TODAY IN HISTORY:
Pushkin killed in duel
In 3641 BC, according to the calculations of the Mayans, the world was created.
In AD 60 (traditional date), the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked at Malta.
In 1837, Russian poet and novelist Alexander Pushkin was killed in a duel.
In 1840, Britain’s Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
In 1846, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons, left Illinois and began an exodus to the American West, now Utah. They were led by Brigham Young, newly elected as their leader.
In 1906, Prince Rupert was chosen from 15,000 entries as the name of the Grand Trunk Railway’s Pacific terminal. Eleanor Macdonald of Winnipeg won $250 for suggesting the name.
In 1933, the first singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegraph Company in New York.
In 1949, Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman” opened at Broadway's Morosco Theater with Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman.
In 1956, Wilbert Coffin was hanged in Montreal for the murders of three American hunters, killed in the Gaspe in 1953. Many people believed he was innocent.
In 1990, Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl” became the first album to generate six No. 1 singles when “Opposites Attract” hit the top of the Billboard chart. Abdul became the first female artist to have an album stay in the top-10 for over 50 weeks.
In 1992, an Indianapolis jury found former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson guilty of rape and other sex-related charges in a 1991 incident involving a beauty pageant contestant.
In 2003, Inderjit Singh Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people, and was sentenced to five years in prison. He admitted to acquiring material for a bomb that police alleged caused the mid-air explosion. Reyat had completed a 10-year sentence for his role in a second bombing the same day that killed two baggage handlers at Japan's Narita airport. In January 2011, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for perjury. Reyat was convicted of lying at the trial of the two men who were accused and then acquitted of the Air India bombing.