Production@sherbrookerecord.com Today in history
In 1951, the United States ordered construction of the first atomic-powered submarine.
In 1959, Hawaii became the 50th American state.
In 1968, the Canadian post office announced the closing of the Post Office Savings Bank after a century of operation.
In 1972, the Canadian Trade Exposition, the largest trade fair ever staged by Canada abroad, was held in the Chinese capital of Beijing.
In 1979, the federal government announced an agreement to provide bilingual air traffic control in Quebec.
In 1980, nine crew members died when a Soviet nuclear-powered submarine caught fire east of Okinawa, Japan.
In 1983, Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino was assassinated at the airport, minutes after returning to Manila from exile in the United States. Aquino was a leading opponent of President Ferdinand Marcos and his killing led to the 1986 collapse of the Marcos regime and the election of Aquino's wife, Corazon, as president.
In 1986, more than 1,700 people died when toxic gas erupted from a volcanic lake in the West African nation of Cameroon.
In 1987, Geraldine Kenney-wallace, a chemist and physicist, was named the first chairwoman of the Science Council of Canada.
In 1987, Canada's youngest liver transplant recipient died in a London, Ont., hospital. Sixteen-month-old Amanda Jane Cathro of Edmonton died after two liver transplants.
In 1990, the United Church of Canada's third General Council voted 302-74 to reaffirm a controversial 1988 statement on homosexuality, which allowed gays and lesbians to be considered for ordination. After three days of debate, about 400 delegates voted to stick to the policy which had split Canada's largest Protestant denomination.
In 1996, Mary Two Axe Earley, a native rights activist who pressured the government into changing a section of the Indian Act that discriminated against native women, died at age 84.
In 1996, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld two B.C. Court of Appeal decisions that the native right to catch fish for food and ceremonial purposes did not include the right to sell, unless the practice previously existed.
In 1998, former apartheid ruler P.W. Botha of South Africa was given a oneyear suspended jail sentence, after being found guilty of ignoring a subpoena to testify about apartheid atrocities.
In 1999, B.C. Premier Glen Clark resigned over allegations he was improperly involved in a casino licence application.
In 2000, Russian authorities confirmed that 118 men on the stricken submarine “Kursk” were dead. Norwegian divers found the submarine completely flooded. Kursk had been trapped since Aug. 12th at the bottom of the Barents Sea after an accident during naval exercises.
In 2001, Montreal was named the permanent home of the IOC'S World Antidoping Agency, edging out Lausanne, Switzerland and Vienna, Austria.
In 2003, Canadian troops began their first official patrol of Afghanistan's capital of Kabul.
In 2006, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's trial began in Baghdad on charges of genocide for a military campaign against ethnic Kurds in 1988. He was found guilty on Nov. 5th and hanged on Dec. 30th.
In 2010, in the Australian federal election, both Labor and the Liberal Partyled opposition each received 72 seats. Four of the six independents later sided with the Labor Party for the country's first minority government since the Second World War.
In 2011, a tornado with 280 km/h winds raged through the Lake Huron community of Goderich, Ont., dubbed Canada's prettiest town. Many downtown businesses, century-old buildings and several churches were destroyed. One person was killed and at least 37 people were injured.
In 2011, Libyan rebels raced into Tripoli and met little resistance as Moammar Gadhafi's defenders melted away and his 42-year rule rapidly crumbled. The euphoric fighters celebrated with residents of the capital in Green Square, the symbolic heart of the regime.
In 2013, a poison gas attack by the Syrian government on the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus killed 1,400 civilians, including 400 children. The U.S. pressed for military strikes in response but marathon negotiations between U.S. and Russian diplomats produced an agreement on securing and destroying Syria's chemical weapons stockpile by the mid2014.