TODAY IN HISTORY: Bill Barilko killed in crash

In 55 BC, Julius Caesar launched his first attempted invasion of Britain, but achieved limited success.

In 1498, in Rome, Italian artist Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Alexander VI to carve the Pieta Mary lamenting over the dead body of Jesus Christ, whom she holds across her lap. The work was completed in 1501.

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 1784, Cape Breton, the island at the eastern extremity of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was separated from Nova Scotia as one of several separate jurisdictions created for the United Empire Loyalists. It became part of Nova Scotia again in 1820.

In 1833, British Capt. John Ross and his shipwrecked crew of 19 were rescued off Baffin Island. They had survived four winters with the help of the Inuit. Using shipwrecked boats they had found and fixed, the men set sail through a lane of water that opened up leading northward, and were rescued by Ross's flagship, the whaler "Isabella." Ross was a seaman for most of his life, entering naval service at the age of nine. He was wounded in the Napoleonic Wars. On his return to England from Baffin Island, Ross was knighted. He died in England in 1856, at age 79. In 1834, future prime minister John A. Macdonald began practising law in Kingston, Ont.

In 1843, the first typewriter was patented.

In 1850, Louis-Philippe, the last king of France, died. Chosen as king in 1830 following the overthrow of Charles X, Louis-Philippe reigned over an 18-year period in which the country prospered. Opposition to his government grew, however, and he was forced to escape to England after abdicating during the February Revolution of 1848.

In 1861, Toronto's Yonge Street line, the first street railway in Canada, opened.

In 1939, the first televised major league baseball games were shown on experimental station W2XBS. A double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. (The Reds won the first game, 5-2, the Dodgers the second, 6-1.)

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 1961, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker opened Canada's Hockey Hall of Fame at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds in Toronto. The hall moved into a restored bank building in downtown Toronto in 1993.

In 1987, the historic 80-year-old music building at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto was gutted by a fire.

In 2008, Major League Baseball announced umpires would be allowed to check video on home run "boundary calls" starting Aug. 27.