Year retrospective · 2000s

2008

2008 (MMVIII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2008th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 8th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 9th year of the 2000s decade.

Recorded events

10

top entries

Notable births

30

Notable deaths

30

Decade

2000s

Timeline

Defining events of 2008

  1. 2008 Kata Air Transport Flight 007 crashes while attempting an emergency landing at Chișinău International Airport, killing eight.

    2008 aviation incident in Moldova

    Kata Air Transport Flight 007 was an international flight from Vienna to Khartoum, with stopovers on Chișinău and Antalya. On April 11, 2008, the Antonov An-32 crashed short of the runway, near Băcioi. All eight people were killed.

  2. 2008 The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Baze v. Rees decision that execution by lethal injection does not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

    Highest court of jurisdiction in the US

    The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. S. S.

  3. 2008 The Quito Ultratumba nightclub fire in Quito, Ecuador, kills 19 people and injures at least 24 more.

    2008 fire in Ecuador

    The Quito Ultratumba nightclub fire was a fire that occurred on April 19, 2008, at the Factory nightclub in Quito, Ecuador, during the gothic rock concert Ultratumba 2008. A pyrotechnics accident during the show by Vendimia ignited a fire leading to the entire building burning. Of the over 300 people present, between both musicians and attendees, nineteen were killed with at least twenty-four injured.

  4. 2008 Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.

    American racing driver (born 1982)

    Danica Sue Patrick is an American former professional racing driver who competed in the IndyCar Series from 2005 to 2011 and the NASCAR Cup Series from 2012 to 2018. She is the most successful woman in the history of American open-wheel car racing—her victory in the 2008 Indy Japan 300 is the only win by a woman in IndyCar.

  5. 2008 ATA Airlines, once one of the ten largest U.S. passenger airlines and largest charter airline, files for bankruptcy for the second time in five years and ceases all operations.

    Defunct airline of the United States (1973–2008)

    , formerly known as American Trans Air and commonly referred to as ATA, was an American low-cost and charter airline based in Indianapolis, Indiana. S. mainland and Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Portugal as well as military and commercial charter flights around the world.

  6. 2008 Texas law enforcement cordons off the FLDS's YFZ Ranch. Eventually 533 women and children will be taken into state custody.

    U.S. state

    Texas is the most populous state in the Southern United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and an international border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south and southwest, that forms a natural boundary delineated by the Rio Grande. Texas has a coastline on the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast.

  7. 2008 Two skeletal remains found near Yekaterinburg are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei and Anastasia, two of the children of the last Tsar of Russia, whose entire family was executed at Yekaterinburg by the Bolsheviks.
  8. 2008 The 2008 Egyptian general strike starts led by Egyptian workers later to be adopted by April 6 Youth Movement and Egyptian activists.
  9. 2008 The Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Railway begins operation as the fastest commuter rail system in the world.
  10. 2008 Eleven mountaineers from international expeditions died on K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth, in the worst single accident in the history of K2 mountaineering.

Arrivals

Born in 2008

Hyein 2008– South Korean singer (born 2008)
Rio Ngumoha 2008– English footballer (born 2008)
Hudson Meek 2008– American actor (2008–2024)
Ella Gross 2008– American singer, model and actress (born 2008)
Ediz Gürel 2008– Turkish chess grandmaster (born 2008)
Rémi Himbert 2008– French footballer
Iain Armitage 2008– American actor (born 2008)
Lilliana Ketchman 2008– American dancer, model and YouTuber
Sutee Mcateer 2008– Keilor Basketball Association Player
Emma Kok 2008– Dutch singer (born 2008)
Abby Ryder Fortson 2008– American actress (born 2008)
Jackson Robert Scott 2008– American actor (born 2008)

Farewells

Died in 2008

Merlin German United States Marine
Cecilia Colledge British figure skater (1920–2008)
Patrick Hillery President of Ireland from 1976 to 1990
Jerry Zucker Israeli-American businessman (1949–2008)
John Archibald Wheeler American theoretical physicist (1911–2008)
Tommy Holmes American baseball player and manager
Ollie Johnston American animator (1912–2008)
Krister Stendahl Swedish theologian and New Testament scholar (1921-2008)
Edward Norton Lorenz American mathematician (1917–2008)
Aimé Césaire Martinican writer, poet and politician (1913–2008)
Danny Federici American musician (1950–2008)
Germaine Tillion French anthropologist, member of the French Resistance in World War II (1907–2008)

On the charts

Culture of 2008

By month

Across the calendar of 2008

Step through

Adjacent years

Keep going

More to explore