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On this day in history - June 8

What Happened On This Day – June 8

  • 1987 New Zealand becomes a nuclear-free zone

    The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 barred any nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from entering the country. New Zealand was the first country to legislate towards a nuclear-free zone in the 1950s.

  • 1972 Nick Út takes his famous “napalm girl” photo

    The Pulitzer Prize-winning image officially entitled “The Terror of War” depicts nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc and other Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack. It has become one of the best-known symbols for the indescribable sufferings in armed conflicts.

  • 1949 George Orwell publishes Nineteen Eighty-Four

    Orwell's nightmarish description of a totalitarian society set in the year 1984 is one of the most significant works of English literature and one of the best-known novels of all time. The phrase, Big Brother is watching you, stems from this work.

  • 1937 Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is premiered

    The cantata, especially Orff's breathless rendition of the medieval poem O Fortuna, has been featured in countless works of popular culture, including The Simpsons, Last of the Mohicans, and Jackass: The Movie.

  • 1887 Herman Hollerith patents his punch card calculator

    The U.S. data processing pioneer, one of the grandfathers of the technology company IBM, used his revolutionary machine to process the large amount of data collected during the U.S. census of 1890/1891.

Illustration of stork, signifying birth

Births On This Day,
June 8

  • 1983 Kim Clijsters

    Belgian tennis player

  • 1977 Kanye West

    American rapper, producer, director, fashion designer

  • 1921 Suharto

    Indonesian soldier, politician, 2nd President of Indonesia

  • 1916 Francis Crick

    English biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist, Nobel Prize laureate

  • 1867 Frank Lloyd Wright

    American architect, designed the Price Tower, Fallingwater

Illustration of tombstone, signifying death

Deaths On This Day,
June 8

  • 2009 Omar Bongo

    Gabonese politician, President of Gabon

  • 1982 Satchel Paige

    American baseball player

  • 1924 George Mallory

    British mountaineer

  • 1809 Thomas Paine

    English/American theorist, author

  • 632 Muhammad

    Islamic prophet