June 8

• June 8, 68
  Galba, a commander of Roman forces in Spain, assumes the title of Caesar beginning a year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors
• June 8, 452
  Attila, military leader of Huns and one of the greatest of the barbarian rulers, invades Italy
• June 8, 632
  Mohammed, the founder of Islam and unifier of Arabia, dies, and Abu Bakr, his father-in-law, becomes the first Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate, the term comprising the first four "Rightly Guided" caliphs in Islam's history
• June 8, 793
  Vikings, seafaring north Germanic people, raid the Northumbrian coast in England and sack the city of Lindisfarne, beginning the Viking Age of Scandinavian history
• June 8, 1675
  Three Wampanoag Indians are hanged in Plymouth, Massachusetts for the recent murder of John Sassamon, an advisor to Metacom, a Native American Christian convert, triggering King Philip's War
• June 8, 1783
  Laki Volcano in southern Iceland begins 18-month eruption, pumping more ash into the atmosphere than any previous volcano in recorded history and wiping out 75% of the crops, which led to a severe famine that killed some 10,000 people or 20% of the population
• June 8, 1815
  The Congress of Vienna ends with creation of German Confederation, a loose association of 39 German states in Central Europe
• June 8, 1861
  One the second referendum Tennessee vote to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy, becoming the last state to do so
• June 8, 1869
  Ives W McGaffey of Chicago patents first vacuum cleaner, working with a belt driven fan cranked by hand
• June 8, 1906
  Antiquities Act, an act giving the President of the United States the authority to restrict the use of particular public land owned by the federal government, is signed by Theodore Roosevelt
• June 8, 1948
  Texaco Star Theater, one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, hosted by an American comedian Milton Berle, starts
• June 8, 1949
  English novelist George Orwell publishes his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which describes totalitarian practices
• June 8, 2009
  American car-maker General Motors files for bankruptcy, the third-largest in U.S. history and the largest ever in United States manufacturing, forcing the United States government provide US$30 billion of additional taxpayer funds to restructure