October 8
1952 112 people are killed as three trains crash at Harrow and Wealdstone station, a north-west suburb of London.
1955 The US Navy’s aircraft carrier USS Saratoga is launched.
1962 Uganda becomes an independent nation within the British Commonwealth.
1967 Che Guevara, a Marxist revolutionary is captured.
1975 Heavy fighting in Beirut and northern Lebanon kills at least 25 people.
1988 Riots break out in Algeria.
1990 Britain joins the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).
1992 Former West German chancellor Willy Brandt dies.
1993 UN lifts economic sanctions against South Africa.
1996 PLO leader Yasser Arafat makes his first public visit to Israel.
2001 An SAS airliner taking off for Denmark from Milan, Italy, hits a private jet and explodes, killing all 114 people on both planes and four people on the ground.
2002 Pakistan conducts tests of a medium-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
2005 A 7.5 magnitude quake kills thousands of people in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
2008 Maldivian islanders vote in the first democratic presidential election in their nation’s history.
2009 A suicide car bomb explodes outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing at least 17 people.
2016 Bangladeshi forces kill 11 suspected extremists during raids near Dhaka.
HIGHLIGHT
2003
Schwarzenegger wins California governorship
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the people’s choice to be governor of California, prepared to move swiftly to shape his administration after fears of a chaotic power transition faded. From humble beginnings as a farmboy in Austria, Schwarzenegger turned himself into the world’s greatest bodybuilder and Hollywood’s biggest action star. Along the way, he married into America’s leading political dynasty, marrying Kennedy relative and TV journalist Maria Shriver, a Democrat. Now the Republican actor best known as the Terminator has been elected leader of the most populous state in America after voters decided to oust Democratic Governor Gray Davis in a recall election. President George W. Bush said he has “great trust” in California voters and looks forward to working with Schwarzenegger.
