TODAY IN HISTORY: B.C. rejects the HST
On this date in 2011, in B.C., 54 per cent of the 1.6 million ballots cast voted to dump the HST in a historic mail-in referendum, forcing the provincial government to revert to the PST and having to pay back $1.6 billion to Ottawa. (It took effect April 1, 2013).
In 55 BC, Julius Caesar launched his first attempted invasion of Britain, but achieved limited success.
In 1768, James Cook left Britain to explore the Pacific for the first time. He was chosen by the Royal Society of London to visit Tahiti to observe and document the planet Venus to help scientists calculate the distance of the earth from the sun. He also had a sealed envelope with orders from the Royal Navy to be opened at the end of the scientific work. The navy wanted him to find a southern continent that mapmakers thought existed and claim it for England. He visited both Australia and New Zealand and concluded neither were this southern continent.
In 1951, Toronto Maple Leaf defenceman Bill Barilko was killed in a plane crash during a weekend fishing trip in Northern Ontario. Barilko, who was 24, had scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in overtime against the Montreal Canadiens four months earlier. The crash site was not found until 1962, five weeks after the Leafs won their first Cup since Barilko’s goal.
In 1978, the Canada Jam rock festival, put together by the promoters of the famous California Jams in 1974 and ‘78, was held at Mosport, Ont., northeast of Toronto. The 20,000 fans who attended caused massive traffic tieups on roads leading to the site. Organizers were forced to bring in such headliners as The Commodores, Dave Mason, Kansas, The Village People and Triumph by helicopter.
In 1995, Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone” from “HIStory” became the first single to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
In 1997, former South African president F. W. de Klerk resigned as leader of the opposition and retired from politics. While in power, de Klerk helped dismantle apartheid and clear the way for all-race elections.
In 2003, a scathing U.S. government inquiry report concluded that a chunk of foam that struck “Columbia’s” wing downed the shuttle, but the root cause of the fatal crash was the culture at NASA, which for two decades had sacrificed safety in the pursuit of budget efficiency and tight schedules.
In 2004, singer Laura Branigan, best known for her 1982 platinum hit “Gloria,” died of a brain aneurysm in her sleep at her home in eastern Long Island, N.Y. She was 52. “Gloria” earned Branigan a Grammy nomination for best female pop vocalist, the first of four nominations in her career. She scored two other top-10 hits, “Solitaire,” and “Self Control.” In 2002, Branigan starred as Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway musical “Love, Janis,” which earned her rave reviews.
In 2009, authorities in California solved the 18-year-old disappearance of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who appeared at a parole office with her children and the Antioch couple accused of kidnapping her when she was 11. (Philip was later sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison and wife Nancy, was given a 36year term.)
In 2014, Miami-based Burger King announced an $11-billion merger agreement with Tim Hortons that would form the world’s third-largest quick service restaurant company. In October, Canada’s Competition Bureau approved the deal and Ottawa signed off on it in December.