NOW & THEN
8 OCTOBER
1843: British-chinese commercial treaties confirmed Treaty of Nanking.
1896: The Dow-jones average index of selected stocks on the New York Stock Exchange was instituted.
1925: The first horse race won by a woman jockey took place at Newmarket. The rider was millionaire’s daughter Eileen Joel. The race rules stated it was open to any amateur rider but omitted to specify sex. Miss Joel wore a cloche-style hat instead of a riding cap.
1939: Germany incorporated western Poland into the Third Reich.
1942: Comedy duo Abbott and Costello launched their weekly radio show.
1945: US president Harry Truman announced the sharing of the secret of the atomic bomb with Great Britain and Canada.
1951: David Ben Gurion formed the third Israeli government.
1954: Communist Vietnamese forces occupied Hanoi.
1955: Launch of the world’s most powerful warship, the United States aircraft carrier Saratoga.
1959: The Conservative Party, led by Harold Macmillan, won the British general election. It was the third consecutive victory for the Conservatives.
1964: Beatles drummer Ringo Starr passed his driving test.
1965: The Post Office Tower opened in London. It was the tallest building in the UK.
1967: The first breathalyser test in Britain was administered, to a motorist in Somerset.
1967: Guerilla leader Che Guevara and his men were captured in Bolivia.
1970: The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Soviet author Alexandr Solzhenitsyn “for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature”.
1973: The first authorised commercial radio station in Britain opened when LBC (London Broadcasting) went on the air.
1982: Solidarity movement was outlawed in Poland.
1985: The West End production of Les Miserables opened at the Barbican Centre.
1990: Twenty-one Palestinians were shot dead in Jerusalem after throwing stones at Jewish worshippers praying at the Wailing Wall.
1990: The United Kingdom formally joined the European Monetary System.
1991: Croatia voted to sever constitutional relations with Yugoslavia, making the country fully independent
1994: The government came under pressure to hold a public inquiry into claims that Mark Thatcher received £12 million in commission from an arms deal negotiated by his mother when she was prime minister.
2001: American president George W Bush announced the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security.
2005: Thousands of people were killed by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in parts of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
2013: Peter Higgs and Francois Englert won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on the origin of the mass of subatomic particles.