Today in History
May 6, 2014.
In 1932, the body of Charles Lindbergh Jr., the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, was found in a wooded area near Hopewell, N.J. Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping and murder in 1935 and was sent to the electric chair.
In 1937, King George VI was crowned. His coronation was heard throughout the British Empire on the first worldwide radio broadcast.
In 1942, 1,500 Jews were gassed at Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi German occupied Poland.
In 1943, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered during the Second World War.
In 1949, the Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade.
In 1958, the United States and Canada formally established the North American Air Defence Command -NORAD.
In 1965, West Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations.
In 1966, the flag of Manitoba was proclaimed.
In 1970, Montreal was awarded the 1976 Olympic Games.
In 1971, medicare became a truly national program when New Brunswick became the last province to sign on by proclaiming its Health Services Act.
In 1973, a murderer became the last person guillotined in a French prison.
In 1982, in Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpowered a Spanish priest armed with a bayonet who tried to reach Pope John Paul.
In 1986, Tory Industry Minister Sinclair Stevens resigned from the federal cabinet while an inquiry examined a $2.6 million loan to a holding company owned by Stevens. The inquiry found Stevens had numerous conflicts of interest.
In 1992, four suspects were arrested in the televised beating of white trucker Reginald Denny, which had occurred at the start of the Los Angeles riots.
In 1992, the Montreal-based charter airline Nationair declared bankruptcy.
In 2003, attackers shot their way into three fortified and heavily guarded housing compounds in the Saudi capital of Riyadh then set off multiple, simultaneous suicide car bombs, killing at least 34 people, including the nine attackers. The dead included eight Americans, as well as Britons, Filipinos and other foreigners. Another 194 people, including five Canadians, were wounded.
In 2003, a massive explosion at a Russian government office killed 59 people in northern Chechnya.
In 2008, more than 80,000 people were killed and dozens of towns and cities crushed by a 7.9-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province in southwestern China. Hundreds of children died under collapsed school buildings.
In 2009, Gordon Campbell and his B.C. Liberals won a solid majority and a historic straight third term in office. Voters gave the Liberals 49 seats to the NDP’S 36 in the new legislature.
In 2010, a Libyan plane carrying 104 people crashed on approach to Tripoli’s airport, leaving a field scattered with smouldering debris. A nine-year-old Dutch child (Ruben van Assouw) was the only survivor.
In 2010, Ben Johnson’s former track coach Charlie Francis died at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital after a five-year battle with cancer. He was co-architect of one of the biggest scandals in Olympic Games history when Johnson was stripped of his 100-metre gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics for using the steroid stanozolol. Athletics Canada banned Francis from coaching for life after he told a 1989 inquiry into the scandal that he had introduced Johnson to steroids.
In 2011, a German court convicted 91-year-old retired U.S. autoworker John Demjanjuk of 28,060 counts of acting as an accessory to murder at the Sobibor Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but remained free pending his appeal. He died March 17, 2012.
In 2012, two small planes collided in mid-air near St. Brieux, northeast of Saskatoon, killing all five people involved.
In 2017, a ransomware cyberattack, known as “Wannacry,” wreaked havoc around the globe paralyzing tens of thousands of companies, government agencies and other organizations in 150 countries.
In 2019, Kawhi Leonard’s 15-foot jump shot at the buzzer lifted the Toronto Raptors to a thrilling 92-90 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers _ and into the Eastern Conference Finals for just the second time in franchise history. Leonard had 15 of his 41 points in the fourth quarter, and corralled the ball with four seconds left before the launching the winning basket. The Raptors would next face the Milwaukee Bucks, who dispatched Boston in five games, in the Eastern Conference final.
(The Canadian Press)