Historical timeline for February 8

Two children are killed and six others are injured when a bus crashes into a daycare centre in Laval, Quebec, Canada. The driver is arrested and charged with homicide and dangerous driving.

A soldier opens fire in a military camp and a shopping center in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, killing 29 people and injuring 58 others before being shot dead by police the next day. It is considered the deadliest mass shooting in the country's history.

A hotel fire in Medina, Saudi Arabia, kills 15 Egyptian pilgrims with 130 others injured.

A blizzard kills at least 18 and leaves hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in the northeastern United States and parts of Canada.

Over 2 miles (3.2 km) of road are buried after a storm in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan triggers a series of avalanches, killing at least 172 people and trapping over 2,000 others.

An Iran Air Tours Tupolev Tu-154 and an Iranian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 collide mid-air near Qods, Iran, killing all 133 people on board both aircraft.

Independent Air Flight 1851 strikes Pico Alto mountain while on approach to Santa Maria Airport in the Azores, killing all 144 passengers on board.

Twenty-three people are killed when a VIA Rail passenger train collides with a Canadian National freight train near the town of Hinton, Alberta, making it one of the worst rail accidents in Canada.

A dust storm hits Melbourne, resulting in the worst drought on record and severe weather conditions in the city.

The crew of Skylab 4, the last mission to visit the American space station Skylab, returns to Earth after 84 days in space.

South Vietnamese ground troops launch an incursion into Laos to try to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail and stop communist infiltration into the country.

American civil rights movement: An attack on Black students from South Carolina State University who are protesting racial segregation leaves three dead and 28 injured in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Eastern Air Lines Flight 663 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean and explodes, killing all 84 people on board.

The regime of Prime Minister of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim is overthrown by the Ba'ath Party.

Nine protestors are killed at Charonne station, Paris, by French police under the command of ex-Vichy official and Parisian Prefect of Police Maurice Papon.

Queen Elizabeth II issues an Order-in-Council, proclaiming the House of Windsor and declaring that her descendants will take the name Mountbatten-Windsor.

The Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, is established.

The People's Republic of Korea is dissolved in the North and replaced by the communist-controlled Provisional People's Committee of North Korea.

World War II: Mikhail Devyataev escapes with nine other Soviet POWs from a Nazi concentration camp in Peenemünde, Usedom.

World War II: British and Canadian forces commence Operation Veritable to occupy land between the Maas and Rhine rivers.