8 June

By its resolution 63/111 of 5 December 2008, the UN General Assembly decided that, as from 2009, the United Nations will designate 8 June as World Oceans Day.

The General Assembly also recognized the important contribution of sustainable development and management of the resources and uses of the oceans and seas to the achievement of international development goals, including those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration.

The resolution calls upon user States and States bordering straits used for international navigation to continue to cooperate by agreement on matters relating to navigational safety, including safety aids for navigation, and the prevention, reduction and control of pollution from ships.

Member states are also urged to increase the coverage of hydrographic information on a global basis to enhance capacity-building and technical assistance and to promote safe navigation, especially in areas used for international navigation, in ports and where there are vulnerable or protected marine areas.

Events June 8

68 – The Roman Senate proclaims Galba as emperor.
218 – Battle of Antioch: Elagabalus defeats with support of the Syrian legions the forces of emperor Macrinus. He flees, but is captured near Chalcedon and later executed in Cappadocia.
793 – Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of the Scandinavian invasion of England.
1191 – Richard I arrives in Acre (Palestine) thus beginning his crusade.
1405 – Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, are executed in York on Henry IV's orders.
1690 – Siddi general Yadi Sakat, razes the Mazagon Fort in Mumbai.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Trois-Rivières – American attackers are driven back at Trois-Rivières, Quebec.
1783 – The volcano Laki, in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine.
1789 – James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in the House of Representatives; by 1791, ten of them are ratified by the state legislatures and become the Bill of Rights; another is eventually ratified in 1992 to become the 27th Amendment.
1794 – Robespierre inaugurates the French Revolution's new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large organized festivals all across France.
1856 – A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.
1861 – American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.
1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Cross Keys – Confederate forces under General Stonewall Jackson save the Army of Northern Virginia from a Union assault on the James Peninsula led by General George B. McClellan.
1887 – Herman Hollerith applies for US patent #395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' – his punched card calculator.
1906 – Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.
1912 – Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures.
1928 – Second Northern Expedition: The National Revolutionary Army captures Peking, whose name is changed to Beiping ("Northern peace").
1941 – World War II: Allies invade Syria and Lebanon.
1942 – World War II: Japanese imperial submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.
1948 – Milton Berle hosts the debut of Texaco Star Theater.
1949 – Celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.
1949 – George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.
1950 – Sir Thomas Blamey becomes the only Australian-born Field Marshal in Australian history.
1953 – Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: A tornado hits Flint, Michigan, and kills 115.
1953 – The United States Supreme Court rules that Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons.
1959 – The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.
1966 – An F-104 Starfighter collides with XB-70 Valkyrie prototype no. 2 destroying both planes during a photo shoot near Edwards Air Force Base. NASA pilot Joseph A. Walker and United States Air Force test pilot Carl Cross are both killed.
1966 – Topeka, Kansas is devastated by a tornado that registers as an "F5" on the Fujita Scale: the first to exceed US$100 million in damages. Sixteen people are killed, hundreds more injured, and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed.
1967 – Six-Day War: The USS Liberty incident occurs, killing 34 and wounding 171.
1967 – Six-Day War: The Israeli army enters Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs.
1968 – Robert F. Kennedy's funeral takes place at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City.
1972 – Vietnam War: Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked 9-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc running down a road after being burned by napalm.
1982 – Bluff Cove Air Attacks during the Falklands War: 56 British servicemen are killed by Argentine air attack on two landing ships : RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram.
1984 – Homosexuality is declared legal in the Australian state of New South Wales.
1987 – New Zealand's Labour government establishes a national nuclear-free zone under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987
1992 – The first World Ocean Day is celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1995 – Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.
2004 – The first Venus Transit in modern history takes place, the previous one being in 1882.
2007 – Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of trade ship, the MV Pasha Bulker.
2008 – The Akihabara massacre takes place in the Akihabara shopping quarter in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Tomohiro Katō drives a two-ton truck into a crowd before leaving the truck and attacking people with a knife.

Holidays and observances

Bounty Day (Norfolk Island)
Christian Feast Day:
Chlodulf of Metz
Medard
William of York
June 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Queen's Birthday can fall, while June 14 is the latest; celebrated on the second Monday in June. (Australia, except Western Australia)
Primož Trubar Day (Slovenia)
World Brain Tumor Day
World Oceans Day (International)