THE DAY IN HISTORY · DECEMBER 8

December 8 in history

What happened on December 8: 4 moments from the Maps of History atlases, in 1914, 1941, 1949 and 1991, each linked to the map that shows it.

1914 — Battle of the Falkland Islands

8 Dec 1914 — Von Spee’s cruiser squadron has already destroyed a British force at Coronel. At the Falklands, battlecruisers catch the squadron coaling and annihilate it. Within four months, Germany’s surface war outside the North Sea is over, and the oceans belong to the Allies.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE WWI MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

1941 — Japanese invasion of Malaya

8 Dec 1941 — Japanese troops land at Kota Bharu in British Malaya an hour before the attack on Pearl Harbor, across the date line. Their southern advance for oil, rubber and tin has begun.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE ROAD TO WAR MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

1949 — Nationalist retreat to Taiwan

8 Dec 1949 — The Nationalist government moved to Taipei, taking the navy, the air force, two million soldiers and refugees, the treasury’s gold and the Palace Museum’s crates. Two states now claimed this map. The division established across the strait that December still governs it.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE CHINA IN REVOLUTION MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

1991 — Belovezha Accords

8 Dec 1991 — In a hunting lodge in the Belarusian forest, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus sign an agreement ending the USSR. Its words declare that “the Soviet Union as a subject of international law… has ceased to exist.”

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE COLD WAR MAP → · THE FULL STORY →