On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
In 2008, the world population was approximately 6,844,457,662 people[†]
2008Franco Sensi, Italian businessman and politician (born 1926)[†]
Francesco Sensi, Cavaliere del lavoro was an Italian oil tycoon. He was born in Rome, where he lived throughout his entire life, though he also served time as mayor of Visso, the city where his family came from. He had been for fifteen years, until his death, chairman of Roma, the major football club of Rome. He took control of the club in May 1993, both with Pietro Mezzaroma, and he then became the chairman on 8 November 1993.
2008American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals at one Olympic Games.[†]
Michael Fred Phelps II is an American former competitive swimmer. He is the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time with a total of 28 medals. Phelps also holds the all-time records for Olympic gold medals (23), Olympic gold medals in individual events (13), and Olympic medals in individual events (16). At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Phelps tied the record of eight medals of any color at a single Games, held by gymnast Alexander Dityatin, by winning six gold and two bronze medals. Four years later, when he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, he broke fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven first-place finishes at any single Olympic Games. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Phelps won four gold and two silver medals, and at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he won five gold medals and one silver. This made him the most successful athlete of the Games for the fourth Olympics in a row.
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The U.S. 4x100-meter medley relay team helped Michael Phelps surpass Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals.
The Costa Brava is still a place where fishing villages feel like fishing villages, where medieval mountain towns are hushed at siesta time, and where the landscape descends into blue waters.
Nowhere is disclosure more urgent than in the $2.6 trillion municipal securities market, an arena where information is scant.
Whether the race was close or one-sided, Michael Phelps beat every mortal who got into the pool with him. Now begins the debate. Is he the greatest Olympian ever?
In the Olympic marathon swim, Natalie du Toit will be the first female amputee in an able-bodied Olympics.
American officials said the Russian military has been moving launchers for short-range ballistic missiles into South Ossetia.
To those who look at American tabloid culture and say “good riddance,” I say, not so fast.
TechCrunch50, a new entrant in the technology conference market, has sparked a dispute over the ethics of the convention circuit and the fees charged to participants.
Saysme.tv didn’t invent the loudmouth, but, as the company’s logo indicates, it sure hopes to sell him a megaphone.
With polls showing a surge in primary-season ballots cast by voters under 30, media outlets are out to convert the newly energized voters into viewers.
The Olympics has become the hottest event of the summer, drawing an average audience of about 30 million a night on NBC, far beyond the network’s expectations.
The PBS film “Documenting the Face of America” shows how a small federal agency’s New Deal project to document poverty helped shape modern documentary photography.