Dec. 8 history:
In 1775, Colonel Benedict Arnold and General Richard Montgomery lead an American force in the siege of Quebec. The Americans hoped to capture the British-occupied city and with it win support for the American cause in Canada.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln offers his conciliatory plan for reunification of the United States with his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.
In 1886, the American Federation of Labor was founded in Columbus, Ohio.
In 1941, the United States entered World War II as Congress declared war against Imperial Japan a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress and a dedicated lifelong pacifist, casts the sole Congressional vote against the U.S. declaration of war on Japan.
In 1949, the Chinese Nationalist government moved from the Chinese mainland to Formosa (now Taiwan) as the Communists pressed their attacks.
In 1969, at a news conference, President Richard Nixon says that the Vietnam War is coming to a “conclusion as a result of the plan that we have instituted.” Nixon had announced at a conference in Midway in June that the United States would be following a new program he termed “Vietnamization. But it would not be over until January 1973 with negotiations and signings at the Paris Peace Accords.
In 1980, rock star and former Beatle John Lennon was shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by Mark David Chapman.
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty at the White House calling for destruction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
In 1993, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Clinton said he hoped the agreement would encourage other nations to work toward a broader world-trade pact.
In 2001, the U.S. Capitol was reopened to tourists after a 2-month security shutdown.
In 2008, in a startling about-face, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal he would confess to masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks; four other men also abandoned their defenses.
In 2011, the 161-day NBA lockout ended when owners and players ratified the new collective bargaining agreement.
In 2014, the U.S. and NATO ceremonially ended their combat mission in Afghanistan, 13 years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks that sparked their invasion of the country to topple the Taliban-led government.
In 2016, John Glenn, whose 1962 flight as the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth made him an all-American hero and propelled him to a long career in the U.S. Senate, died in Columbus, Ohio, at age 95.
In 2020, the Supreme Court rejected Republicans’ last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the electoral battleground; the court refused to call into question the certification process in the state.
In 2012, Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy.
In 2017, Japanese pitching and hitting star Shohei Ohtani announced that he would sign with the Los Angeles Angels.
In 2022, Russia freed WNBA star Brittney Griner in a high-profile prisoner exchange with the U.S., which released Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. (History.com 12/08/23)
TODAY: Buddhists around the world are celebrating Bodhi Day. Also called Buddha’s Enlightenment Day, it commemorates when Siddhartha Gautama attained awakening — or enlightenment — some 2,600 years ago, becoming the Buddha.
