site.btaToday's Observances: January 8

Bulgaria:

- Midwives' Day. Also a popular feast day dedicated to children and birthing women. 

On this date in Bulgarian history: 

1945: The only Russian military cemetery in the Balkans is unveiled in Vidin. It holds 234 Soviet soldiers who died in World War II. 
1980: Petar Popangelov becomes the first Bulgarian to win an Alpine Ski World Cup event, a slalom in Lenggries, Germany. 
1996: Official start of mass privatization in Bulgaria. 
2004: NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General James L. Jones, pays official visit here.  
2015: Bulgarian mountaineers Doychin Boyanov, Nikolai Petkov and Alexander Shopov are the first to scale Great Needle Peak (1,679.48 m) on Livingston Island, Antarctica's second-highest peak.