A LOOK BACK AT LIFE ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

— In 1796, Yonge Street was officially opened, running 48 kilometres from what would become Toronto through to Lake Simcoe. — In 1820, Britain's King George III died insane at Windsor Castle, ending a reign that had seen both the American and French revolutions. — In 1829, McGill University in Montreal opened. — In 1845, Edgar Allan Poe's poem, The Raven, was first published under a pseudonym in the New York Evening Mirror. — In 1856, Alexander Dunn became the first Canadian recipient of the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military decoration. Dunn was honoured for gallantry during the 1854 Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. — In 1885, German inventor Karl Benz patented the automobile. — In 1900, the American League, consisting of eight baseball teams, was organized. — In 1918, German planes raided London during the First World War. — In 1936, the first members of the Baseball Hall of Fame were inducted in Cooperstown, N.Y. They included Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson. None were elected unanimously. No one has ever been elected unanimously to the Baseball Hall of Fame. — In 1946, Supreme Court of Canada Justice Ivan Rand handed down a decision to break the deadlock in a 112-day strike at the Ford of Canada plant in Windsor, Ont. What became known as the Rand Formula called for all employees in a bargaining unit to pay union dues whether or not they are union members. — In 1980, the world learned of the Canadian Caper. Canadian embassy officials in Tehran hid six Americans from Iranian militants for more than two months. The six were then smuggled out of Iran. — In 1980, postal union president Jean-Claude Parrot began serving a three-month prison term for defying a law making a postal strike illegal. — In 1985, New Brunswick Premier Richard Hatfield was found not guilty of possession of marijuana. — In 1986, scientists in Nova Scotia announced the largest fossil find in North America. More than 100,000 pieces of bone belonging to dinosaurs, reptiles and fish were found in a rock formation known as the Newark Supergroup, which extends all the way to South Carolina. — In 1990, former Exxon Valdez skipper Joseph Hazelwood went on trial in Anchorage, Alaska, on charges stemming from, at the time, the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. He was convicted of a misdemeanour. — In 1996, Lucien Bouchard was sworn in as premier of Quebec. He remained in office until 2001. — In 2009, Illinois state senators voted to convict Gov. Rod Blagojevich at his impeachment trial and remove him from office, after concluding he was guilty of trying to sell President Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat.