1. On July 8, 1663, Charles Calvert, third Baron Baltimore, passed away in England. As the proprietor of what was then the colony of Maryland, his death sparked a succession crisis that would ultimately lead to a brief period of rebellion and political instability in the province.

2. The Battle of Monocacy, a key engagement during the American Civil War, took place on July 8, 1864. Union forces under General Lew Wallace were defeated by Confederate troops led by General Jubal Early, but the battle helped to delay Early's arrival in Washington, D.C., and thus may have prevented a full-scale Confederate invasion of the Union capital.

3. Helen Delich Bentley, a journalist, politician, and shipping industry activist, was born on July 8, 1923, in Ruth, Nevada. Bentley served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1985 to 1995, and was known for her advocacy on behalf of the port of Baltimore and the maritime industry more broadly.

4. On July 8, 1950, the Baltimore Orioles minor league baseball team (then called the International League Orioles) set a league record by scoring 30 runs in a single game against the Buffalo Bisons. The Orioles had 28 hits in the game, including home runs by six different players.

5. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, which spans the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and connects Virginia Beach and the Delmarva Peninsula, opened to traffic on July 8, 1964. At the time of its completion, it was the largest bridge-tunnel complex in the world, and it remains an important transportation hub for the region.