Today is May 8.
Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered this day in 1945, and it is celebrated as
VE Day.
Today is also
Ima Get Drunk As Fuck Day, and is celebrated everywhere within a five foot circle of me.
Events
1429 Joan of Arc lifts the Siege of Orlιans, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War.
1541 Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River and names it Rνo de Espνritu Santo.
1794 Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme gιnιrale, is tried, convicted and guillotined in one day in Paris.
1861 American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia is named the capital of the Confederate States of America.
1877 At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.
1886 Pharmacist John Pemberton (PBUH) first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.
1902 In Martinique, Mount Pelιe 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.
1919 Edward George Honey proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which ended World War I.
1942 World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Imperial Japanese 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.
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.
1980 The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox.
1984 The Thames Barrier is officially opened.
1988 A fire at Illinois Bell's Hinsdale Central Office triggers an extended 1AESS network outage once considered the "worst telecommunications disaster in US telephone industry history".
1847 Oscar Hammerstein I, 1884 Harry S. Truman (33rd POTUS), 1895 Fulton J. Sheen, 1911 Robert Johnson
1919 Lex Barker, 1920 Saul Bass, 1926 David Attenborough, 1926 Don Rickles, 1928 Ted Sorensen, 1940 Peter Benchley (author
Jaws), 1940 Ricky Nelson, 1940 Toni Tennille (Capt. & Tenille), 1941 James Traficant, 1943 Danny Whitten (Crazy Horse), 1944 Gary Glitter (kiddie fiddler), 1944 Bill Legend (T. Rex), 1950 Robert Mugge, 1951 Philip Bailey (Earth, Wind, & Fire), 1951 Chris Frantz (Talking Heads), 1953 Billy Burnette (Fleetwood Mac), 1953 Alex Van Halen, 1954 David Keith, 1955 Stephen Furst ('Flounder' in
Animal House), 1956 Jeff Wincott, 1958 Lovie Smith, 1959 Ronnie Lott, 1961 Bill de Blasio, 1964 Melissa Gilbert, 1973 Marcus Brigstocke, 1975 Enrique Iglesias
1794 Antoine Lavoisier
, 1819 Kamehameha I , 1880 Gustave Flaubert, 1903 Paul Gauguin
, 1947 Harry Gordon Selfridge, 1982 Neil Bogart (founded Casablanca Records, signed Donna Summer, The Village People, T. Rex, Parliament, Harry Chapin, Joan Jett, et al), 1982 Gilles Villeneuve
, 1985 Dolph Sweet, 1988 Robert A. Heinlein, 1994 George Peppard (
Breakfast At Tiffany's, Banacek, The A-Team), 1999 Dirk Bogarde, 1999 Dirk Bogarde, 1999 Dana Plato (
Diff'rent Strokes), 2008 Eddy Arnold, 2013 Jeanne Cooper (played 'Katherine Chancellor' for forty years on
The Young and The Restless), 2016 William Schallert (that guy who was in that thing)