Today in History
was the first time two men ran the same mile race in under four minutes. Three months earlier, Bannister became the first runner to break the four-minute barrier.
In 1956, dynamite trucks exploded in Cali, Colombia, killing 1,100 people.
In 1957, comedian Oliver Hardy died at age 65.
In 1959, the U.S. spacecraft “Explorer VI” took the first photos of Earth from space.
In 1963, the UN Security Council passed a resolution banning all shipments of military equipment to South Africa.
In 1974, French stuntman Philippe Petit walked a tightrope strung between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York.
In 1979, Jacques Cossette-trudel and his wife Louise were sentenced to two years less a day in jail for the October 1970 FLQ kidnapping of British Trade Commissioner James Cross in Montreal.
In 1979, at least three people were killed by a tornado in the Woodstock area of southwestern Ontario. Damage was estimated at $7-10 million. About 300 buildings were damaged or destroyed and the provincial government declared Woodstock a disaster area.
In 1980, the Gossamer Penguin, a solarpowered airplane, flew three kilometres across the California desert.
In 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted for the fifth time since May 18, sending a plume of ash and steam 12,000 metres into the air.
In 1982, Don Muir, 26, a bush pilot from Sioux Lookout, Ont., and Andre Daemen, 22, a Montreal flying instructor, touched down at Montreal's Dorval Airport after flying around the world in the record time of six days, seven hours and 30 minutes.
In 1985, British radio and television journalists staged a 24-hour strike to protest the BBC'S cancellation of a documentary on Northern Ireland.
In 1987, marathon swimmer Vicki Keith, a swimming instructor from Kingston, Ont., completed the first double crossing of Lake Ontario. Keith, 26, estimated she lost 40 pounds during the 56-hour swim. Marilyn Bell was the first to complete a one-way crossing in 1954.
In 1987, the presidents of five Central American nations signed an 11-point agreement to bring peace to their region.
In 1990, the African National Congress agreed to end its 30-year armed struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
In 1990, the first American forces took off for Saudi Arabia in a deployment dubbed Operation Desert Shield.
In 1992, the 39-nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva produced the final draft of a treaty to ban chemical weapons, ending 24 years of talks.
In 1992, the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth 2 ran aground off southeastern Massachusetts.
In 1993, Buckingham Palace in London was opened to the public for limited tours. The money raised from the $12 admission and souvenirs was earmarked for repairing Windsor Castle, which had been damaged by fire the previous November.
In 1997, Bjarni Tryggvason became the seventh Canadian in space when the shuttle “Discovery” blasted off. Tryggvason performed various experiments during his 13-day mission as a payload specialist.
In 1998, simultaneous bombings at two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
In 2000, astronomers announced the discovery of nine new planets that circle the stars outside the Earth's solar system.
In 2003, a bomb attack at the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, killed 17 people.
In 2005, Toronto-born ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings, died of lung cancer at age 67.
In 2007, San Francisco's Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run off Washington pitcher Mike Bacsik to break Hank Aaron's storied record. (Bonds finished his career with 762).
In 2009, senior security officials confirmed that Pakistan's most dreaded Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. Predator strike on Aug. 5.
In 2013, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and the U.S. amid a flurry of lawsuits over the rail disaster in Lac-megantic, Que., and growing cleanup costs the company estimated would surpass $200 million.
In 2014, a Un-assisted tribunal sentenced two top surviving leaders of Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge regime (Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea) to life in prison for crimes against humanity during their late 1970s reign of terror that left as many as two million people dead.