TODAY IN HISTORY: Mad Trapper shot

On this date in 1919, former prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier died of a stroke in Ottawa at age 77. The first Canadian prime minister of French ancestry, Laurier spent 45 uninterrupted years in the House of Commons. He served as prime minister from 1896 to 1911, the longest unbroken tenure in Canadian history.

In 1932, following a 48-day manhunt, Albert Johnson, known as the Mad Trapper, was shot dead by the RCMP in the northern Yukon. Johnson, whose background remains a mystery, had eluded police after wounding an officer investigating a complaint about trap lines. Another Mountie was killed during the chase.

In 1959, the United States launched “Vanguard 2,” a satellite carrying meteorological equipment.

In 1960, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker opened the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

In 1965, Prime Minister Lester Pearson announced that old-age pensions would be made payable at age 65 instead of 70, with the change to be phased in over five years.

In 1982, Gordon Kesler won a provincial byelection in Alberta to become the first elected member of the separatist Western Canada Concept party.

In 1983, the Newfoundland Supreme Court ruled the province owned offshore resources as far as the territorial limit, but not to the edge of the continental shelf.

In 1986, Johnson & Johnson, the maker of Tylenol, announced it would no longer sell over-thecounter medications in capsule form. The move followed the death of an American woman who had taken a cyanide-laced capsule.

In 1989, Ottawa temporarily blocked the import of Salman Rushdie’s novel, “The Satanic Verses,” which Muslims felt was blasphemous.

In 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered and cannibalized young men, was sentenced in Milwaukee to 15 life terms. He was murdered in prison in 1994.

In 1992, one teenager died and about 50 were hurt at a New Kids on the Block concert in Seoul, South Korea. The show was halted after fans began pushing against people in the front row. The concert resumed after the injured were removed.

In 2000, the federal government scrapped the $1,000 bill, saying it was used mainly for money-laundering.

In 2003, Winnipeg-based GreatWest Lifeco Inc. struck a deal to acquire Canada Life in a $7.3 billion transaction that would create the country’s largest insurance company. The combined company would have $156 billion in assets and provide individual and group policies covering 11 million Canadians — one-third of the population.

In 2003, at least 21 people died in a stampede at a Chicago nightclub that began when a security guard used pepper spray to break up a fight.

In 2004, Cingular Wireless agreed to pay nearly US$41 billion in cash to buy AT&T Wireless Services.

In 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia.

In 2009, the trial began for Kaing Guek Eav, (also known as Duch) who headed the notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh during Cambodia’s former Khmer Rouge regime. It marked the country’s first genocide tribunal over the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people. (He was sentenced to life in prison).

In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law a US$787-billion stimulus package designed to revive the U.S. economy.

In 2010, the 57-metre training vessel “SV Concordia,” a Canadian-owned tall ship, went down some 500 km off the Brazilian coast. All 64 people on board, including 42 Canadian high school and university students, managed to get onto life rafts. They drifted in storm-tossed seas for 40 hours before being rescued by three passing merchant ships.

In 2013, Mindy McCready, who hit the top of the country charts in 1996 with “Guys Do It All the Time” before personal problems sidetracked her career, died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. She was 37. Her death came days after she left a court-ordered substance abuse treatment program. She was found on the porch of her Arkansas home where her musician boyfriend David Wilson also committed suicide a month earlier.

In 2014, Jimmy Fallon made his debut as host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show.”