TODAY IN HISTORY: Air India inquiry opens

In 1493, Christopher Columbus set sail from Cadiz, Spain, with a flotilla of 17 ships on his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere.

In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and sailed into the Pacific Ocean.

In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg was signed, officially dividing Europe into the Roman Catholic church and the new Lutheran, or Protestant, church. Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, conceded lands to Protestantism to end the religious divisions in the empire.

In 1670, Dutch inventor Jan Van Der Hieda first demonstrated a fire engine using a water hose.

In 1690, “Publick Occurrences,” the first American newspaper, published its first — and last — edition in Boston.

In 1775, American Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen was captured by the British as he led an attack on Montreal. (Allen was released in 1778.)

In 1789, the first United States Congress adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, 10 of which became the “Bill of Rights.” They guaranteed such freedoms as speech, expression and religion.

In 1888, the first letter from the serial killer known as “Jack the Ripper” was received at the Central News Agency in London.

In 1890, polygamy was officially banned by the Mormon Church. The announcement followed on the heels of an 1890 Supreme Court ruling denying all privileges of U.S. citizenship to Mormons who practised this outlawed form of marriage.

In 1920, the names of eight baseball players involved in the “Black Sox Scandal” were made public. The Chicago White Sox players were bribed to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series. They were acquitted in court, but banned for life from baseball.

In 1956, the transatlantic telephone cable system between Britain and North America was inaugurated with a three-way exchange of greetings between London, Ottawa, and New York. The $42-million network, which linked Oban, Scotland, to Clarenville, Nfld., consisted of two lines — one each for east and west-bound calls — laid 32 kilometres apart on the ocean floor.

In 1988, a Toronto surgical team performed the first human sciatic nerve transplant, on a 9-year-old boy.

In 1991, Stan Waters — Canada’s first “elected” senator — died of brain cancer. His victory in Alberta’s 1989 election for a Senate nominee injected life into the debate over Senate reform. Waters, a member of the Reform Party, was appointed to the Upper Chamber by prime minister Brian Mulroney.

In 1991, Klaus Barbie, known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” died in a French prison hospital at age 77. The former Nazi Gestapo chief was serving a life sentence.

In 1992, the U.S. launched an unmanned spacecraft bound for Mars, the first flight of its kind in 17 years. In 1998, Frenchman Benoit Lecomte became the first person to swim the Atlantic Ocean. He had set off from Cape Cod, Mass., and reached the coast of Brittany after 72 days.

In 2000, Roy Romanow, 61, announced he was leaving politics after 35 years, the last nine of them at the helm as premier of Saskatchewan. He was later succeeded by Lorne Calvert.

In 2006, the Air India inquiry opened with testimony from relatives of some of the 329 people killed when Flight 182 was blown up in 1985 over Ireland.