Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July 8

This is a list of selected July 8 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← July 7	July 9 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

• 
  Statue of Yue Fei
• 
  Battle of Poltava
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  The Victory of Montcalm's Troops at Carillon by Henry Alexander Ogden
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  Charles XV of Sweden
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  Kim Jong-il
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  Soapy Smith
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  Our Lady of Kazan

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
1497 – Vasco da Gama set sail on the first direct European voyage to India.	featured on February 12
1879 – Led by George W. De Long, the ill-fated Jeannette Expedition departed San Francisco to reach the North Pole by pioneering a route through the Bering Strait.	TFA for 2016
1859 – Charles XV became King of Sweden and Norway following the death of his father Oscar I.	unreferenced section

Eligible

• 1579 – Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, was discovered underground in Kazan, present-day Tatarstan, Russia.
• 1663 – King Charles II of England granted John Clarke the Rhode Island Royal Charter, described by one historian as "the grandest instrument of human liberty ever constructed."
• 1709 – Great Northern War: Peter I of Russia defeated Charles XII of Sweden in Poltava, effectively ending Sweden's role as a major power in Europe.
• 1898 – American con artist and gangster Soapy Smith was killed in Skagway, Alaska, when an argument with fellow gang members turned into an unexpected gunfight.
• 1947 – After various news agencies reported the capture of a "flying disc" by U.S. Army Air Force personnel in Roswell, New Mexico, the military stated that what was actually recovered was debris from an experimental high-altitude surveillance weather balloon.
• 1994 – Upon the death of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il became the Supreme Leader of North Korea.
• 2011 – Space Shuttle Atlantis was launched in STS-135, the final mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program.

July 8

Joseph Bonaparte

• 1283 – War of the Sicilian Vespers: An Aragonese fleet of galleys inflicted a crushing defeat on an Angevin fleet at Malta, forcing Charles I of Naples to postpone his plan to invade Sicily.
• 1758 – French and Indian War: French forces defeated the British at Fort Carillon on the shore of Lake Champlain in the British Colony of New York.
• 1808 – Joseph Bonaparte (pictured) approved the Bayonne Statute, a royal charter intended as the basis for his rule as King of Spain during the Peninsular War.
• 1889 – The first issue of The Wall Street Journal, the world's most circulated business daily newspaper, was published.
• 1962 – In response to student protests at Rangoon University, Burmese General Ne Win ordered the demolition of the school's Students Union building.

More anniversaries:

• July 7
• July 8
• July 9