📜 This Day in History
April 8
217Roman emperor Caracalla was assassinated near Harran and succeeded by his Praetorian Guard prefect Macrinus.- 1630Kiliaen van Rensselaer purchased land near present-day Albany, New York, to establish Rensselaerswyck, which became the most successful patroonship under the Dutch West India Company.
- 1904France and the United Kingdom signed the Entente Cordiale, agreeing to a peaceful coexistence after centuries of intermittent conflict.
- 1933The Australian state of Western Australia voted to secede from the federation, but efforts to implement the result proved to be unsuccessful.
- 1961A large explosion on board the MV Dara in the Persian Gulf killed 238 people.
- 2008On board Soyuz TMA-12, Yi So-yeon became the first Korean astronaut.
Born on this day
- 1859Edmund Husserl, German Jewish-Austrian mathematician and philosopher (died 1938)
- 1892Mary Pickford, Canadian-American actress, producer, screenwriter and co-founder of United Artists (died 1979)
- 1911Emil Cioran, Romanian-French philosopher and academic (died 1995)
- 1938Kofi Annan, Ghanaian economist and diplomat, 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations (died 2018)
