| 8 May 1065 | Aragon, Spain [wars] | Ramiro I of Aragon is killed attacking the Moors in Graus. He is succeeded by his son, Sancho Ramirez. His death attracts volunteers from Western Europe to serve in the campaigns against the Moors. |
| 8 May–5 June 1191 | England, Cyprus, Navarre [wars] | King Richard I the Lionheart of England conquers Cyprus from its Byzantine ruler, Isaac II Angelus. While there, at Limassol, he marries Berengaria of Navarre (12 May). |
| 8 May 1360 | France, England [Hundred Years War (1337–1453)] | King Edward III of England concludes the preliminary terms of a treaty of peace with France at Brétigny, France, later to be confirmed in the Treaty of Calais. It gives Edward full sovereignty of Gascony and other debatable lands, as well as territory in the north of France. In return he renounces his claim to the throne of France. |
| 8 May 1721–7 March 1724 | Italy [Catholicism] | Following the death of Pope Clement XI, and after a long and contentious conclave, Michelangelo dei Conti, son of the Duke of Poli, near Palestrina, Italy, is unanimously elected pope as Innocent XIII. |
| 8 May 1838 | UK [suffrage] | The Working Men's Association in Britain, led by the Irish parliamentarian Feargus O'Connor, draws up the People's Charter, demanding universal male suffrage, vote by secret ballot, annual parliaments, payment of members of Parliament, abolition of the property qualification for members of Parliament, and the equalization of electoral districts. |
| 8 May 1842 | France [transport disasters] | The Paris–Versailles train jumps the track and catches fire trapping passengers inside the wooden carriages; 100 people die. It is the world's first serious train accident. |
| 8 May 1880 | France [births and deaths] | Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist best known for Madame Bovary (1857), dies in Croisset, France (58). |
| 8 May 1884 | USA [births and deaths] | Harry S Truman, thirty-third president of the USA 1945–53, a Democrat, born in Lamar, Missouri (–1972). |
| 8 May 1886 | USA [food and drink] | John S Pemberton invents the soft drink Coca-Cola in the USA: it goes on sale in Atlanta, Georgia, as ‘the intellectual beverage and temperance drink’, and is claimed to be a cure for headaches and dyspepsia. |
| 8 May 1903 | [births and deaths] | Paul Gauguin, French post-Impressionist painter, dies in Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia (54). |
| 8 May 1943 | Poland [Holocaust] | The rebellion of Warsaw Jews against the Nazis is finally put down. Around 14,000 have died, and the 7,000 survivors are sent to the death camp at Treblinka, Poland. |
| 8 May 1945 | Germany, France [World War II (1939–45)] | General Alfred Jodl signs the official surrender of Germany in World War II in Reims, France, at 2:41 a.m., in the presence of US general Dwight D Eisenhower and other Allied officers. 8 May is celebrated as VE (Victory in Europe) Day in Western Europe and the USA. |
| 8 May 1972 | North Vietnam, USA [Vietnam War (1954–75)] | The US president Richard Nixon orders the blockade and mining of North Vietnamese ports in the Vietnam War. |
| 8 May 1978 | Asia [mountaineering] | Reinhold Messner of Italy and Peter Habeler of Austria become the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, without bottled oxygen. |
| 8 May 1990 | Estonia, USSR [political events] | Estonia declares its independence from the USSR. |
