Today in history

Bombardier patented the snowmobile. The first seven-person machine cost $7,500. Only 50 were sold the first year.

In 1945, Moscow announced that Czechoslovakia had ceded the eastern province of Ruthenia to Russia.

In 1946, British authorities arrested more than 2,700 Jews in Palestine, allegedly to stamp out terrorism.

In 1949, South Africa began implementing its apartheid policy with a ban on racially mixed marriages.

In 1956, actress Marilyn Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller in Kentucky. They divorced in 1961.

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the way the death penalty was usually enforced constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

In 1974, Soviet ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected in Toronto during a Canadian tour.

In 1990, Oakland's Dave Stewart and Fernando Valenzuela of Los Angeles became the first pitchers to toss no-hitters in both major leagues on the same day. Oakland shut out the Blue Jays 5-0 in Toronto, while Los Angeles blanked visiting St. Louis 6-0.

In 1995, almost 500 people were killed in the collapse of a Seoul department store building.

In 2000, nearly 500 people drowned in the sinking of an overloaded Malaysian ferry.

In 2001, Kofi Annan was elected to a second five-year term as United Nations secretary-general.

In 2003, Israel began a troop pullback in Gaza and three leading Palestinian militant groups declared a three-month suspension of attacks on Israelis in breakthroughs for an American-backed peace plan.

In 2003, Alberta skier Beckie Scott was awarded the Olympic silver medal after an IOC board in Prague, Czech Republic, decided to strip Russian cross-country skier Larissa Lazutina of her medals from the 2002 Salt Lake City Games due to positive drug tests.

In 2003, Katharine Hepburn, the actress who won four Academy Awards during a six-decade career in Hollywood, died at her home in Old Saybrook, Conn., at age 96.

In 2006, women voted for the first time in history in a Kuwait election.

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that special military tribunals created to try terrorism suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay were illegal under both U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions.

In 2008, Zimbabawe President Robert Mugabe was sworn in as president after winning the runoff election boycotted by the opposition. Canada condemned the election as illegitimate and announced sanctions and travel restrictions.

In 2009, disgraced U.S. financier Bernard Madoff, 71, was sentenced in New York to the maximum 150 years behind bars for fleecing hundreds of investors out of tens of billions of dollars in a massive Ponzi scheme.

In 2010, the Queen sailed on “HMCS St. John's” past a flotilla of international ships in Halifax Harbour to mark the Canadian navy's 100th birthday.

In 2011, the operators of the Toronto and London stock exchanges killed a $3.7-billion proposed merger, saying the controversial deal could not garner enough shareholder support to go ahead.