Thursday 8 February 2024 Calendar with holidays, observances and special days

Holidays and observances

• Engineer's Day in Luxembourg
• Global Movie Day (Held on the second Saturday in February)
• Kite Flying Day
• Laugh And Get Rich Day
• National Molasses Bar Day and National Potato Lover’s Day in USA
• Opera Day
• Penitentiary Service Day in Poland (Prison service was established in 1919 and a Polish prison designated on February 8 (from 2011) pursuant to the Act on the Prison Service of April 9, 2010)
• Prešeren Day in Slovenia
• Propose Day in India
• Scout Sabbath in US
• The Inbox Day

Events

• 2013 – A blizzard disrupts transportation and leaves hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in the Northeastern United States and parts of Canada.
• 1978 – Proceedings of the United States Senate are broadcast on radio for the first time.
• 1974 – After 84 days in space, the crew of Skylab 4, the last crew to visit American space station Skylab, returns to Earth.
• 1971 – The NASDAQ stock market index opens for the first time.
• 1968 – American civil rights movement: The Orangeburg massacre: An attack on black students from South Carolina State University who are protesting racial segregation at the town's only bowling alley, leaves three or four dead in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
• 1963 – Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy administration.
• 1946 – The first portion of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the first serious challenge to the popularity of the Authorized King James Version, is published.
• 1924 – Capital punishment: The first state execution in the United States by gas chamber takes place in Nevada.
• 1922 – United States President Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio set in the White House.
• 1887 – The Dawes Act authorizes the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into individual allotments.
• 1885 – The first government-approved Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii.
• 1879 – Sandford Fleming first proposes adoption of Universal Standard Time at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute.
• 1865 – Delaware refuses to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Slavery was outlawed in the United States, including Delaware, when the Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 6, 1865. Delaware ratified the Thirteenth Amendment on February 12, 1901, which was the ninety-second anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
• 1837 – Richard Johnson becomes the first Vice President of the United States chosen by the United States Senate.
• 1575 – Leiden University is founded, and given the motto Praesidium Libertatis.

Births

• 1990 – Klay Thompson, American professional basketball player. A three-time NBA champion with the Warriors, he is a five-time NBA All-Star and a two-time All-NBA Third Team honoree.
• 1989 – Courtney Vandersloot, American basketball player. Courtney Vandersloot (born February 8, 1989) is an American basketball point guard for the Chicago Sky of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and Yakin Dogu in the Turkish Women's Basketball League (TKBL).
• 1989 – Julio Jones, American football player. Quintorris Lopez "Julio" Jones (/ˈhuːlioʊ/; born February 8, 1989) is an American football wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL).
• 1985 – Jeremy Davis, American bass player and songwriter. He was the bassist for the rock band Paramore until his departure in December 2015.
• 1984 – Cecily Strong, American actress. Cecily Legler Strong (born February 8, 1984) is an American actress and comedian who has been a cast member of Saturday Night Live since 2012.
• 1983 – Jim Verraros, American singer and actor. James Conrad Verraros (born February 8, 1983) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor, who placed ninth on the first season of American Idol.
• 1974 – Seth Green, American actor, voice artist, comedian, producer, writer, and director. Green has appeared in the films Radio Days, My Stepmother Is an Alien, Airborne, the Austin Powers series, Can't Hardly Wait, The Italian Job, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Without a Paddle, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , and The Lego Batman Movie.
• 1972 – Big Show, American wrestler, actor. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Big Show.
• 1970 – Alonzo Mourning, American basketball player. Mourning played most of his 15-year National Basketball Association (NBA) career for the Miami Heat.
• 1969 – Mary McCormack, American actress and producer. She has had leading roles as Justine Appleton in the series Murder One (1995–97), as Deputy National Security Adviser Kate Harper in The West Wing (2004–06), as Mary Shannon in In Plain Sight (2008–12), and as Peggy in the comedy series The Kids Are Alright (2018–19).
• 1969 – Mary Robinette Kowal, American puppeteer and author. Mary Robinette Kowal (born February 8, 1969 as Mary Robinette Harrison) is an American author and puppeteer.
• 1968 – Gary Coleman, American actor (d. 2010), was an American actor, comedian, and writer best known for his role as Arnold Jackson in Diff'rent Strokes (1978–1986). After a successful childhood acting career, Coleman struggled financially in later life.
• 1964 – Arlie Petters, Belizean-American mathematical physicist and academic. His monograph "Singularity Theory and Gravitational Lensing" is the first to develop a mathematical theory of gravitational lensing.
• 1961 – Vince Neil, American singer-songwriter and actor. Vincent Neil Wharton (born February 8, 1961) is an American musician.
• 1958 – Sherri Martel, American wrestler and manager (d. 2007), was an American professional wrestler and manager, better known by her ring names, Sherri Martel and Sensational Sherri.
• 1956 – Dave Meros, American bass player. Dave Meros (born 8 February 1956), is an American bass guitar player, best known as the bass player for progressive rock band Spock's Beard.
• 1956 – Marques Johnson, American basketball player and sportscaster. He spent the majority of his career with the Milwaukee Bucks.
• 1955 – Jim Neidhart, American wrestler, was an American professional wrestler known for his appearances in the 1980s and 1990s in the World Wrestling Federation as Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, where he was a two-time WWF Tag Team Champion with his real-life brother-in-law Bret Hart in The Hart Foundation. He also won titles in Stampede Wrestling, Championship Wrestling from Florida, Mid-South, Memphis and the Mid-Eastern Wrestling Federation.
• 1955 – John Grisham, American lawyer and author. John Ray Grisham Jr. (/ˈɡrɪʃəm/; born February 8, 1955) is an American novelist, attorney, politician, and activist, best known for his popular legal thrillers.
• 1954 – Joe Maddon, American baseball coach and manager. Joseph John Maddon Jr. (born February 8, 1954) is an American professional baseball manager for the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball (MLB).
• 1953 – Mary Steenburgen, American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's 1980 film Melvin and Howard.
• 1948 – Dan Seals, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2009), was an American musician. The younger brother of Seals and Crofts member Jim Seals, he first gained fame as "England Dan", one half of the soft rock duo England Dan & John Ford Coley, who charted nine pop singles between 1976 and 1980, including the No. 2 Billboard Hot 100 hit "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight".
• 1947 – J. Richard Gott, American astronomer and academic. John Richard Gott III (born February 8, 1947 in Louisville, Kentucky) is a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University.
• 1943 – Creed Bratton, American actor. Creed Bratton (born William Charles Schneider; February 8, 1943) is an American actor, singer, and musician.
• 1942 – Robert Klein, American comedian, actor, and singer. He had several comedy albums in the 1970s, was nominated for a Best Actor in a Musical Tony Award for 1979's They're Playing Our Song, and has made a variety of TV and movie appearances, including hosting Saturday Night Live twice.
• 1942 – Terry Melcher, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2004), was an American record producer, singer, and songwriter who was instrumental in shaping the mid-to-late 1960s California Sound and folk rock movements. His best-known contributions were producing the Byrds' first two albums Mr.
• 1941 – Nick Nolte, American actor and producer. He went on to receive Academy Award nominations for Affliction (1998) and Warrior (2011).
• 1941 – Tom Rush, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. Tom Rush (born February 8, 1941) is an American folk and blues singer and songwriter.
• 1940 – Ted Koppel, English-American journalist. Edward James Martin Koppel (born February 8, 1940) is a British-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline, from the program's inception in 1980 until 2005.
• 1937 – Joe Raposo, American pianist and composer (d. 1989), was an American composer, songwriter, pianist, television writer and lyricist, best known for his work on the children's television series Sesame Street, for which he wrote the theme song, as well as classic songs such as "Bein' Green" and "C Is For Cookie". He also wrote music for television shows such as The Electric Company, Shining Time Station and the sitcoms Three's Company and The Ropers, including their theme songs.
• 1932 – John Williams, American pianist, composer, and conductor. Williams has won 24 Grammy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, five Academy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards.
• 1931 – James Dean, American actor (d. 1955). He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark.
• 1930 – Alejandro Rey, Argentinian-American actor and director (d. 1987), was an Argentine-American actor and television director.
• 1930 – Arlan Stangeland, American farmer and politician (d. 2013), was an American politician from the U.S. state of Minnesota. As a Republican, Stangeland served on the Barnesville, Minnesota school board (1966–1975) and then as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives (1976–1977) before being elected to the U.S.
• 1926 – Neal Cassady, American author and poet (d. 1968), was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s.
• 1925 – Jack Lemmon, American actor (d. 2001), was an American actor who was nominated for an Academy Award eight times, winning twice. He starred in over 60 films, such as Mister Roberts (1955, for which he won the year's Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), Irma la Douce (1963), The Great Race (1965), The Odd Couple (1968, and its sequel The Odd Couple II (1998), both with frequent co-star Walter Matthau), Save the Tiger (1973, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), The China Syndrome (1979), Missing (1982), and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992).
• 1922 – Audrey Meadows, American actress and banker (d. 1996), was an American actress best known for her role as the deadpan housewife Alice Kramden on the 1950s American television comedy The Honeymooners. She was the younger sister of Hollywood leading lady Jayne Meadows.
• 1921 – Lana Turner, American actress (d. 1995), was an American actress who worked in film, television, theater and radio. Over the course of her nearly 50-year career, she achieved fame as both a pin-up model and a dramatic actress, as well as for her highly publicized personal life.
• 1920 – George W. George, American theater, Broadway, and film producer (d. 2007). His credits included the 1981 film My Dinner With Andre and several hit Broadway productions.
• 1918 – Freddie Blassie, American wrestler and manager (d. 2003), was an American professional wrestling villain and manager. Renowned as "The Hollywood Fashion Plate", he was a one-time NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion.
• 1914 – Bill Finger, American author and screenwriter, co-created Batman (d. 1974), was an American comic strip and comic book writer best known as the co-creator, with Bob Kane, of the DC Comics character Batman, and the co-architect of the series' development. Although Finger did not receive contemporaneous credit for his hand in the development of Batman, Kane acknowledged Finger's contributions years after Finger's death.
• 1913 – Betty Field, American actress (d. 1973), was an American film and stage actress.
• 1911 – Elizabeth Bishop, American poet and author (d. 1979), was an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Award winner in 1970, and the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976.
• 1906 – Chester Carlson, American physicist and lawyer, invented Xerography (d. 1968), was an American physicist, inventor, and patent attorney born in Seattle, Washington.
• 1903 – Greta Keller, Austrian-American singer and actress (d. 1977), was an American cabaret singer and actress.
• 1894 – King Vidor, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1982), was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades. In 1979, he was awarded an Honorary Academy Award for his "incomparable achievements as a cinematic creator and innovator." He was nominated five times for a Best Director Oscar, and won eight international film awards during his career.
• 1886 – Charlie Ruggles, American actor (d. 1970), was a comic American character actor. In a career spanning six decades, Ruggles appeared in close to 100 feature films, often in mild-mannered and comic roles.
• 1883 – Joseph Schumpeter, Czech-American economist and political scientist (d. 1950), was an Austrian political economist. He was born in Moravia, and briefly served as Finance Minister of Austria in 1919.
• 1882 – Thomas Selfridge, American lieutenant and pilot (d. 1908), was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army and the first person to die in an airplane crash.
• 1866 – Moses Gomberg, Ukrainian-American chemist and academic (d. 1947), was a chemistry professor at the University of Michigan.
• 1850 – Kate Chopin, American author (d. 1904), was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is now considered by some scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald, and is one of the most frequently read and recognized writers of Louisiana Creole heritage.
• 1820 – William Tecumseh Sherman, American general (d. 1891), was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–65), receiving recognition for his command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched earth policies he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States.
• 1817 – Richard S. Ewell, American general (d. 1872). Richard Stoddert Ewell (February 8, 1817 – January 25, 1872) was a career United States Army officer and a Confederate general during the American Civil War.

Deaths

• 2015 – Andrew Rosenfeld, English businessman, co-founded Minerva (b. 1962)
• 2014 – Nancy Holt, American sculptor and painter (b. 1938)
• 2013 – James DePreist, American conductor and educator (b. 1936)
• 2013 – Maureen Dragone, American journalist and author (b. 1920)
• 2013 – Nevin Scrimshaw, American scientist (b. 1918)
• 2011 – Tony Malinosky, American baseball player and soldier (b. 1909)
• 2010 – John Murtha, American colonel and politician (b. 1932)
• 2007 – Anna Nicole Smith, American model and actress (b. 1967)
• 2007 – Ian Stevenson, Canadian-American psychiatrist and academic (b. 1918)
• 2005 – Keith Knudsen, American singer-songwriter and drummer (b. 1948)
• 2004 – Julius Schwartz, American journalist and author (b. 1915)
• 2000 – Derrick Thomas, American football player (b. 1967)
• 2000 – Sid Abel, Canadian-American ice hockey player, coach, and sportscaster (b. 1918)
• 1998 – Julian Simon, American economist and author (b. 1932)
• 1997 – Corey Scott, American motorcycle stunt rider (b. 1968)
• 1996 – Del Ennis, American baseball player (b. 1925)
• 1994 – Raymond Scott, American pianist and composer (b. 1908)
• 1992 – Stanley Armour Dunham, American sergeant (b. 1918)
• 1990 – Del Shannon, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1934)
• 1987 – Harriet E. MacGibbon, American actress (b. 1905)
• 1985 – William Lyons, English businessman, co-founded Swallow Sidecar Company (b. 1901)
• 1982 – John Hay Whitney, American financier and diplomat, United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom (b. 1904)
• 1963 – George Dolenz, Italian-American actor (b. 1908)
• 1960 – Giles Gilbert Scott, English architect and engineer, designed the Red telephone box and Liverpool Cathedral (b. 1880)
• 1957 – John von Neumann, Hungarian-American mathematician and physicist (b. 1903)
• 1956 – Connie Mack, American baseball player and manager (b. 1862)
• 1936 – Charles Curtis, American lawyer and politician, 31st Vice President of the United States (b. 1860)
• 1932 – Yordan Milanov, Bulgarian architect, designed the Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church (b. 1867)
• 1768 – George Dance the Elder, English architect, designed St Leonard's and St Botolph's Aldgate (b. 1695)