July 8 is the 189th day of the year (190th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 176 days remain until the end of the year.
Events 1901–present 1912 – Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Couceiro leads an unsuccessful royalist attack against the First Portuguese Republic in Chaves.
1932 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.
1933 – The first rugby union test match between the Wallabies of Australia and the Springboks of South Africa is played at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town.
1937 – Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan sign the Treaty of Saadabad.
1947 – Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico in what became known as the Roswell UFO incident.
1948 – The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits into a program called the Women's Air Force (WAF).
1960 – Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.
1962 – Ne Win besieges and blows up the Rangoon University Student Union building to crush the Student Movement.
1965 – Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 21 is destroyed by a bomb near 100 Mile House, Canada, killing 52.[6] 1966 – King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng of Burundi is deposed by his son Prince Charles Ndizi.
1968 – The Chrysler wildcat strike begins in Detroit, Michigan.
1970 – Richard Nixon delivers a special congressional message enunciating Native American self-determination as official US Indian policy, leading to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.
1972 – Israeli Mossad assassinate Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani.
1980 – The inaugural 1980 State of Origin game is won by Queensland who defeat New South Wales 20– 10 at Lang Park.
1980 – Aeroflot Flight 4225 crashes near Almaty International Airport in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (present day Kazakhstan), killing all 166 people on board.[7] 1982 – A failed assassination attempt against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein results in the Dujail Massacre over the next several months.
1988 – The Island Express train travelling from Bangalore to Kanyakumari derails on the Peruman bridge and falls into Ashtamudi Lake, Kerala in India killing 105 passengers and injuring over 200 more.
1990 – West Germany win the FIFA World Cup final against defending champions Argentina, with Andreas Brehme