Today in history
In 1958, unidentified American service members killed in the Second World War and the Korean War were interred in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
In 1960, Soviet author and poet Boris Pasternak (“Doctor Zhivago”) died at age 70.
In 1961, in one of Canada's most intense rainstorms, 25 cm fell in one hour at Buffalo Gap, Sask.
In 1972, three Japanese terrorists killed 28 people at Tel Aviv's Lod (now Ben-gurion) Airport.
In 1992, the UN Security Council voted to isolate Serbia and Montenegro, the only republics left in Yugoslavia's federation, with a trade ban and oil embargo.
In 1996, the federal government won a long battle with Alberta over extra-billing at private clinics. The province agreed to the ban, starting July 1. The dispute had cost the province about $3.6 million in lost transfer payments from Ottawa.
In 1996, the Duke and Duchess of York -- Prince Andrew and Sara Ferguson -- were divorced after 10 years of marriage.
In 2002, a ceremony marked the end of the recovery effort at the site of the former World Trade Center. An empty flag-draped stretcher was carried by emergency services staff, symbolizing the 1,700 people whose remains were not found.
In 2005, the Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty to a single charge arising from the tainted-blood scandal and publicly accepted responsibility for the disaster that left thousands of people with HIV and hepatitis C. Criminal charges were dropped in exchange for the plea. The charity said it would pay a $5,000 fine and dedicate $1.5 million to a scholarship fund and research project aimed at reducing medical errors.
In 2007, Master Cpl. Darrell Jason Priede, 30, of Burlington, Ont., was among seven NATO soldiers killed when a Chinook helicopter was shot down by the Taliban near Kandahar, Afghanistan.
In 2008, diplomats from 111 countries, including Canada, formally adopted a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs. But some of the biggest makers and users of them, including the U.S., Russia and China, did not participate in the negotiations in Dublin.
In 2010, Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan, Brig.gen. Daniel Menard, was relieved of command amid allegations he was involved in an inappropriate relationship with a female subordinate while in theatre, and then urging her to cover it up. (Menard later left the military voluntarily and pleaded guilty at his court martial in July 2011. His punishment included a $7,000 fine and a symbolic demotion to the rank of colonel.)
In 2010, former Manitoba premier Duff Roblin died at age 92. He was premier from 1958-67 and his enduring legacy is the Winnipeg floodway, also known as “Duff's Ditch.”
In 2011, Germany announced plans to shut down all 17 nuclear power plants by 2022, outlining an ambitious strategy to replace atomic power with renewable energy sources in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster.
In 2012, judges at an international war crimes court sentenced former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 50 years imprisonment for arming and supporting murderous rebels in Sierra Leone in return for “blood diamonds.” (In September 2013, the appeals chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone upheld the conviction.)
In 2014, a Brampton, Ont., court found Mohamed Hassan Hersi, 28, guilty of attempting to participate in the activities of a terrorist group, the first conviction under an anti-terrorist law that was passed in 2001. Hersi was arrested in 2011 at Toronto's Pearson International Airport allegedly on his way to Somalia to join Al-shabab, a Somali terrorist group. He was sentenced to the maximum 10 years in prison.
In 2016, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne formally apologized in the legislature to First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities for the “brutalities” suffered at residential schools and announced $250 million for new initiatives.