8 January 1347

A Sunday in history

Weekday

Sunday

Season

Winter (N. Hemisphere)

Century

14th century

Records

349

  1. 2011

    Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a public meeting held by U.S. representative Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people and injuring twelve others.

    Source
  2. 2010

    Gunmen from an offshoot of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attacked the bus transporting the Togo national football team to the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola, killing three people.

    Source
  3. 1991

    Jeremy Wade Delle committed suicide in his high-school class in Richardson, Texas, an event that inspired the Pearl Jam song "Jeremy".

    Source
  4. 1981

    In Trans-en-Provence, France, a local farmer reported a UFO sighting claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".

    Source
  5. 1977

    Three bombs attributed to Armenian nationalists exploded across Moscow, killing seven people and injuring 37 people.

    Source
  6. 1972

    Following Pakistan's defeat in the Bangladesh Liberation War, President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto released Bangladeshi politician Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (pictured) from prison in response to international pressure.

    Source
  7. 1956

    Five Evangelical Christian missionaries from the United States were killed by the Huaorani in the rainforest of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.

    Source
  8. 1939

    The New Deal for Aborigines was formally announced by the Australian government, providing for full civil rights for Indigenous Australians in exchange for cultural assimilation.

    Source
  9. 1936

    Reza Shah issued the Kashf-e hijab decree, ordering Iranian police to remove hijabs from any women in public.

    Source
  10. 1918

    U.S. president Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points for a moral cause and for post–World War I peace in Europe.

    Source
  11. 1904

    Blackstone Library (pictured), the first branch of the Chicago Public Library system, was dedicated.

    Source
  12. 1889

    American statistician Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electromechanical tabulating machine for punched-card data.

    Source
  13. 1790

    George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address in New York City, then the provisional capital of the United States.

    Source
  14. 1735

    George Frideric Handel's opera Ariodante premiered at the Covent Garden Theatre (pictured) in London.

    Source
  15. 1697

    Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead became the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy.

    Source
  16. 1198

    Lotario dei Conti was elected as Pope Innocent III; he later worked to restore papal power in Rome.

    Source

Photo archive

24 historic images from this day — tap to open the gallery.

What was life like?

Prices, jobs, food, music and everyday routine — the world as it felt to live in.

Sources & fact check

Every claim is traced to primary sources, archives, universities and the press — with an explicit confidence rating. Dossiers are generated once and cached permanently.