
1904: France and the United Kingdom sign the Entente cordiale ending a thousand years of rivalry and warfare between the two countries.
Specific to Africa, the agreement recognizes Britainโs authority over Egypt and France’s authority over Morocco, redraws the map of Nigeria to place more territories in France’s neighbouring colonies, and recognizes France’s power over the upper Gambia valley.
No Africans are involved in the making of the agreement.
1925: The Australian Government and the British Colonial Office offered low-interest loans to encourage Britons to borrow the money to emigrate to Australia.
1929: Indian independence campaigners Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt throw an explosive device into the central legislative assembly in New Delhi. Nobody is hurt.
1953: Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to 7 years hard labor
Kenyatta led the Mau Mau movement against the British colonialists. He is considered to be Kenya’s founding father and became the country’s first President in 1964.

1959: One of the first modern programming languages is created. The Common Business-Oriented Language or COBOL was primarily designed by a woman, Grace Hopper. Also known as Amazing Grace, she is regarded as one of the pioneers in the field.
1968: BOAC Flight 712 bound for Sydney caught fire shortly after takeoff from London Heathrow Airport. As a result of her heroic actions in the accident which claimed her life, Barbara Jane Harrison, a British air stewardess, was awarded a posthumous George Cross, the first GC awarded to a woman in peacetime.

1973: Pablo Picasso (born October 25, 1881, Mรกlaga, Spainโdied April 8, 1973, Mougins, France) Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century and the creator (with Georges Braque) of Cubism.

1986: Clint Eastwood was elected as Mayor of Carmel, California.

2004: Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups.
2009: Somali pirates hijack Maersk Alabama ship On April 8, 2009, the MV Maersk Alabama was hijacked off the coast of Somalia.

The high-profile incident drew worldwide attention to the problem of piracy, commonly believed to be a thing of the past, in the waters off the Horn of Africa. Pirates had not captured a ship sailing under the American flag since the 1820s.
Decades of instability in Somalia and the accompanying lack of policing in its territorial waters led to a resurgence of piracy in the region that peaked in the late 2000s.
Just a day before the attack, the Maersk Alabama received a warning from the United States government to stay at least 600 miles off the coast of Somalia, but Captain Richard Phillips kept the ship about 240 miles from the coast, a decision which was later criticized by members of his crew.
2013: Margaret Thatcher, the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom, dies in London at age 87 from a stroke on April 8, 2013.

Serving from 1979 to 1990, Thatcher was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century.
She curbed the power of Britainโs labour unions, privatized state-owned industries, led her nation to victory in the Falklands War, and as a close ally of U.S. President Ronald Reagan played a pivotal role in ending the Cold War.
A polarizing figure, Thatcher, nicknamed the Iron Lady, was credited by her admirers with championing free-market, conservative policies that revitalized the British economy.
2014: The start of the first state visit by an Irish head of state (President Michael D Higgins). A state banquet at Windsor Castle was also attended by former IRA commander Martin McGuinness.

Births on This Day, April 8
Bobby Ologun, 58
Nigerian mixed Martial artist and TV personality was born in Ibadan, Nigeria in 1966. Considered the most popular Nigerian export ever to Japan, he gathered a wide Asian following in the ring as well as from his TV show which he presented on Mezamashi network.

Matthew Healy, 35 years
Matthew Timothy Healy (born 8 April 1989) is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter of indie art pop band 1975. He is recognized for his lyricism, musical eclecticism, provocative onstage persona characterized as performance art, and influence on indie pop music.

Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973)
Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. He died at the age of 91.
Kofi Annan (8 April 1938 – 18 August 2018)
Ghanaian diplomat, 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations. Kofi Atta Annan was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize., Kumasi, Ghana. He was 80 years old when he died.

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