This Year in History:
1808
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
During the Peninsular War, a popular uprising against the French occupation of Spain begins in Madrid, culminating in a fierce battle fought out in the Puerta del Sol, Madrid’s central…
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, two of the few white men who had actually seen the mysterious territory of the Far West, help form a new company to exploit the…
In a decision that would eventually make them one of the wealthiest surviving Native American nations, the Osage tribe agrees to abandon their lands in Missouri and Arkansas in exchange…
On December 22, 1808, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67—the “Fifth Symphony”—receives its world premiere. It would soon become the world’s most recognizable piece of…
On this day in 1808, future President Andrew Johnson is born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Johnson’s career took him from mayor of Greeneville (1834) to the Tennessee legislature (1835) and…
