About May 8
May 8, 2025 is the 128th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 237 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Thursday.
You can browse the full year calendar in case you need it.
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Taurus is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Emerald is the modern birthstone for this month. Sapphire is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 285 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
What Happened On May 8
- 413 –Emperor Honorius signs an edict providing tax relief for the Italian provinces Tuscia, Campania, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia, Lucania and Calabria, who are plundered by the Visigoths.
- 589 –Reccared summons the Third Council of Toledo.
- 1541 –Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River and names it Río de Espíritu Santo.
- 1788 –The French Parlement is suspended to be replaced by the creation of forty-seven new courts.
- 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.
- 1877 –At Gilmore’s Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.
- 1898 –The first games of the Italian football league system are played.
- 1902 –In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.
- 1912 –Paramount Pictures is founded.
- 1942 –World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
- 1945 –World War II: V-E Day, combat ends in Europe. German forces agree in Rheims, France, to an unconditional surrender.
- 1946 –Estonian school girls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blow up the Soviet memorial which stood in front of the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn.
- 1967 –The Philippine province of Davao is split into three: Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental.
- 1972 –Four Black September terrorists hijack Sabena Flight 571. Israeli Sayeret Matkal commandos recapture the plane the following day.
- 1972 –Vietnam War – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announces his order to place mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation.
- 1973 –A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.
- 1978 –First ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler.
- 1980 –The eradication of smallpox is endorsed by the World Health Organization.
- 1984 –Corporal Denis Lortie enters the Quebec National Assembly and opens fire, killing three and wounding 13. René Jalbert, sergeant-at-arms of the assembly, succeeds in calming him, for which he will later receive the Cross of Valour.
- 1987 –The Loughgall Ambush: The SAS kills eight Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a civilian during an ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland.
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