On This Day - What happened 8 February

After four years on the sidelines, Austria sought another war with France to avenge its recent defeats. Austria could not count on Russian support because the latter was at war with Britain, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire in 1809. Although Archduke Charles warned that the Austrians were not ready for another showdown with Napoleon, a stance that landed him in the so-called "peace party", he did not want to see the army demobilized either. On 8 February 1809, the advocates for war finally succeeded when the Imperial Government secretly decided on another confrontation against the French.

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was born on 8 February 1834, in the village of Verkhnie Aremzyani, near Tobolsk in Siberia. Dimitri was the youngest of 14 surviving siblings.

Du Bois used his influential role in the NAACP to oppose a variety of racist incidents. When the silent film The Birth of a Nation premiered in 1915, Du Bois and the NAACP led the fight to ban the movie, because of its racist portrayal of blacks as brutish and lustful.

The fighting in Singapore lasted from 8 to 15 February 1942, after the two months during which Japanese forces had advanced down the Malayan Peninsula.

On 8 February 1960, several years after the death of Queen Mary and the resignation of Churchill as prime minister, the Queen issued an Order in Council declaring that Mountbatten-Windsor would be the surname of her and her husband's male-line descendants who are not styled as Royal Highness or titled as prince or princess. While it seems the Queen had "absolutely set her heart" on such a change and had it in mind for some time, it occurred only 11 days before the birth of Prince Andrew (19 February), and only after three months of protracted correspondence between constitutional expert Edward Iwi (who averred that, without such a change, the royal child would be born with "the Badge of Bastardy") and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan who had attempted to rebuff Iwi.

On February 8, 1965, Armstrong and Elliot See were announced as the backup crew for Gemini 5, with Armstrong as commander, supporting the prime crew of Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad.

Aubrey's son Luca Andrea Dotti was born on 8 February 1970.

In 1971, the NASDAQ was founded and competes with the NYSE as the world's first electronic stock market. To date, the NASDAQ is the second-largest exchange in the world by market capitalization, behind only the NYSE.

On February 8, Bundy drove 150 miles (240 km) east to Jacksonville, in a stolen FSU van. In a parking lot, he approached 14-year-old Leslie Parmenter, the daughter of Jacksonville Police Department's Chief of Detectives, identifying himself as "Richard Burton, Fire Department", but retreated when Parmenter's older brother arrived and challenged him.

That afternoon, he backtracked 60 miles (97 km) westward to Lake City. At Lake City Junior High School the following morning, 12-year-old Kimberly Dianne Leach was summoned to her homeroom by a teacher to retrieve a forgotten purse; she never returned to class. Seven weeks later, after an intensive search, her partially mummified remains were found in a pig farrowing shed near Suwannee River State Park, 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Lake City.

On 9 February, a rebellion of pro-Khomeini air force technicians broke out at the Doshan Tappeh Air Base. A unit of the pro-Shah Immortal Guards attempted to apprehend the rebels, and an armed battle broke out. Soon large crowds took to the streets, building barricades and supporting the rebels, while Islamic-Marxist guerillas with their weapons joined in support.

UNCTAD Eighth Conference was held in Cartagena, Colombia.

On February 8, closing arguments were presented with each side allotted a three-hour time slot.

A new company was launched with much fanfare and publicity on 8 February 2007, under the name Virgin Media.

On 8 February during the 2016 Chinese New Year holidays, the Mong Kok civil unrest broke out between police and protesters following the government's crackdown on unlicensed street hawkers. Batons and pepper spray were used by the police and two warning shots were fired into the air, while protesters threw glass bottles, bricks, flower pots and trash bins toward the police and set fires in the streets. The main participant in the event, Hong Kong Indigenous, a political group with pro-independence tendencies, was branded by Director of the Chinese Liaison Office in Hong Kong Zhang Xiaoming as "radical separatists" who were "inclined toward terrorism."

On 8 February 2020, it was announced that a Japanese and an American died due to the virus in Wuhan. They are the first foreigners killed by the virus. By that day the WHO announced the confirmed cases is now 34 886 cases and the number of deaths is 724.

Bitcoin price surge after Elon Musk and Tesla announcements of investments in the Bitcoin include acceptance of payment.

The new code of laws, Sobornoye Ulozheniye, was adopted by Russia.

The French general, military governor of Switzerland, and the mayor of Freiburg, Louis d'Affry, was born in Switzerland.