TODAY IN HISTORY: Mama Cass dies
In 1974, “Mama” Cass Elliott, formerly of The Mamas and Papas, died in London at age 32. The initial report on her death said she choked on a ham sandwich, but an autopsy revealed she also suffered a heart attack. Elliott had a reasonably successful solo career after the band broke up in
1968. Her biggest solo hit was “Dream a Little Dream of Me” which reached No. 12 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
In 1588, the Spanish Armada was defeated in the English Channel by the
British, led by Sir Francis Drake. Although Spain sent other fleets against England in the 1590s, none repeated the threat of the 1588 plan to invade England.
In 1858, the government of John A. Macdonald and George-Etienne Cartier resigned when the House of Commons voted against their motion to move the capital of the Province of Canada to Ottawa from York.
In 1873, the first Icelanders to migrate to Canada arrived. Their homes had been destroyed by a volcanic eruption. Numbering 285, they arrived in Quebec and headed for the Muskoka area of Ontario. They found it difficult to settle there, however, and moved on to Willow Point on Lake Winnipeg. They named it Gimli — Icelandic for paradise.
In 1874, social reformer J.S. Woodsworth was born. He helped form the Manitoba Independent Labour Party and was elected to the Commons in 1921. In 1926, he bargained his party’s two votes for a promise by Prime Minister Mackenzie King to enact an old-age pension plan.
In 1890, artist Vincent van Gogh died in Auvers, France, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In 1900, King Humbert I of Italy was assassinated at Monza, Italy.
In 1977, crude oil began flowing through the Alaska Pipeline into storage tanks at Valdez, Alaska.
In 1981, Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. An estimated 750 million people worldwide watched the televised ceremony. The couple divorced in 1996, one year before Diana died in a Paris car crash.
In 1984, Ottawa chef-caterer Linda Thom won Canada’s first Summer Olympics gold medal in 16 years. Thom claimed the women’s sport pistol title on the first day of competition in Los Angeles.
In 2003, the Canadian Football League terminated American businessman Sherwood Schwarz’s (not to be confused with the creator of “The Brady Bunch”) ownership of the Toronto Argonauts and seized control of the club.
In 2009, the hottest day ever was recorded in Vancouver, as the temperature reached a high of 33.8 C, breaking the previous record of 33.3 C set in 1960.
In 2011, Norway honoured the memory of 77 people killed in the nation’s worst peacetime massacre, with the prime minister calling on the nation to unite around its core values of democracy and peace. An 18-year-old Muslim girl, Bano Rashid, was the first victim to be laid to rest.
In 2019, Capital One said a hacker had gained access to the personal data of more than 100-million people, including as many as six-million Canadians. The hack exposed one million social insurance numbers — making it one of the largest security breaches in Canadian history. Credit card, credit limit, and contact information was accessed but no credit card numbers or log-ins were released. A Seattle woman — Paige A. Thompson — a former systems engineer at Amazon Web Services, who uses the handle “erratic” was charged with a single count of computer fraud and abuse.