January 8 is the eighth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 357 days remain until the end of the year (358 in leap years).
871 – Æthelred I and Alfred the Great lead a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by Danelaw Vikings.
1297 – François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, leads his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco. The family continues to rule today.
1499 – Louis XII of France marries Anne of Brittany in accordance with a law set by his predecessor, Charles VIII.
1746 – Second Jacobite rising: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.
1790 – George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in New York City.[9] 1806 – The Dutch Cape Colony in southern Africa becomes the British Cape Colony as a result of the Battle of Blaauwberg.
1811 – Charles Deslondes leads an unsuccessful slave revolt in the North American settlements of St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana.[11] 1815 – War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.
1828 – The Democratic Party of the United States is organized.
1835 – US President Andrew Jackson announces a celebratory dinner after having reduced the United States national debt to zero for the only time.
1867 – The United States Congress passes the bill to allow African American men the right to vote in Washington, D.C.
1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.
1889 – Herman Hollerith is issued US patent #395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' — his punched card calculator.
1900 – President William McKinley places Alaska under military rule.
1918 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announces his 'Fourteen Points' as conditions for ending World War I.
1920 – The steel strike of 1919 ends in failure for the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers labor union.
1926 – Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thuỵ is crowned emperor of Vietnam, the country's last monarch.
1933 – Anarchist insurrection of January 1933 breaks out in Barcelona, Spain.
1936 – Kashf-e hijab decree is made and immediately enforced by Reza Shah, Iran's head of state, banning the wearing of Islamic veils in public.
1940 – World War II: Britain introduces food rationing.
1945 – World War II: Philippine Commonwealth troops under the Philippine Commonwealth Army units enter the province of Ilocos Sur in Northern Luzon and attack invading Japanese Imperial forces.
1959 – Charles de Gaulle is proclaimed as the first President of the French Fifth Republic.
1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a 'War on Poverty' in the United States.
1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
1972 – Bowing to international pressure, President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto releases Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from prison, who had been arrested after declaring the independence of Bangladesh.
1973 – Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched1975 – Ella T. Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband.
1977 – Three bombs explode in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union, within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group 1981 – A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be 'perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time'.
1982 – Breakup of the Bell System: In the United States, AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions. 2002 – President of the United States George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.
2004 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, then the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
2016 – Joaquín Guzmán, widely regarded as the world's most powerful drug trafficker, is recaptured following his escape from a maximum security prison in Mexico.
2011 – Sitting US Congresswoman Gabby Giffords is shot in the head along with 18 others in a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Giffords survived the assassination attempt, but six others died, including John Roll, a federal judge.
2021 – Twenty-three people are killed in what is described as a police ″ massacre″ in La Vega, Caracas, Venezuela.