TODAY IN HISTORY: Final episode of MASH airs

In 1944, Dutch Christian Corrie ten Boom and her family were arrested by Nazi secret police for harbouring Jews, who managed to escape. Corrie was the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust.

In 1952, Vincent Massey was sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor General. Born in Toronto in 1887, he was president of the Massey-Harris Company from 192125. He was appointed minister without portfolio in the Mackenzie King cabinet in 1925 but failed to win a seat in Parliament. Massey was Canada’s first ambassador to the U.S., from 1926-30, and Canadian high commissioner in London from 1935-46. The brother of actor Raymond Massey, he left Rideau Hall in 1959 and died in 1967.

In 1964, the Toronto International Airport terminal building was opened.

In 1968, Frankie Lymon, 25, who fronted the 1950s group The Teenagers, died of a heroin overdose on his grandmother’s bathroom floor in New York City. Their big hit was “Why Do Fools Fall In Love.”

In 1971, the male voters of Liechtenstein defeated a referendum on giving women the vote.

In 1974, pop singer Bobby Bloom shot himself through the head with a derringer in his motel room in Hollywood, Calif. He was 28. His biggest hit “Montego Bay,” a top-10 hit in both the U.S. and U.K.

In 1975, 41 people were killed when a London subway train crashed into the end of a tunnel.

In 1977, Parliament created Via Rail Canada to operate the country’s passenger rail service.

In 1983, the final episode of “M*A*S*H.” attracted, at the time, the largest TV audience in U.S. history. The series ran 11 seasons. “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” its two-and a-half-hour finale was watched by 105.97 million people.

In 1984, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau went for a walk in an Ottawa blizzard and decided to resign. He announced his decision the next day.

In 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated on a Stockholm street. The crime has never been solved.

In 1993, a raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, touched off a standoff between cult members and U.S. federal agents. Six cult members and four agents were killed. The siege came to an end on April 19 when the FBI launched an assault and fire engulfed the compound. Eighty-six people were killed, including cult leader David Koresh.

In 2010, Sidney Crosby’s golden goal gave Team Canada a 3-2 overtime win over archrival United States in the men’s hockey gold medal game at the Vancouver Olympics. It was the most watched television broadcast in Canadian history.

In 2020, the World Health Organization raised the risk assessment of COVID-19 to “very high” at the global level. Organizations across Canada cancelled conferences and events for fears of spreading the novel coronavirus.