On This Day, August 8: Nixon Announces Resignation Over Watergate

August 8th holds a place in history marked by the passing of Roman Emperor Trajan in 117 AD, the last emperor to lead significant expansionist campaigns. His reign saw the Roman Empire reach its greatest territorial extent, with an estimated 70 million inhabitants. In 843, the Treaty of Verdun divided the Frankish state among Emperor Lothair I, King Louis the German, and King Charles the Bald, laying the groundwork for modern France and Germany. Serbia's first king, Stefan Nemanjić (Prvovenčani), was crowned in 1217, receiving his crown from papal envoys. The Duke of Alba arrived in the Netherlands in 1567, initiating a period of Spanish rule marked by terror and the Inquisition. The highest peak in the Alps, Mont Blanc, was first conquered in 1786 by French alpinist Michel Gabriel Paccard and his guide Jacques Balmat. Napoleon Bonaparte began his exile to Saint Helena in 1815, spending his final six years in confinement. The "Great Train Robbery" occurred in 1963, with criminals stealing 2.6 million pounds, leading to the arrest and conviction of 15 individuals. The founding of the International Military Tribunal for Nazi war criminals in 1945, based on the London Agreement, led to the Nuremberg trials. The Amiens Operation, a decisive Allied offensive against Germany in World War I, began in 1918. Notable births include Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata in 1883, a key figure in the Mexican Revolution fighting for "Land and Freedom," and Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis in 1919, who significantly contributed to Italian cinema's global success. Serbian historian Ilarion Ruvarac, a proponent of critical historical research, died in 1905.