TODAY IN HISTORY: Canada’s first Labour Day

In 590, St. Gregory the Great was consecrated the 64th Catholic pope, ruling 14 years. His administration took responsibility for converting the Anglo-Saxon tribes in England, chiefly through the work of St. Augustine of Canterbury.

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 present-day Albany before turning back.)

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 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 1969, Ho Chi Minh, president of North Vietnam, died. He was born in 1890 in Hoang Tru in rural Vietnam.

In 1970, Al ‘Blind Owl’ Wilson of the blues-rock group Canned Heat died of a drug overdose at the age of 27. His body was found at the Los Angeles home of another Canned Heat member, Bob Hite. Wilson was partially blind and subject to fits of severe depression. Canned Heat never really recovered from Wilson’s death, although the group struggled along until 1981, when Hite died of a heart attack.

In 1984, a bomb exploded in a locker at a Montreal railway station, killing three people and injuring 25.

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 1995, disgraced American figure skater Tonya Harding made her singing debut with her band, The Golden Blades, in Portland, Ore. The crowd booed her during her 15-minute set.

In 1999, dense fog and high speed caused a 63-vehicle highway pile-up near Windsor, Ont. — killing eight people and sending dozens more to hospital.

In 2004, Russian commandos stormed a school in Beslan, in North Ossetia, and battled Chechen separatists holding more than 1,200 people hostage, ending the 53-hour siege in a bloodbath. At least 350 people were killed, nearly half of them children. The hostage-takers had been demanding independence for Chechnya.

In 2011, at least 59 people were killed by Typhoon Talas, which lashed Japan’s coastal areas with destructive winds and record-setting rains. The destruction added more misery to a nation still reeling from a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami six months earlier.

In 2021, Alberta reinstated a provincewide mask mandate in all indoor public spaces and workplaces, except in classrooms, in response to concerns over the spread of COVID-19.