Today in history

In 1957, former prime minister Louis St. Laurent stepped down as leader of the Liberal party. He served as prime minister from 1948 until his party's defeat in a general election three months before.

In 1964, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson handed B.C. Premier W.A.C. Bennett a cheque for $273 million regarding the Columbia River Power agreement.

In 1966, South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was assassinated during a parliamentary session in Cape Town. The assassin was a drifter who claimed the government was doing too much for the non-whites and not enough for the “poor whites.”

In 1968, Swaziland became an independent member of the British Commonwealth.

In 1975, more than 2,300 people were killed in an earthquake in eastern Turkey.

In 1975, Czechoslovak tennis star Martina Navratilova requested political asylum in the U.S. during the U.S. Open in New York.

In 1977, highway signs across Canada, except in Quebec and Nova Scotia, were converted to metric.

In 1981, in Poland, the Solidarity union held the first independent labour congress ever staged in the Soviet bloc. Union leaders released statements declaring that revolution was under way in Poland.

In 1987, Saskwest Television became the first television company in Canada to put out two simultaneous air signals in two different cities, Regina and Saskatoon.

In 1991, the Soviet Union granted full independence to the three Baltic republics -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Another legacy of Communist rule also disappeared -- parliament voted to restore the pre-bolshevik name of St. Petersburg to the country's second-largest city -- Leningrad.

In 1995, Dudley George, one of a group of aboriginal protesters occupying Ipperwash Provincial Park on Lake Huron in Ontario, was shot dead by police. The protesters were claiming the park occupied a sacred burial ground. (A police officer was later convicted of criminal negligence causing death).

In 1995, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. eclipsed Yankee great Lou Gehrig's ironman record by playing in his 2,131st straight game. (Ripken extended the record to 2,632 games before sitting out a game against the Yankees on Sept. 21, 1998.)

In 1997, about one million people lined the streets of London as the funeral procession of Diana, Princess of Wales, made its journey from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey. For the first time in history, the Union Jack flew at half-staff above Buckingham Palace to mark the passing of someone who was not a member of the royal family.

In 1998, in the first dynastic succession in any Communist country, Kim Jong-il was entrenched officially as North Korea's supreme leader, heading the state, the military and the governing Workers party.

In 2005, California's State Assembly became the first legislative body in the U.S. to approve same-sex marriages, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger later vetoed the bill.

In 2005, Eugenia Charles, former prime minister of Dominica, the world's first black female head of a country, died at age 86.

In 2007, Italian Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71.

In 2009, Maj. Yannick Pepin, 36, and Cpl. Jean-francois Drouin, 31, both members of the 5 Combat Engineer Regiment who were stationed in Valcartier, Que., were killed when a roadside bomb hit their armoured vehicle in the Dand district southwest of Kandahar city in Afghanistan.

In 2011, Germany's top criminal court threw out the tax evasion conviction of former arms-industry lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber and ordered a retrial after saying errors were made in the 2010 process. The German-canadian former arms industry lobbyist had been extradited to Germany after an Ontario court denied his bid to stay in Canada following public hearings into his controversial financial dealings with former prime minister Brian Mulroney. (In late 2013, he was again found guilty and sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.)

In 2011, former media baron Conrad Black returned to a low security Miami prison to complete the last 13 months of his sentence. He had been free on bail for about a year after an appeal court reversed two of his three fraud convictions.

In 2011, a man with an AK-47 assault rifle shot a group of five uniformed National Guard members eating breakfast at a Nevada restaurant, killing three of them and another person. Seven others were wounded. The suspect shot himself and later died at a hospital.

In 2014, former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice won the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership race to become premier-designate, replacing Alison Redford who had resigned amid a travel expense scandal. On Oct. 27, Prentice won a seat in the legislature as his party won four provincial byelections. (In May 2015, the NDP won the Alberta election, toppling the PC dynasty and driving Prentice from politics.)