TODAY IN HISTORY: Elizabeth’s coronation
In 1615, the first missionaries to come to Canada, the Recoletts, arrived in Quebec.
In 1835, P.T. Barnum’s circus began its first tour of the United States.
In 1847, John A. Macdonald became a cabinet minister.
In 1866, Canadian militia units panicked and lost the “Battle of Ridgeway” after 700 Fenians attempted an invasion of the Niagara Peninsula.
In 1896, in England, Guglielmo Marconi was awarded the first radio patent. He had succeeded the previous year in sending long-wave radio signals over a distance of about two kilometres. And in 1897, Marconi formed a wireless telegraphy company to develop its commercial applications. In 1901, he sent the letter “S” across the Atlantic from Cornwall, England to a receiving station in St. John’s, Nfld.
In 1897, 61-year-old Mark Twain was quoted by the New York Journal as saying from London that “the report of my death was an exaggeration.”
In 1917, fighter pilot Billy Bishop became the first Canadian airman to win a Victoria Cross. The 23year-old from Owen Sound, Ont., was honoured for a solo attack on a German airfield during the First World War. Bishop was credited with downing 72 German planes during the war.
In 1941, former New York Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig died at age 37 of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), now known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The illness had ended his baseball career two years earlier.
In 1946, a national referendum in Italy gave women the right to vote and also rejected the monarchy in favour of a republic.
In 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in London’s Westminster Abbey. Elizabeth was 27 when she assumed the throne 16 months earlier upon the death of her father, King George VI. She had married Philip Mountbatten in 1947 and at the time of her coronation, they had two children, Prince Charles and Princess Anne. Elizabeth’s coronation was the first to be televised.
In 1979, Pope John Paul II arrived in his native Poland — the first visit by a pope to a Communist country. In 1983, a fire broke out in a bathroom aboard an Air Canada jet, which was forced to make an emergency landing in Cincinnati. Twenty-three people died, including Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers. Eighteen people survived.
In 1978, Bruce Springsteen’s album “Darkness on the Edge of Town” was released.
In 1980, 2,000 fans stormed the gate at Ontario Place in Toronto after being locked out of a concert by Teenage Head. The mob wrecked cars and fought with police and each other.
In 1992, k.d. lang publicly declared her homosexuality. Lang talked frankly about her lesbian lifestyle and her unrequited love for a married woman.
In 1997, Jean Chretien’s Liberals won their second straight majority government, taking 155 seats in a federal election. Preston Manning’s Reform Party became the official Opposition with 60 seats, all from Western Canada.