History of 8 February
- 1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced a plan to re-introduce draft registration.
- 1985 – “The Dukes of Hazzard” ended its 6-1/2 year run on CBS television.
- 1993 – General Motors sued NBC, alleging that “Dateline NBC” had rigged two car-truck crashes to show that some GM pickups were prone to fires after certain types of crashes. The suit was settled the following day by NBC.
- 2002 – The exhibit “Places of Their Own” opened at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The works displayed were by Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo and Emily Carr.
- 2005 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former MP A. Chandranehru dies of injuries sustained in an ambush the previous day.
- 2010 – A freak storm in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan triggers a series of at least 36 avalanches, burying over two miles of road, killing at least 172 people and trapping over 2,000 travelers.
- 2013 – A blizzard disrupts transportation and leaves hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in the Northeastern United States and parts of Canada.
- 2014 – A hotel fire in Medina, Saudi Arabia kills 15 Egyptian pilgrims with 130 others injured.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Steve Gohouri, Ivorian footballer (d. 2015)
- 1981 – Myriam Montemayor Cruz, Mexican singer
- 1983 – Jermaine Anderson, Canadian basketball player
- 1983 – Cory Jane, New Zealand rugby player
- 1983 – Jim Verraros, American singer and actor
- 1984 – Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Canadian skier
- 1984 – Cecily Strong, American actress
- 1984 – Panagiotis Vasilopoulos, Greek basketball player
- 1985 – Petra Cetkovská, Czech tennis player
- 1985 – Jeremy Davis, American bass player and songwriter
- 1987 – Javi García, Spanish footballer
- 1987 – Carolina Kostner, Italian figure skater
- 1988 – Keegan Meth, Zimbabwean cricketer
- 1989 – Zac Guildford, New Zealand rugby player
- 1989 – Julio Jones, American football player
- 1989 – Courtney Vandersloot, American basketball player
- 1990 – Emily Scarratt, English rugby union player
- 1990 – Klay Thompson, American professional basketball player
- 1991 – Aristidis Soiledis, Greek footballer
- 1991 – Roberto Soriano, Italian footballer
- 1991 – Nam Woo-hyun,South Korean singer and actor with the boy band Infinite.
- 1992 – Bruno Martins Indi, Portuguese-Dutch footballer
- 1992 – Carl Jenkinson, English-Finnish footballer
- 1994 – Hakan Çalhanoğlu, Turkish footballer
- 1994 – Nikki Yanofsky, Canadian singer-songwriter
- 1995 – Joshua Kimmich, German footb