Events

The English fleet under Lord Howard of Effingham and Sir Francis Drake used fire ships to scatter the Spanish Armada from its anchorage at Gravelines on August 8, 1588. Eight unmanned vessels, packed with pitch and gunpowder, were set ablaze and sent drifting into the tightly packed Spanish formation at midnight. Panicked Spanish captains cut their anchor cables and fled into the North Sea. The subsequent Battle of Gravelines damaged dozens of Spanish ships but sank few. What destroyed the Armada was the weather: forced to sail home around Scotland and Ireland, storms sank at least 24 ships and killed thousands of sailors on the rocky Irish coast. England lost no ships. The defeat ended Spain's attempt to invade England and overthrow Elizabeth I.

The Battle of Amiens began on August 8, 1918, with an attack so successful that German General Erich Ludendorff called it 'the black day of the German Army.' British, Canadian, and Australian forces advanced up to 14 kilometers — an extraordinary gain in a war where 100 meters was often bought in blood. The Canadians led the assault. The attack used 552 tanks, coordinated with aircraft, artillery, and infantry in ways that German defenses weren't prepared for. Amiens began the Hundred Days Offensive that ended the war in November. The generals who had been learning to fight a new kind of war finally used what they'd learned.