December 8 is the 342nd day (343rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 23 days remaining.
- 1854 - Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogma of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin.
- 1886 - American Federation of Labor founded.
- 1888 - Bulgaria's National Assembly adopted an Act on establishing a higher school in Sofia.
- 1907 - King Gustav V of Sweden accedes to the Swedish throne
- 1914 - Battle of the Falkland Islands fought.
- 1941 - World War II: After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the previous day, the U.S. Congress passes a declaration of war against Japan, bringing the United States of America officially into World War II; Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin casts the only "no" vote. In response, Hitler's Germany declares war on the United States.
- 1941 - Holocaust: First Nazi use of gas vans on Jews, at the Chelmno camp near Lodz.
- 1949 - Chinese Civil War: The capital of the Republic of China is moved from Nanjing to Taipei, Taiwan
- 1961 - A fire at a hospital in Hartford, Connecticut kills 16 people.
- 1968 - NLS (a system for which hypertext and the computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco
- 1969 - An Olympic Airways DC-6B crashes near Athens during a storm killing 93 people.
- 1976 - The Eagles release one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, Hotel California
- 1980 - Mark David Chapman murders former Beatle John Lennon.
- 1987 - The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed.
- 1991 - Leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine met and signed an agreement ending the U.S.S.R. and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Nature Reserve in Belarus
- 1991 - First post-Communist Romanian Constitution is adopted in a referendum.
- 1993 - The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is signed into law by US President Bill Clinton.
- 1994 - US President Bill Clinton signs a bill enacting United States participation in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT was formally signed on April 15 1994, in Marrakesh, Morocco by 124 nations).
- 1998 - 81 people killed by armed groups in the Tadjena massacre in Algeria.
- 2003 - The Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada officially merge to create the new Conservative Party of Canada.
- 2004 - The Cuzco Declaration was signed in Cuzco, Peru, establishing the South American Community of Nations, a regional parliament, a common market and a common currency for South American nations.
- 2004 - Former Pantera guitarist Darrell Abbott was killed on stage at a Nightclub in Columbus, Ohio.
- 65 BC - Horace, poet (d. 8 BC)
- 1542 - Mary Queen of Scots (d. 1587)
- 1626 - Queen Christina of Sweden (d. 1689)
- 1708 - Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1765)
- 1730 - Jan Ingenhousz, physiologist, botanist (d. 1799)
- 1765 - Eli Whitney, inventor (d. 1825)
- 1790 - Richard Carlille , reformer (d. 1843)
- 1813 - Adolf Kolping , theologian (d. 1865)
- 1815 - Adolph Menzel, painter and graphic artist (d. 1905)
- 1816 - August Belmont, Sr., Prussian-born financier (d. 1890)
- 1832 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norwegian author (d. 1910)
- 1848 - Joel Chandler Harris, author and folklorist (d. 1908)
- 1861 - Aristide Maillol, sculptor (d. 1944)
- 1861 - William C. Durant, automobile pioneer (d. 1947)
- 1862 - Georges Feydeau, French playwright (d. 1921)
- 1864 - Camille Claudel, graphic artist (d. 1943)
- 1865 - Jean Sibelius, composer (d. 1957)
- 1886 - Diego Rivera, painter (d. 1957)
- 1890 - Bohuslav Martinu, composer (d. 1959)
- 1894 - James Thurber, writer (d. 1961)
- 1911 - Lee J. Cobb, actor (d. 1976)
- 1918 - Gérard Souzay, French baritone (d. 2004)
- 1919 - Peter Tali Coleman, American politician (d. 1997)
- 1923 - Rudolph Pariser, chemist
- 1925 - Sammy Davis Jr., actor, singer (d. 1990)
- 1927 - Vladimir Shatalov, cosmonaut
- 1930 - Maximilian Schell, actor, film director, author
- 1933 - Flip Wilson, comedian (d. 1998)
- 1936 - David Carradine, actor
- 1937 - James MacArthur, actor
- 1937 - Arne Næss Jr., Norwegian mountaineer, businessman (d. 2004)
- 1939 - James Galway, Irish flutist
- 1943 - Jim Morrison, singer (The Doors) (d. 1971)
- 1946 - John Rubinstein , actor, composer
- 1947 - Gregg Allman, musician
- 1950 - Rick Baker, film makeup artist
- 1953 - Kim Basinger, actress
- 1956 - Warren Cuccurullo, musician
- 1957 - Phil Collen, guitarist (Def Leppard)
- 1961 - Ann Coulter, author, political commentator, attorney
- 1964 - Teri Hatcher, actress
- 1966 - Sinéad O'Connor, musician
- 1968 - Mike Mussina, baseball player
- 1976 - Dominic Monaghan, actor
- 1978 - Vernon Wells, baseball player
- 1986 - Amir Khan, boxer
- 899 - Arnulf of Carinthia (b. 850)
- 1638 - Ivan Gundulic, poet, Croatia
- 1722 - Elisabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz (Liselotte von der Pfalz), Duchess of Orléans and sister-in-law of Louis XIV
- 1859 - Thomas de Quincey, English author (b. 1785)
- 1864 - George Boole, mathematician
- 1907 - King Oscar II of Sweden (b. 1829)
- 1917 - Mendele Moykher Sforim, writer (b. 1836)
- 1952 - Charles Lightoller RMS Titanic second-officer (b. 1874)
- 1958 - Tris Speaker, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1888)
- 1978 - Golda Meir, prime minister of Israel
- 1980 - John Lennon, English musician from The Beatles (b. 1940)
- 1982 - Marty Robbins, country music singer
- 1983 - Slim Pickens, actor
- 1992 - William Shawn, American magazine editor (The New Yorker) (b. 1917)
- 1996 - Howard Rollins Jr. , actor
- 1999 - Kuczka Péter, Hungarian writer, poet, and science fiction editor (b. 1923)
- 2001 - Kurt Ruh , German scholar
- 2001 - Don Tennant, American advertising executive (b. 1922)
- 2003 - Rubén González, Cuban pianist Buena Vista Social Club
- 2003 - Hans Hotter, German bass-baritone (b. 1909)
- 2004 - Darrell Abbott, guitarist (Damageplan and Pantera) (b. 1966)
Holidays and observances
December 7 - December 9 - November 8 - January 8 -- listing of all days
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