Today in History
PHANEUF, Vic:
12, 2002 October 11, 1934 – June
Love
FREDA, CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN AND THEIR SPOUSES
AND GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN On this date:
In 1690, Hudson's Bay Co. employee Henry Kelsey began a two-year journey from York Factory in what is now northern Manitoba. He's believed to be the first white man to see the Canadian Prairies, and he was the first European to record the region's flora and fauna. He was named governor of all the establishments of Hudson's Bay in 1718 and during the four years he held this position, he continued to explore Canada's north.
In 1811, the Earl of Selkirk was granted 300,000 square kilometres of territory in an area now occupied by Manitoba, Minnesota and North Dakota. Selkirk paid 10 shillings a year rent on the land, which was five times bigger than his native Scotland.
In 1839, legend has it that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, N.Y. Exactly one century later, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum opened there. Historians -- and even the Hall itself -- now consider the Doubleday story to be totally false.
In 1846, fire swept through a theatre in Quebec City, killing 200 people.
In 1929, Anne Frank was born in Holland. Although she died in a Nazi concentration camp late in the Second World War, her diary about her family's life in hiding in Amsterdam became world famous. She was 15 when she died of typhus at the Bergen-belsen camp in central Germany in early 1945.
In 1939, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was dedicated in Cooperstown, N.Y.
In 1944, a Second World War act of heroism earned Winnipeg gunner Andrew Mynarski a posthumous Victoria Cross. Rather than jump from a burning bomber over France, Mynarski tried to save a trapped crewmate. The 27-year-old Mynarski suffered fatal burns, but his comrade miraculously survived the crash.
In 1950, two agreements were signed in Ottawa by Canada and the United States to avoid double taxation of their citizens and to prevent income tax evasion
In 1964, South African black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela and seven co-defendants were sentenced to life in prison for plotting to overthrow the country's white supremacist government. Mandela, who had been in custody since 1962, was released in 1990 and later served five years as South Africa's first black president.
In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state laws prohibiting or restricting interracial marriages.
In 1975, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was found guilty of electoral corruption in the 1971 elections. She was the first Indian prime minister since independence in 1947 to appear in court.
In 1979, a 26-year-old cyclist, Bryan Allen, flew the man-powered “Gossamer Albatross” across the English Channel.
In 1981, major league baseball players began a 49-day strike over free-agent compensation. The season did not resume until Aug. 10.
In 1982, 750,000 people attended a rally for nuclear disarmament in New York City. It was the largest crowd to date to attend a political rally. Among the stars in attendance were James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Linda Ronstadt.
In 1984, the Ontario government announced its intention to give Roman Catholic schools the same status and funding as the province's public education system.
In 1991, democratic reformer Boris Yeltsin made Soviet history by becoming Russia's first popularly-elected president.
In 1992, the CRTC opened the longdistance market to competition.
In 2002, an American fugitive who pulled off what's believed to be the only successful hijacking in Canadian history was sentenced to five years in prison. Patrick Critton hijacked an Air Canada plane to Cuba during a flight from Thunder Bay to Toronto in 1971. He was captured in the fall of 2001 in New York state. Critton pleaded guilty to kidnapping and extortion in a Toronto-area court.
In 2003, Hollywood legend Gregory Peck, one of film world's most appealing and most durable leading men, died in Los Angeles at the age of 87.
In 2003, Robert Sand was found guilty of murder and Laurie Bell guilty of manslaughter in the death of RCMP Constable Dennis Strongquill in December 2001 in Russell, Man.
In 2003, B.C. activist, athlete and union organizer Glen Hillson -- who was one of the first patients diagnosed with the then-mysterious AIDS virus in the early 1980s -- died in a Vancouver hospital at the age of 51.
In 2006, billionaire Ken Thomson, Canada's richest person, died of an apparent heart attack at his office in Toronto. He was 82. Thomson had developed his father's media empire into a global information giant.
In 2006, the Canadian dollar soared above 91 cents US for the first time in three decades.
In 2008, Irish voters rejected the “Treaty of Lisbon” that would have given the European Union a constitution. The treaty, a blueprint for modernizing the 27-member EU, could not become law without Irish approval.
In 2008, Ontario MPPS voted unanimously to retain the recitation of “The Lord's Prayer” to begin daily proceedings in the Legislature but supplemented it by a rotating series of seven prayers of other faiths, a non-denominational prayer and a moment of silence.
In 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada restored a guilty verdict against Kelly Ellard in the murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk, whose bruised and battered body was pulled from the waters of Victoria Inlet more than a decade earlier.
In 2010, torrential and virtually unrelenting rains began causing widespread flooding in Southern China. In the ensuing week, 235 people died, thousands of homes were destroyed and economic losses topped C$8 billion. Up to 10 million residents were affected.
In 2016, a gunman opened fire inside a crowded LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 people and injuring 53 others. The early morning three-hour shooting rampage and hostage siege ended when a SWAT team shot and killed the gunman.
In 2016, the Pittsburgh Penguins captured their fourth Stanley Cup in franchise history with a 3-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks in Game 6 of the NHL Final. Penguins captain Sidney Crosby was named playoff MVP.
In 2016, Canadian Brooke Henderson won her first major title, beating topranked Lydia Ko on the first hole of a playoff in the Women's PGA Championship. The 18-year-old became the second-youngest winner of a major championship (Ko, 2015).
In 2017, the Golden State Warriors won their second NBA title in three years by defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 5, capping an almost perfect postseason run (16-1) and exacting revenge on the Cavs after blowing a 3-1 series lead to them in the 2016 final.