The RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) set sail on her final voyage to Dubai.
Nov 20th - After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997.
Nov 22nd - YouTube hosts the largest ever live broadcast, YouTube Live.
Nov 25th - A car bomb in St. Petersburg, Russia, kills three people and injures one.
Nov 26th - Terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India: Ten coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists kill 164 and injure more than 250 people in Mumbai, India.
Dec 2nd - Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat resigns after the 2008 Thailand political crisis.
Last Emperor of Russia Nicholas II Dec 5th - Human remains previously found in 1991 are finally identified by Russian and American scientists as those of Tsar Nicholas II.
Dec 8th - Kirsty Williams elected as Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats. The first female leader of a political party in Wales.
Dec 9th - The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is arrested by federal officials for a number of alleged crimes including attempting to sell the United States Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama's election to the Presidency..
Dec 11th - Bernard Madoff arrested and charged with securities fraud in $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Dec 14th - President George W. Bush made his fourth and final (planned) trip to Iraq as president and almost got struck by two shoes thrown at him by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi during a farewell conference in Baghdad.
Dec 28th - The Detroit Lions finished the season 0-16 with a 31-21 lost to the Green Bay Packers The first time in National Football League history that a team went winless in a 16-game season.