1633 Massachusetts Bay Colony forms its first government.
For acts of bravery on October 8th, 1858, during the Indian Mutiny, Thomas Monaghan from Abergavenny, a trumpeter in the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays), was awarded the Victoria Cross. Monaghan and Private Charles Anderson saved the life of their Colonel, Lt. Colonel W H Seymour C. B, after he had been attacked and felled by thirty to forty mutineers in a dense jungle. They held off the Sepoys and brought him to safety. ..
1871 The Great Chicago Fire began, starting in a barn owned by Patrick and Catherine O’Leary. Over 300 people died, and the fire destroyed a large part of the city.
… On 8th October 1945, Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party, was flown to Nuremberg, ending 3 years of imprisonment at Maindiff Court Military Hospital near Abergavenny.
Hess had made a dramatic midnight flight to Scotland in 1941, in what is thought to be, an attempt to achieve a peace between Britain and Nazi Germany. He had bailed out over Eaglesham, injuring his leg in the process and was arrested by members of the Home Guard. He then spent several weeks in the Tower of London (the last man ever to be imprisoned there) and at Camp Z in Aldershot undergoing interrogation and debriefing.
On 26 June 1942 he was transferred to Maindiff Court, where he had his own room, was allowed to keep journals, take walks around the grounds and often taken on drives around the local countryside. Then on 8th October 1945, he was taken to Nuremberg to face trial for war crimes. Found guilty, he was spared the rope but was sentenced to life imprisonment at Spandau Prison in Berlin, where after 1966, until his death in 1987, he was the sole occupant. …
1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his works critiquing Soviet oppression.
1999 A survey for the UK's National Farmer's Union discovered that pop music increased egg production in chickens! ..
8 Oct 1967 Jimi Hendrix, Arthur Brown and John's Children all appeared at the Saville Theatre in London, England.
8 Oct 1966 Cream drummer Ginger Baker collapsed during a gig at Sussex University, England after playing a 20 minute drum solo. He later recovered in a local hospital.
8 Oct 1965 The Florescents supported by The Castiles, which featured a young singer called Bruce Springsteen appeared at the I.B. Club in Howell, New Jersey. This was The Castiles first publicly advertised nightclub appearance. Admission was $1.00.
8 Oct 1965 During a UK tour The Rolling Stones appeared at The ABC, Stockton on Tees. Also on the bill, Spencer Davis Group, Unit Four + 2, The Checkmates, The End, and Charles Dickens and The Habits.[/b][media=https://youtu.be/5P9qpGezDbo]
