Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/December 8
- 1609 - Biblioteca Ambrosiana opens its reading room, the second public library of Europe
- 1632 - Death of Philippe van Lansberge, Flemish astronomer (b. 1561)
- 1730 - Birth of Jan Ingenhousz, Dutch-born British physiologist and botanist (d. 1799)
- 1765 - Birth of Eli Whitney, American inventor (d. 1825)
- 1795 - Birth of Peter Andreas Hansen, Danish astronomer (d. 1874)
- 1864 - Death of George Boole, British inventor of Boolean algebra (b. 1815)
- 1865 - Birth of Jacques Hadamard, French mathematician (d. 1963)
- 1894 - Death of Pafnuty Chebyshev, Russian mathematician (b. 1821)
- 1923 - Birth of Rudolph Pariser, Chinese-born American chemist
- 1947 - Birth of Thomas R. Cech, American chemist, Nobel laureate
- 1949 - Birth of Robert Sternberg, Proposed the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
- 1953 - Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the Atoms for Peace speech