Today in history

First computer unveiled

In 1617, Canada’s first farmer, Louis Hebert, arrived at Tadoussac with his wife and their three children.

In 1777, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Stars and Stripes as the national flag.

In 1872, the Canadian Pacific Railway’s general charter was passed by parliament.

In 1919, British pilots John William Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown took off from St. John’s, Nfld., for the first non-stop transatlantic flight. They landed in a peat bog at Galway, Ireland, after flying about 3,100 kilometres in just over 16 hours.The flight won them a $10,000 prize offered by the London Daily Mail, and both were awarded knighthoods.

In 1928, Che Guevara was born in Rosario, Argentina. He was a prominent figure in the Cuban Revolution (1956-59), and later a guerrilla leader in South America. He was executed Oct. 9, 1967, after he was captured by the Bolivian army.

In 1940, Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi concentration camps, opened near Krakow, Poland. More than three million Jews would be murdered there. Also in 1940, German forces occupied Paris.

In 1951, “Univac,” the world’s first commercial computer, was unveiled.

In 1953, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill became Sir Winston when Queen Elizabeth made him a Knight of the Garter, Britain’s highest honour.

In 1966, the Vatican announced that the “Index of Prohibited Books” was being abolished. The 1948 edition contained 4,000 titles censored for reasons including heresy, moral deficiency and political incorrectness.

In 1977, Alan Reed, the original voice of Fred Flintstone, died at age 69.

In 1982, 74 days after invading the Falkland Islands, Argentine forces surrendered to the British.

In 1984, a Liberal party leadership convention opened in Ottawa, with a gala tribute to retiring Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

In 1985, Lebanese Shiite Muslim gunmen hijacked a TWA flight after takeoff from Athens. Hours later, the hijackers killed U.S. navy diver Robert Stethem as the plane landed at Beirut.

In 1989, former U.S. president Ronald Reagan received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth.

In 1990, Toronto lost to Hanover, Germany — by one vote — in a bid to stage the Expo 2000 world’s fair.

In 1994, rioting broke out in Vancouver after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Rangers in New York in Game 7.

In 1995, a New Brunswick couple, Steve and Lorelei Turner, were convicted in the starvation death of their three-year-old son. They were believed to be the first parents in Canada convicted of manslaughter for failing to provide the necessities of life to a child.

In 2007, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led government and declared a state of emergency after a week of bloody fighting between Fatah and Hamas fighters that culminated in Hamas’ seizure of the Gaza Strip.

In 2017, a deadly overnight fire raced through a 24-storey apartment tower in London, killing 72 people.