TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2019

On this day in history:

1469 - Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile. The marriage united all the dominions of Spain.

1685 - King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had established the legal toleration of the Protestant population.

1818 - Oxley loses a valuable horse crossing Camden Haven, New South Wales.

1860 - British troops burned the Yuanmingyuan at the end of the Second Opium War. 1909 - New South Wales agrees to surrender 2400 square kilometres of land for the creation of the Australian Capital Territory.

1928 - Constable William Murray returns to Alice Springs after massacring Aborigines at Coniston Station.

1944 - Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviets during World War II.

1970 - Quebec’s minister of labour was found strangled to death after eight days of being held captive by the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ). 1985 - South African authorities hanged black activist Benjamin Moloise. Moloise had been convicted of murdering a police officer.

1989 - Egon Krenz became the leader of East Germany after Erich Honecker was ousted. Honeker had been in power for 18 years.

1990 - Iraq made an offer to the world that it would sell oil for $21 a barrel. The price level was the same as it had been before the invasion of Kuwait. 2013 - Saudi Arabia became the first nation to reject a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Jordan took the seat on December 6.

BIRTHDAYS

Giovanni Canaletto 1697 Landscape artist Salomon Andree 1854 Explorer

Henri Bergson 1859 Philosopher, author

Lotte Lenya (Karoline Blamauer) 1898 - Singer, actress

James Brooks 1906 - Artist Anita O’Day 1919 - Singer Pierre Elliott Trudeau 1919 Prime Minister of Canada Melina Mercouri 1920 - Actress Chuck Berry (Charles Edward Anderson Berry) 1926 - Singer