A LOOK BACK AT LIFE ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

— In 1642, astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy, at the age of 70. — In 1800, the first soup kitchens were opened in London, England, for the relief of the poor. — In 1815, because transatlantic communications were so slow, an American force commanded by Andrew Jackson defeated British troops at the Battle of New Orleans, two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was signed in Belgium to end the War of 1812. — In 1889, Dr. Herman Hollerith of New York patented the first electrically operated computer to process information.The company he formed to market the invention would become IBM. — In 1908, the first coin is struck at the new Royal Mint building in Ottawa, ending years of importing Canadian currency from England. — In 1918, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson outlined his 14 points for a post-First World War peace settlement. — In 1941, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, who founded the Boy Scout and Girl Guides movements, died at age 83. — In 1941, the federal government announced the RCMP would register all Japanese Canadians in British Columbia for security reasons. They were later moved inland to detention camps. — In 1948, William Lyon Mackenzie King became the Commonwealth’s longest serving prime minister, with 7,825 days in office. He retired later in the year. — In 1954, the first crude oil reached Sarnia, Ont., through a pipeline from Edmonton. — In 1986, all Libyan assets in the United States were frozen by President Ronald Reagan because of what he called Libya’s support of international terrorism. — In 1990, Canada formally joined the Organization of American States. — In 1998, a state of emergency was declared in more than 18 Ontario municipalities, including Ottawa-Carleton, and in Montreal due to the worst ice storm in living memory.The storm knocked out power to 1.3 million households, caused more than two dozen deaths and over $1-billion in insurance claims. — In 2007, Graham James, the junior coach convicted in 1997 of sexually abusing his players in a case that rocked the hockey world from house leagues to the NHL, was pardoned by the National Parole Board. It didn’t become public knowledge though until April 2010, when a previously unknown accuser contacted Winnipeg police. — In 2013, after more than 13 years of legal wrangling, the Federal Court ruled that the more than 600,000 Aboriginal Peoples estimated to be living off-reserve are “Indians” under a section of the Constitution Act.