May 8: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1541 - Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River and names it Río de Espíritu Santo.
2. 1794 - Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme Générale, is tried, convicted, and guillotined all on the same day in Paris.
3. 1877 - At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.
4. 1886 - Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.
5. 1919 - Edward George Honey first proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I, which later results in the creation of Remembrance Day. In the United States it was called Armistice Day and is nowVeterans Day.
6. 1927 - Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off aboard The White Bird biplane.
7. 1933 - Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast in protest against the British rule in India.
8. 1945 - Dissolution and surrender of Nazi Germany and all its forces.
9. 1980 - The eradication of smallpox is endorsed by the World Health Organization.
10. 1984 - The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
11. Famous Birthdays: William Henry Vanderbilt (American businessman), Henry Dunant (Swiss businessman and activist, co-founded the Red Cross, Nobel Prize laureate), Harry S. Truman (American colonel and politician, 33rd President of the United States), Friedrich Hayek (Austrian-English economist and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate), André Michel Lwoff (French microbiologist, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

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For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.