This Day in History: Ellen MacArther breaks record for sailing solo around the world

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on February 8:

1921 – Shrovetide River Football.

1949 – In communist-ruled Hungary, Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty was sentenced to life imprisonment for anti-state activities.

1986 – Fatal Hinton head-on train collision in Canada.

2003 – India expelled Pakistan’s acting high commissioner Jalil Abbas Jilani and four other mission staff, accusing Jilani of funding separatists in Indian Kashmir.

2005 – Britain’s yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur breaks record for sailing solo around the world.

2006 – Scientists reported a fossil dug up in a remote Chinese desert lived 160 million years ago, more than 90 million years before Tyrannosaurus rex, clearly the earliest example yet found of a Tyrannosaur.

2007 – Museum unveils rare copy of Emancipation Proclamation, a document signed in 1863 by Lincoln declaring the end of slavery in the United States.

2013 – Blizzard disrupts transport, electricity in U.S., Canada.

2014 – Hotel fire in Medina, Saudi Arabia kills 15 people.

2017 – Dual U.S.-Somali citizen Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed sworn-in as Somalia’s new president.

2018 – Taiwan president visits rescue zone following quake.

(Reuters)