On this day in history - November 8

What Happened On This Day – November 8

• 1972 Home Box Office launched

  The premium TV channel, informally known as HBO, is the oldest paid TV channel in the United States. The first program to screen on the channel was Sometimes a Great Notion, a movie starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.

• 1971 Coup in Thailand

  Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn staged a coup against his own government and dismissed the parliament citing increasing communist influence.

• 1939 Assassination attempt on Hitler

  Johann Georg Elser, a German woodworker, attempted to kill Adolf Hilter and other high ranking members of the Nazi party during the 16th anniversary observances of the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed coup attempt by Hitler in 1923. The time bomb Elser used in a beer hall called Bürgerbräukeller in Munich went off but failed to kill Hitler. Elser was caught and imprisoned in Dachau for 5 years.

• 1923 Beer Hall Putsch

  On this day, Adolf Hitler and other members of the Nazi party attempted to overthrow current government by marching to Berlin. They started the march at the Bürgerbräu Keller in Munich. The coup attempt was eventually unsuccessful and Hitler was captured and imprisoned for 2 years.

• 1895 First person to observe X-rays

  German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen accidentally discovered X-rays, also sometimes called Röntgen rays while working on cathode rays. X-rays are a type of electromagnetic radiation that are often used today in medicine. Röntgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for his discovery.