A LOOK BACK AT LIFE ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

— In 1496, King Henry VII of England granted a charter to John Cabot and his three sons, permitting them to claim any and all lands they might discover. — In 1770, the Boston Massacre took place when British soldiers fired on a mob who had been harassing a sentry. Five men were killed and historians credit the event as one of the incidents that hastened the American Revolution. — In 1844, the seat of government for the united Upper and Lower Canada was moved from Kingston, Ont., to Montreal. — In 1844, the first issue of the "Globe," edited and published by George Brown, appeared in Toronto. — In 1910, an avalanche at Rogers Pass, B.C., killed 62 railway workers. — In 1933, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party were voted into power in a German election. — In 1946, Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. Said Churchill, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” — In 1953, Josef Stalin died after ruling the Soviet Union for almost 30 years. He was 73. After his death, first secretary Nikita Khrushchev charged the dictator with the murder of thousands during purge trials and farm collectivization in the 1930s. — In 1966, a BOAC (now British Airways) Boeing 707 crashed in the side of Mount Fuji in Japan, killing all 124 people on board, including one Canadian. — In 1970, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect after 43 countries ratified it. — In 1979, NASA's Voyager 1 space probe flew past Jupiter, sending back photographs of the planet and its moons. — In 1982, Steve Podborski of Toronto became the first North American to win the World Cup men’s downhill skiing championship. — In 1983, at Mount Tremblant, Que., Laurie Graham of Inglewood, Ont., won the first World Cup women’s downhill skiing championship held in Canada. — In 1990, workers in Bucharest, Romania, succeeded in removing a seven-metre, six-tonne bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin. — In 1992, the trial of four Los Angeles police officers charged with beating motorist Rodney King opened. Their acquittal sparked riots in the Los Angeles area. Two officers were later re-tried and convicted on federal charges. — In 1993, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was banned for life by the International Association of Athletics Federations for failing a second drug test. — In 1995, the disgraced Canadian Airborne Regiment was officially disbanded during ceremonies at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in eastern Ontario. — In 1998, DNA tests cleared Dr. Sam Sheppard in the 1954 murder of his wife, a case that inspired the television series and movie The Fugitive.