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Today in History, February 8th

On February 8, 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed at Fotheringhay. Plus the Dawes Act, Port Arthur and the Boy Scouts' founding.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published February 8, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

February 8 is best known for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587, after nearly two decades as Elizabeth I’s prisoner. The date also marks the Dawes Act of 1887, Japan’s surprise attack on Port Arthur in 1904, and the founding of the Boy Scouts of America in 1910.

The big story: Mary, Queen of Scots, Is Executed (1587)

Mary Stuart became queen of Scotland when she was six days old, and her life never got simpler from there. After a murdered husband, a scandalous remarriage and a forced abdication, she fled to England in 1568, hoping her cousin Elizabeth I would help. Instead she spent about 18 years in custody. Mary was Catholic and had a strong claim to the English throne, so plotters kept rallying around her. In 1586, letters tied to the Babington Plot, a Catholic scheme to kill Elizabeth, were intercepted, and Mary was tried for treason at Fotheringhay Castle and found guilty. Elizabeth hesitated for months, then signed the death warrant on February 1, 1587. A week later, on February 8 (Old Style), Mary was beheaded at Fotheringhay. The irony came 16 years later: when Elizabeth died childless in 1603, Mary’s son, James VI of Scotland, inherited the English crown.

More events on February 8

Year	What happened
1725	Peter the Great, the tsar who dragged Russia toward Europe and built St. Petersburg, died. His wife took the throne as Catherine I.
1887	The Dawes Act became law. It split many Native American reservations into individual allotments, and tribes went on to lose huge amounts of land.
1904	Japanese destroyers made a surprise torpedo attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, opening the Russo-Japanese War. Japan formally declared war two days later.
1910	Chicago publisher William D. Boyce filed incorporation papers for the Boy Scouts of America in Washington, D.C.
1915	D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation premiered in Los Angeles. It was a technical landmark, and its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan helped spark the Klan’s revival.
1950	East Germany’s parliament passed the law creating the Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi.
1968	Police opened fire on students at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, killing three young Black men and wounding 27 others, in what became known as the Orangeburg Massacre.
1974	The Skylab 4 crew splashed down in the Pacific after 84 days in orbit, a record for a spaceflight at the time.
2002	The Winter Olympics opened in Salt Lake City, where a flag recovered from the World Trade Center was carried into the stadium.
2005	Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced a cease-fire at a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Born on February 8

1820: William Tecumseh Sherman, Union general known for his march through Georgia.
1828: Jules Verne, French writer of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days.
1931: James Dean, actor whose brief career, including Rebel Without a Cause, made him an icon of 1950s youth.
1932: John Williams, composer of film scores for Jaws, Star Wars and E.T.