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Explore 8 May

Explore 8 May: Europe celebrates victory as the war against Germany ends, the Battle of the Coral Sea checks Japan’s advance, the first glass of Coca-Cola is sold in Atlanta, and Gandhi begins a 21-day fast against untouchability. Meet Miguel Hidalgo, Roberto Rossellini and Charbel Makhlouf, born on this date, and remember John Stuart Mill.

This day through time →14 verified events across 6 eras

⌛14Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙8Born
Today ✦4Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ☆1Sporting
Moments ♫1Culture
Stories ☉1Observances
Winston Churchill waves to the crowds in Whitehall, London, on VE Day, 8 May 1945.
Winston Churchill waves to the crowds in Whitehall, London, on VE Day, 8 May 1945.
Image creditMajor W. G. Horton, War Office official photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1945

Victory in Europe: the war against Germany ends

Germany’s unconditional surrender, signed at Reims in the early hours of 7 May 1945, came into force at one minute past eleven on the night of 8 May. In Britain the government declared 8 May a public holiday, and at three in the afternoon Winston Churchill told the nation by radio that the war in Europe was over.

Huge crowds filled Whitehall and gathered outside Buckingham Palace, where the King and the royal family came out on the balcony, and towns across Britain and the Allied countries held street parties and services of thanksgiving. For many the day was bittersweet: families mourned those who had not come home, and the war against Japan went on for three more months. The Soviet Union, where the surrender took effect after midnight Moscow time, marked victory on 9 May.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Imperial War Museums: What you need to know about VE Day ↗
USS Lexington, the American carrier lost in the battle, leaving San Diego in October 1941.
USS Lexington, the American carrier lost in the battle, leaving San Diego in October 1941.
Image creditUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1942

The Battle of the Coral Sea checks Japan’s advance

On 8 May 1942, the last day of fighting in the Coral Sea between New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, American and Japanese carrier aircraft struck at each other’s fleets. The American carrier USS Lexington was torpedoed and bombed, and by evening she had been abandoned and sunk, while the Yorktown and the Japanese carrier Shokaku were damaged.

It was the first sea battle in which the opposing ships never fired on each other and fought entirely through aircraft. Japan lost fewer ships, but its invasion force bound for Port Moresby turned back, the first time its advance across the Pacific had been checked since Pearl Harbor. Australians remember the battle as a turning point in the defence of their country.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Australian War Memorial: Battle of the Coral Sea, 4-8 May 1942 ↗
A card for a free glass of Coca-Cola from about 1888, believed to be the first coupon ever.
A card for a free glass of Coca-Cola from about 1888, believed to be the first coupon ever.
Image creditCoca-Cola Company · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1886

The first glass of Coca-Cola is sold in Atlanta

On 8 May 1886 John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, carried a jug of a new syrup down the street to Jacobs’ Pharmacy. Mixed with carbonated water at the soda fountain, it was judged excellent and put on sale at five cents a glass.

Sales were tiny at first, averaging about nine glasses a day in the first year, and the name and its flowing script were suggested by Pemberton’s bookkeeper, Frank Robinson. After Pemberton’s death the business passed to Asa Candler, and the drink grew into one of the best-known brands in the world.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Georgia Historical Society: Birthplace of Coca-Cola marker ↗
Mahatma Gandhi in a studio portrait taken in 1931.
Mahatma Gandhi in a studio portrait taken in 1931.
Image creditElliott & Fry · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1933

Gandhi begins a 21-day fast against untouchability

On 8 May 1933 Mahatma Gandhi, held in Yerwada jail near Poona, began a fast of 21 days which he described as one of self-purification for the cause of the so-called untouchable castes, whom he called Harijans. The British authorities released him from prison that evening, and he carried on fasting at a private house in Poona until 29 May.

The fast was meant to press caste Hindus to open temples, wells and schools to those they had shut out. Not all Dalit leaders welcomed it: B. R. Ambedkar rejected the name Harijan and the idea that reform should be led by the upper castes, and argued instead for political rights.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Gandhi Book Centre (mkgandhi.org): Years of fasts of Mahatma Gandhi ↗
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PEOPLE

Born Today

Miguel Hidalgo
Image creditJoaquín Ramírez · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1753

Miguel Hidalgo

Mexican priest whose call to arms began the war of independence from Spain.

Saint Charbel Makhlouf
Image creditUnknown (Old Photo) · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1828

Saint Charbel Makhlouf

Lebanese Maronite monk and hermit, one of the most widely venerated saints in the Middle East.

Fernandel
Image creditAndré Cros · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1903

Fernandel

French comic actor famed for his toothy grin and the Don Camillo films.

Jean Giraud (Moebius)
Image creditJarek Obważanek, WRAK.PL · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1938

Jean Giraud (Moebius)

French comics artist whose work as Moebius shaped science-fiction art and film.

Meles Zenawi
Image creditWorld Economic Forum · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1955

Meles Zenawi

Ethiopian leader who governed the country as president and then prime minister for over two decades.

◉
IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

Antoine Lavoisier, detail of the portrait of him and his wife painted by Jacques-Louis David in 1788.
Antoine Lavoisier, detail of the portrait of him and his wife painted by Jacques-Louis David in 1788.
Image creditJacques-Louis David · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1794

Lavoisier, founder of modern chemistry, is guillotined

On 8 May 1794, during the Terror, the chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was guillotined in Paris along with other former members of the Ferme générale, the private company that had collected taxes for the king. He was condemned not for his science but for his part in that widely hated business.

Lavoisier had shown that burning is a reaction with oxygen, named oxygen and hydrogen, helped to create a system of chemical names still used today and set out the principle that matter is conserved in chemical reactions. The mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange is said to have remarked that it took only a moment to cut off his head, but a century might not produce another like it.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Science History Institute: Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier ↗
☆
SPORTING HISTORY

Sporting Moments

Mount Everest seen from Kala Patthar in Nepal, on the southern side climbed by Messner and Habeler.
Mount Everest seen from Kala Patthar in Nepal, on the southern side climbed by Messner and Habeler.
Image creditUwe Gille · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
1978

Everest is climbed without bottled oxygen

On 8 May 1978 the South Tyrolean climber Reinhold Messner and the Austrian Peter Habeler reached the summit of Mount Everest without breathing supplementary oxygen. Many doctors and mountaineers had believed that a person could not survive at that height without it, or would suffer lasting brain damage.

The pair came down exhausted but unharmed, having shown that the highest point on Earth was within reach of human lungs alone. Two years later Messner went back and climbed Everest solo, again without oxygen, and he later became the first person to climb all fourteen of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Reinhold Messner ↗
♫
MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

Paul Gauguin photographed in about 1891, the year he first sailed for Tahiti.
Paul Gauguin photographed in about 1891, the year he first sailed for Tahiti.
Image creditLouis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1903

Paul Gauguin dies in the Marquesas Islands

On 8 May 1903 the French painter Paul Gauguin died at Atuona on Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, where he had settled two years earlier in a house he called the House of Pleasure. He was 54, in poor health and in trouble with the colonial authorities, whom he had repeatedly attacked.

Gauguin had left a career as a stockbroker to paint, working in Brittany and alongside Van Gogh in Arles before sailing for Tahiti in 1891. His bold flat colour and scenes of Polynesian life shaped later painters, though his conduct on the islands, including his relationships with very young girls, is now widely questioned. He is buried in the cemetery above Atuona.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Paul Gauguin ↗
✦
LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Marquis of Pombal
Image creditUnidentified painter · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1782

Marquis of Pombal

Portuguese statesman who led the rebuilding of Lisbon after the great earthquake.

Jules Dumont d'Urville
Image creditJérôme Cartellier · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1842

Jules Dumont d’Urville

French naval explorer who charted Pacific islands and sighted Adélie Land in Antarctica.

Helena Blavatsky
Image creditUnknown photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1891

Helena Blavatsky

Russian-born mystic who co-founded the Theosophical Society.

☉
AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, whose birthday on 8 May is marked by the day.
Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, whose birthday on 8 May is marked by the day.
Image creditTime Life Pictures · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Annual

World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day

Every 8 May the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement marks its world day on the birthday of Henry Dunant, the Swiss businessman whose account of the wounded at Solferino led to the founding of the Red Cross. First held in 1948, the day honours the volunteers of the ICRC, the International Federation and some 190 national societies who help people in war and disaster without taking sides.

Source: IFRC: World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day ↗
HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 8 May chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 14 verified events and the sources behind them.

This day through time →
Sources & further reading