TODAY IN HISTORY: Trucker convoy heads to Ottawa

In 1903, the boundary between Alaska and Canada was settled by an international commission. The decision, largely in favour of American interests, enraged the Canadian public.

In 1965. former British prime minister Winston Churchill died at the age of 90.

In 1972, Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi was discovered on the Pacific island of Guam. He stayed hidden in the jungle for more than 27 years, believing the Second World War was still going on.

In 1974, the New Brunswick Supreme Court found K.C. Irving Ltd. and three subsidiary publishing companies guilty of establishing a monopoly of Englishlanguage daily newspapers in the province. The companies were fined a total of $150,000. It was the first prosecution of newspapers under the federal Combines Investigation Act.

In 1978, a crippled Soviet satellite, Cosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor aboard, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated over the Northwest Territories. Debris from the satellite was found scattered near Great Slave Lake. The Soviet Union later paid $3 million to cover the cleanup costs.

In 1981, millions of Polish workers boycotted their jobs in support of a demand by the Solidarity trade union for a five-day work week. It was part of an increasing number of job actions to protest rising food prices, economic reforms, free elections and to demonstrate a growing resistance to the Communist government. By the end of the year, the government declared martial law, outlawed Solidarity and arrested its leaders.

In 1988, Ben Johnson became the first Canadian track athlete to be named AP’s athlete of the year. A few months later, at the Seoul Summer Olympics, Johnson tested positive for steroids and was stripped of his 100-metre gold medal.

In 1989, confessed serial killer Ted Bundy was executed in Florida’s electric chair.

In 1990, federal sports minister Jean Charest was forced to resign following revelations he’d telephoned a judge about to rule on a case involving the Canadian Track and Field Association (now Athletics Canada).

In 1995, O.J. Simpson’s murder trial opened in Los Angeles. He was found not guilty in the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, ending a sensational trial that had riveted the American public. (However, Simpson was later found liable in a civil trial).

In 1998, the soundtrack for “Titanic” hit No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. It included the hit “My Heart Will Go On,” sung by Celine Dion. It was the first primarily orchestral soundtrack to top the charts since “Star Wars” in 1977.

In 2000, Chicago businessman Michael Heisley bought the NBA’s Vancouver Grizzlies for $160 million. He moved the team to Memphis in 2001.

In 2005, a fierce blizzard left much of Atlantic Canada buried under heavy snow, the third blizzard to hit the East Coast in a week. Halifax got 95 cm of snow. More than 60 cm of snow fell in Newfoundland before turning to freezing rain – causing power outages to thousands of customers.

In 2006, Pittsburgh Penguin star Mario Lemieux retired for the second and last time from the NHL.

In 2008, French bank Societe Generale announced it had uncovered a C$7.14 billion fraud by a single futures trader whose scheme of fictitious transactions was discovered as stock markets began to stumble. (In 2010, Jerome Kerviel was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to repay what the bank lost. In 2016, a French court cut the civil damages to C$1.2 million)

In 2011, a suicide bomber killed 36 people and wounded more than 180 others at the international arrivals hall at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport.

In 2013 Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence declared an end to a 44-day hunger strike spent on Victoria Island near Parliament Hill without winning her demand for a meeting with both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston. well as to Russia.

In 2017, drummer Butch Trucks of The Allman Brothers Band died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 69.

In 2022, a convoy of truckers was on its way from B.C. to Ottawa to protest the federal government’s cross-border travel COVID-19 vaccine mandate. They did not have the support of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which argued this type of demonstration wasn’t a safe or effective way of resisting the policy. The alliance said the vast majority of truckers were vaccinated against COVID and that it strongly disapproved of any protests on public roadways,