On This Day - What Happened on October 8 (2024)

1871

Great Chicago Fire

On this day in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire began in the barn of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary, and, by the time the blaze died out two days later, a large swath of the city had been devastated and some 300 people killed.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital id: cph 3g03936)

Jesse Jackson

American minister and activist

born

October 8, 1941 (age 82)
Greenville, South Carolina

Ron Edmonds—AP/REX/Shutterstock.com

2005

Killing at least 79,000 people, an earthquake struck the Pakistan-administered portion of the Kashmir region and the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Take our natural disasters quiz

2004

American domestic lifestyle innovator Martha Stewart reported to a federal prison in West Virginia to begin her five-month sentence for insider trading.

Chris Hondros/Getty Images

2001

In Italy's worst civilian air disaster in nearly 30 years, a Cessna took a wrong turn on a taxiway at Linate Airport in Milan and crashed into an SAS airliner about to take off, which exploded, killing 118 people, including 4 airport workers. Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about aircraft and air travel

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

1982

The Polish legislature dissolved the trade union Solidarity, which subsequently became an underground organization and played a key role in ending communist rule in Poland, with its various leaders, notably Lech Wałęsa, later holding important government posts. How much do you know about European history?

Copyright Wesolowski/Sygma

1970

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Test your knowledge of Nobel laureates in literature

Gilbert Uzan/Gamma Liaison

1967

British politician Clement Attlee—who, while serving as prime minister of the United Kingdom (1945–51), presided over the establishment of a welfare state in his country and the granting of independence to India—died at age 84. Take our quiz about notable prime ministers

© Karsh—Rapho/Photo Researchers

1967

A prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution and a South American guerrilla leader, Che Guevara was captured and later shot to death by a Bolivian army. Take our quiz about plots and revolutions

Lee Lockwood/Black Star

1957

An accident at the Windscale nuclear facility in northwestern England caused a fire that burned for 16 hours and left 10 tons of radioactive fuel melted in the reactor core.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

1918

Corporal Alvin York single-handedly captured 132 Germans and killed another 25 during the Meuse-Argonne offensive of World War I. Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about World War I

Bettmann/Corbis

1895

Argentine politician Juan Perón, who served as president of Argentina (1946–52, 1952–55, and 1973–74) and founded and led the Peronist movement, was born. Take our quiz about South America

Courtesy of the OAS (Columbus Memorial Library)

1871

The city of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, burned to the ground in hours, killing 1,152 people. Test your knowledge of historical disasters

U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region

1856

In Canton (Guangzhou), Chinese officials boarded a British-registered ship, the Arrow, arrested several Chinese crew members (who were later released), and allegedly lowered the British flag; the event contributed to the start of the second Opium War, in which Britain and France battled China. Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about China

Public Domain

1809

Klemens von Metternich was named foreign minister of Austria; he revived the country's standing in European affairs, and his organization of the Congress of Vienna maintained a balance of power in Europe.

Courtesy of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Ger.