TODAY IN HISTORY: Trans-Canada Highway opens
In 590, St. Gregory the Great was consecrated the 64th Catholic pope, ruling 14 years. His administration took responsibility for converting the AngloSaxon tribes in England, chiefly through the work of St. Augustine of Canterbury.
In 1189, Richard I – known as “Richard the Lionhearted” – was crowned King of England.
In 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson and his crew aboard the “Half Moon” entered present-day New York Harbor and began sailing up the river that now bears his name. (They reached presentday Albany before turning back.)
In 1658, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, died at age 59. Cromwell led the parliamentary forces during the English Civil War and oversaw the execution of Charles I. He then ruled as a virtual dictator, imposing his puritanical beliefs on the country.
In 1783, Britain, France, Spain and the United States signed the “Treaty of Paris,” ending the American revolutionary war. It also set up the boundary between Canada and the U.S.
In 1879, the Toronto Industrial Exhibition, later to become the Canadian National Exhibition, opened for the first time.
In 1894, Labour Day was first celebrated in Canada and the United States to honour working men and women. The contribution of organized labour to Canadian society has been recognized since 1872 when parades and rallies were staged in Ottawa and Toronto. Parliament proclaimed the first Monday in September as Labour Day.
In 1934, in London, Evangeline Cory Booth, the seventh child of founder William Booth, became the fourth elected commander and the first woman general of the Salvation Army at age 69.
In 1939, Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany two days after its invasion of Poland. Winston Churchill was named First Lord of the Admiralty in the British war cabinet.
In 1962, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker officially opened the Trans-Canada Highway from the summit of Rogers Pass, B.C. Total cost of the world’s longest national highway, which stretched 7,821 kilometres from St. John’s, Nfld., to Victoria, B.C., was more than $1 billion. The target for completion was 1956, but the highway was not finished until 1970.
In 1970, legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, 57, died in Washington, D.C.
In 1976, the Canadian Bar Association passed a resolution at its annual convention calling for the creation of unified family courts in Canada to deal with all legal issues in a marriage breakup and legal representation for children in matrimonial disputes. In 1977, Ontario was the first province to introduce a unified family court.
In 1976, the unmanned U.S. spacecraft “Viking 2” landed on Mars to take the first close-up, colour photographs of its surface.
In 1984, a bomb exploded in a locker at the Montreal railway station, killing three people and injuring 25 others.
In 1989, one pilot died after two jets from the Armed Forces’ Snowbirds aerobatic team touched wingtips and crashed into Lake Ontario during the annual Canadian National Exhibition air show in Toronto.
In 1991, Oscar winning director Frank Capra died at his home in California at the age of 94. Among his works: “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which both starred Jimmy Stewart.
In 1995, one of Canada’s greatest poets, Earle Birney, died in Toronto at age 91. He had been born in Calgary in 1904, when it was still part of the Northwest Territories. He won his first Governor General’s medal for his 1942 book “David and Other Poems.” He wrote love poetry, novels, television and stage plays and taught at the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto.