![Today in History: June 08](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/GridArt_20240608_070703042-1024x1024.jpg)
1504: Michelangelo’s David installed in Florence
Believed to have been installed this day in 1504 in the cathedral of Florence was Michelangelo’s statue of David, commissioned in 1501 and considered the prime statement of the Renaissance ideal of perfect humanity.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Michelangelos-David.jpg)
1887: Herman Hollerith patents his punch card calculator. The U.S. data processing pioneer, one of the grandfathers of the technology company IBM, used his revolutionary machine to process the large amount of data collected during the U.S. census of 1890/1891.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Herman-Hollerith.jpg)
1896: Malagasy rebels in the Menalamba Rebellion seek to block France’s colonisation of Madagascar. Their goal is to rid the island of Western religions and influences and restore traditional beliefs. Today, rebels brutally murder Jacques Berthieu, one of five foreign missionaries, and all Malagasy Christian religious officials who are also killed. Berthieu is tortured, castrated, and shot. In 2012, he will be declared a Christian martyr and made a saint by Pope Benedict XVI.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Jacques-Berthieu.jpg)
1937: Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is premiered.
The cantata, especially Orff’s breathless rendition of the medieval poem O Fortuna, has been featured in countless works of popular culture, including The Simpsons, Last of the Mohicans, and Jackass: The Movie.
1968: James Earl Ray, suspect in Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, is arrested. James Earl Ray, an escaped American convict, is arrested in London, England, and charged with the assassination of African American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, King was fatally wounded by a sniper’s bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Motel Lorraine. That evening, a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle was found on the sidewalk beside a rooming house one block from the Lorraine Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness reports, and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect: escaped convict James Earl Ray.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/James-Earl-Ray-and-Martin-Luther-King.jpg)
1968: Senator Robert F. Kennedy buried. Three days after falling prey to an assassin in California, Senator Robert F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, just 30 yards from the grave of his assassinated older brother, President John F. Kennedy.
1972: Nick Út takes his famous “napalm girl” photo. The Pulitzer Prize-winning image officially entitled “The Terror of War” depicts nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc and other Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack. It has become one of the best-known symbols of the indescribable sufferings in armed conflicts.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/The-Terror-of-War.jpg)
1987: New Zealand becomes a nuclear-free zone
The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 barred any nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from entering the country. New Zealand was the first country to legislate towards a nuclear-free zone in the 1950s.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/New-Zealand.jpg)
1995: General Sani Abacha, leader of Nigeria’s military government, dissolves the federal executive council to allow his ministers to prepare for the planned democratic regime by playing an active role in the new political parties. However, no program has yet been developed for the transition to democracy.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Sani-Abacha.jpg)
1998: General Sani Abacha, who seized control of Nigeria in a 1993 coup d’état, dies and is buried, on the same day according to Muslim custom, without an autopsy. U.S. intelligence will confirm the widespread belief held in Nigeria that he was poisoned. General Abdulsalami Abubakar emerges as the country’s new head of state.
2009: Omar Bongo Ondimba was a Gabonese politician who was the second president of Gabon for almost 42 years, from 1967 until his death on this day.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Omar-Bongo.jpg)
BIRTHS ON THIS DAY: June 08
Kanye West, 47 years
Kanye, an American producer and rapper Kanye West—who parlayed his production success into a career as a popular critically acclaimed solo artist—was born in197. A subject of widespread controversy and public interest, West is a significant figure in contemporary pop culture.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Kanye-West.jpg)
Kim Clijsters, 41 years
Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters is a Belgian former professional tennis player who was born on this day in 1983. Clijsters reached the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles, having held both rankings simultaneously in 2003. She won six major titles, four in singles and two in doubles.
![](https://b.blackcampus.online/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Kim-Clijsters.jpg)
Iphie (Ifeoma Aggrey-Fynn) (8 June 1980 – 2 June 2015)
Ghanaian-Nigerian media personality and writer, in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The popular broadcaster died tragically at age 34 when the bus she was riding in Abia State, Nigeria was attacked by bandits, and she was fatally shot.
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