1775
Apr 8, Adam A. Earl von Neipperg, Austrian general, Napoleon's wife; Marie lover was born

1893
Apr 8, Mary Pickford (Gladys Smith), silent film actress (Poor Little Rich Girl), was born

1921
Apr 8, Betty Bloomer Ford, first lady to President Gerald Ford, was born.

2003
Apr 8, Kidnapper-rapist John Jamelske, was arrested. He had imprisoned 5 women and girls, one after another, as sex slaves inside a makeshift dungeon in his DeWitt, NY, home.

2004
Apr 8, A Moscow court handed down a 20-year prison sentence to a Chechen woman who was earlier convicted of carrying a bomb that killed an explosives expert.

2007
Apr 8, In the Philippines Julia Campbell (40), American Peace Corps volunteer from Fairfax, Va., was last seen in the town of Banaue in Ifugao province. Her body was found April 18 in a shallow grave near Batad village. In 2008 Juan Duntugan was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison without parole.

2008
Apr 8, Nigeria's government filed graft charges against the daughter of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and two ministers sacked last month.

2009
Apr 8, In Canada Tori Stafford ( was kidnapped outside her school in Woodstock, Ontario. In 2012 Terri-Lynne McClintic admitted she had kidnapped Tori and delivered her to her boyfriend Michael Rafferty, who raped the child. McClintic said she then battered the girl to death with a claw hammer. On May 11, 2012, a jury in London, Ontario, found Rafferty (31) guilty of first degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault, dismissing his girlfriend's testimony that she alone was responsible for killing Tori Stafford.

2010
Apr 8, Israel lifted months of censorship on a military espionage case, confirming the house arrest of Anat Kamm (23), a former female soldier, charged with leaking more than 2,000 military documents to a newspaper. She had been arrested in Dec 2009. PM Netanyahu abruptly called off a trip to Washington just days before he was slated to attend a conference there on the spread of nuclear weapons, fearing Israel would be singled out over its own nuclear program. On Oct 31, 2011, Kamm was sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison. In Dec 2012, her sentence was cut by a year, to 3 ½ years. Anat Kam was freed on Jan 26, 2014.

2011
Apr 8, According to a study about one in 10 cancers in men and one in 33 in women in western European countries are caused by current and past alcohol consumption.

2012
Apr 8, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with Karen ethnic minority rebels in her first significant foray into politics since her election to public office a week earlier.

2012
Apr 8, In central Nigeria a car bomb blast outside a church in Kaduna on Easter Sunday killed at least 39 people and put the country on alert over fears of further attacks. Islamists shot dead a seven-year-old girl during a failed attempt to kill her policeman father hours after group members killed three in a separate raid.

2013
Apr 8, Margaret Thatcher (b.1925), the "Iron Lady" who transformed Britain and inspired conservatives around the world, died following a stroke. The former prime minister (1979-1990) had radically rolled back the state during her 11 years in power.

2013
Apr 8, In Egypt Dutch journalist Rena Netjes was arrested by Egyptian citizens while reporting in Cairo, accused of being a spy and handed to authorities who detained her overnight.