1. On December 8th, 1863, the Battle of Brandy Station took place in Culpeper County during the American Civil War. It was the largest cavalry battle of the war, with over 20,000 soldiers engaged.

2. In 1984, the Virginia General Assembly designated December 8th as Mary Washington Day to honor the mother of George Washington. Mary Washington was born in England in 1708 and moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia with her family in 1738.

3. The Virginia Tech massacre, one of the deadliest school shootings in American history, took place on December 8th, 2007. A lone gunman killed 32 people and injured 17 others on the university's campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.

4. On December 8th, 1962, the Homestead Strike monument was dedicated in Roanoke. The monument commemorates the 1892 strike by steelworkers at Carnegie Steel's Homestead plant in Pennsylvania, which led to a violent confrontation with Pinkerton detectives.

5. In 1838, John Singleton Mosby was born in Powhatan County, Virginia. Mosby was a Confederate cavalry commander during the Civil War and became known as the "Gray Ghost" for his skillful guerrilla tactics. After the war, he became a lawyer and served as U.S. Consul to Hong Kong from 1878 to 1885.