August 8 birthdays & history

Famous people born on August 8

• 1966Jimmy Wales, American-British entrepreneur, co-founder of Wikipedia
• 1981Roger Federer, Swiss tennis player
• 1902Paul Dirac, English-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1951Mohamed Morsi, Egyptian engineer, academic, and politician, 5th President of Egypt
• 1937Dustin Hoffman, American actor and director
• 1901Ernest Lawrence, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1931Roger Penrose, English physicist, mathematician, and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1952Jostein Gaarder, Norwegian author
• 1951Louis van Gaal, Dutch footballer and manager
• 1998Shawn Mendes, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist

What happened on August 8

• 1576The cornerstone of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe's observatory Uraniborg was laid on the island of Hven.
• 1695The foundation for what is now known as the Wren Building, the oldest surviving college building in the United States, was laid in a ceremony at Middle Plantation, Virginia.
• 1831Four hundred Shawnee people agree to relinquish their lands in Ohio in exchange for land west of the Mississippi River in the Treaty of Wapakoneta.
• 1876Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.
• 1908Wilbur Wright makes the Wright Brothers' first public flight, at a racecourse at Le Mans, France.
• 1914The Endurance departed Plymouth, England, on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.
• 1942Quit India Movement is launched in India against the British rule in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for swaraj or complete independence.
• 1967The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is founded by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
• 1969At a zebra crossing on Abbey Road in London, Iain Macmillan took the photograph that was used for the cover of the Beatles' album Abbey Road.
• 1988The first night baseball game in the history of Chicago's Wrigley Field (game was rained out in the fourth inning).
• 2004A tour bus belonging to the Dave Matthews Band dumps approximately 800 pounds of human waste onto a boat full of passengers.
• 2007Space Shuttle program: STS-118 Mission: Endeavour takes off on a mission to the International Space Station.

Also observed on August 8

• Father's Day or Bā bā Day (爸爸節), Bā Bā is Mandarin for "father" and "8-8", or August 8. (Mongolia, Taiwan)
• Happiness Happens Day
• International Cat Day
• Namesday of the Queen (Sweden)
• Nane Nane Day (Tanzania)