| 8 July 1343 | Poland [wars] | The Treaty of Kalisz ends the war between the Teutonic Knights and King Casimir (Kazimierz) III of Poland, who cedes Pomerania. |
| 8 July 1648 | UK [British Civil Wars (1642–51)] | A Scottish army under James, Duke of Hamilton, crosses the border and invades England in support of King Charles I (who is still captive in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight). |
| 8 July 1663 | North America, UK [law and government] | King Charles II of England grants a royal charter to Rhode Island. The charter gives the colony the right to elect its own governor and it also contains a guarantee of religious freedom. |
| 8 July 1695 | United Netherlands [births and deaths] | Christiaan Huygens, Dutch mathematician, astronomer, and physicist, who developed the wave theory of light, dies in The Hague, United Netherlands (66). |
| 8 July 1709 | Russia, Sweden [Great Northern War (1700–21)] | Russian forces commanded by Tsar Peter I the Great defeat the army of King Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava in southern Russia, the decisive battle that finally ends Sweden's period as a great power in Europe. |
| 8 July 1792 | France, Prussia [French Revolution] | France declares war on Prussia, in response to the Austro-Prussian alliance of 7 February 1792. |
| 8 July 1822 | England, Tuscany [births and deaths] | Percy Bysshe Shelley, English Romantic lyric poet, dies at sea off Livorno, Tuscany, Italy (29). |
| 8 July 1833 | Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire [political events] | By the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, a defensive alliance between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire agrees to close the Dardanelles to all but Russian ships. |
| 8 July 1838 | Germany [births and deaths] | Ferdinand (Adolf August Heinrich) Graf von Zeppelin, German builder of rigid dirigible airships, born in Konstanz, Baden, Germany (–1917). |
| 8 July 1839 | USA [births and deaths] | John D(avison) Rockefeller, US industrialist who founds Standard Oil, and philanthropist who founded the Rockefeller Foundation, born in Richford, New York (–1937). |
| 8 July 1858 | UK, India [wars] | The British declare the Indian Mutiny officially at an end. |
| 8 July 1859 | Sweden [political events] | King Oscar I of Sweden dies and is succeeded by Charles XV. |
| 8 July 1972 | USA, USSR [trade] | The US president Richard Nixon announces that the USSR will purchase $750 million worth of US grain over three years. |
| 8 July 1991 | Slovenia, Yugoslavia [political events] | Slovenia's independence is recognized by the federal government of Yugoslavia. |
| 8 July 1994 | North Korea [births and deaths] | Kim Il Sung, Korean dictator 1948–94, dies in Pyongyang, North Korea (82). |
| 8 July 2003 | Singapore [surgery] | Despite a successful separation after about 50 hours of pioneering neurosurgery in the Raffles hospital, Singapore, Ladan and Laleh Bijani, conjoined Iranian twins sharing a skull cavity, die from massive loss of blood. |
