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Today in History, November 8th

On November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in his Würzburg lab. Plus Lincoln's 1864 reelection and JFK's 1960 win.

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

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

November 8 is best known for 1895, when German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen stumbled onto X-rays in his lab in Würzburg. The date also saw Abraham Lincoln win reelection in 1864 and John F. Kennedy elected president in 1960.

The big story: Wilhelm Röntgen Discovers X-Rays (1895)

On November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen was running a cathode-ray tube in his laboratory at Würzburg, testing whether the rays could get through glass. Then something odd happened. A screen coated with barium platinocyanide, sitting some distance away, began to glow. Whatever was lighting it up passed through paper, wood and even aluminum, and it left marks on photographic plates. It did not reflect or bend the way light does, so Röntgen gave the mystery rays a placeholder name: X. He soon found they went through flesh but not bone, and among his first X-ray pictures were the bones of his wife’s hand. By 1897, X-rays were being used on a battlefield to find bullets and broken bones. Röntgen never tried to patent the discovery. In 1901 he received the first Nobel Prize in Physics, and his rays went on to change medicine, industry and security screening.

More events on November 8

Year	What happened
1864	Abraham Lincoln won reelection over George McClellan, his former general, 212 electoral votes to 21. Most Union soldiers voted for Lincoln.
1887	Doc Holliday, the dentist turned gambler who stood with Wyatt Earp at the O.K. Corral, died of tuberculosis at 36 in a Glenwood Springs, Colorado, sanitarium.
1932	In the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated President Herbert Hoover, 472 electoral votes to 59.
1939	On the anniversary of his 1923 putsch, a bomb hidden in a pillar exploded in the hall where Hitler had just addressed old party comrades, killing seven. Hitler had left about 12 minutes earlier. Carpenter Georg Elser is generally accepted as the bomber.
1960	John F. Kennedy narrowly beat Richard Nixon. At 43, he was the youngest man ever elected president and the first Catholic to win the office.
1965	In Vietnam, Army medic Lawrence Joel kept treating wounded soldiers despite being badly wounded himself. He received the Medal of Honor in 1967.
1994	In the “Republican Revolution,” the GOP won control of both the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years, making Newt Gingrich Speaker.
2016	Donald Trump was elected president, carrying key Rust Belt states, even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million.
2020	Alex Trebek, host of Jeopardy! since 1984, died at age 80.

Born on November 8

1897: Dorothy Day, journalist and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement.
1900: Margaret Mitchell, Atlanta author of Gone with the Wind.
1949: Bonnie Raitt, blues and rock singer and slide guitarist who won four Grammys in 1990.
1954: Kazuo Ishiguro, Nagasaki-born novelist of The Remains of the Day and 2017 Nobel laureate in literature.