| 40381 | April 8 | Event | 1964 – Gemini 1 (unmanned test flight) launched. |
| 40382 | April 8 | Event | 1968 – BOAC Flight 712 catches fire shortly after take off. As a result of her actions in the accident, Barbara Jane Harrison is awarded a posthumous George Cross, the only GC awarded to a woman in peacetime. |
| 40383 | April 8 | Event | 1970 – Bahr El-Baqar primary school bombing: Israeli bombers strike an Egyptian school. Forty-six children are killed. |
| 40384 | April 8 | Event | 1974 – At Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run to surpass Babe Ruth's 39-year-old record. |
| 40385 | April 8 | Event | 1975 – Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager. |
| 40386 | April 8 | Event | 1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis resigns amid controversy over racially charged remarks he had made while on Nightline. |
| 40387 | April 8 | Event | 1992 – Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announces that he has AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries. |
| 40388 | April 8 | Event | 1993 – The Republic of Macedonia joins the United Nations. |
| 40389 | April 8 | Event | 1999 – Haryana Gana Parishad, a political party in the Indian state of Haryana, merges with the Indian National Congress. |
| 40390 | April 8 | Event | 2004 – War in Darfur: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups. |
| 40391 | April 8 | Event | 2005 – Over four million people attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. |
| 40392 | April 8 | Event | 2006 – Shedden massacre: The bodies of eight men, all shot to death, are found in a field in Ontario, Canada. The murders are soon linked to the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. |
| 40393 | April 8 | Event | 2008 – The construction of the world's first building to integrate wind turbines is completed in Bahrain. |
| 40394 | April 8 | Event | 2013 – The Islamic State of Iraq enters the Syrian Civil War and begins by declaring a merger with the Al-Nusra Front under the name Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham |
| 40395 | April 8 | Birth | 1320 – Peter I of Portugal (d. 1367) |
| 40396 | April 8 | Birth | 1533 – Claudio Merulo, Italian organist and composer (d. 1604) |
| 40397 | April 8 | Birth | 1536 – Barbara of Hesse (d. 1597) |
| 40398 | April 8 | Birth | 1541 – Michele Mercati, Italian physician and archaeologist (d. 1593) |
| 40399 | April 8 | Birth | 1605 – Philip IV of Spain (d. 1665) |
| 40400 | April 8 | Birth | 1641 – Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney, English general and politician, Secretary of State for the Northern Department (d. 1704) |
| 40401 | April 8 | Birth | 1692 – Giuseppe Tartini, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1770) |
| 40402 | April 8 | Birth | 1726 – Lewis Morris, American judge and politician (d. 1798) |
| 40403 | April 8 | Birth | 1732 – David Rittenhouse, American astronomer and mathematician (d. 1796) |
| 40404 | April 8 | Birth | 1761 – William Joseph Chaminade, French priest, founded the Society of Mary (d. 1850) |
| 40405 | April 8 | Birth | 1770 – John Thomas Campbell, Irish-Australian banker and politician (d. 1830) |
| 40406 | April 8 | Birth | 1798 – Dionysios Solomos, Greek poet and author (d. 1857) |
| 40407 | April 8 | Birth | 1818 – Christian IX of Denmark (d. 1906) |
| 40408 | April 8 | Birth | 1818 – August Wilhelm von Hofmann, German chemist and academic (d. 1892) |
| 40409 | April 8 | Birth | 1826 – Pancha Carrasco, Costa Rican soldier (d. 1890) |
| 40410 | April 8 | Birth | 1827 – Ramón Emeterio Betances, Puerto Rican ophthalmologist, journalist, and politician (d. 1898) |