Portal:Biography/Selected anniversaries/December 8

Births

 * 65 BC – Horace, Roman lyric poet (d. 8 BC)
 * 1765 – Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin (d. 1825)
 * 1817 – Christian Emil Krag-Juel-Vind-Frijs, 10th Prime Minister of Denmark (d. 1896)
 * 1832 – Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norwegian author and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1910)
 * 1865 – Jacques Hadamard, French mathematician (d. 1963)
 * 1861 – William C. Durant, founder of General Motors and Chevrolet (d. 1947)

Deaths

 * 899 – Arnulf of Carinthia, King of East Francia (b. 850)
 * 1918 – Josip Stadler, 1st Archbishop of Vrhbosna (b. 1843)
 * 1963 – Sarit Thanarat, 11th Prime Minister of Thailand (b. 1908)
 * 1978 – Golda Meir, 4th Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1898)
 * 1980 – John Lennon, singer-songwriter for The Beatles (b. 1940)
 * 1996 – Kashiwado Tsuyoshi, Japanese sumo wrestler and 47th Yokozuna (b. 1938)