TODAY IN HISTORY: Scientist Albert Einstein was born in Germany

In 1794, Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin, an invention that revolutionized America’s cotton industry.

In 1843, James Douglas of the Hudson’s Bay Co. founded Victoria when he landed at Clover Point with 15 men. The company had sent Douglas to formally occupy the southern part of Vancouver Island and build a base for the company when the partition of Oregon Territory became imminent. This was done to strengthen British claims to the whole island and those claims were recognized in the 1846 partition. Douglas was governor of Vancouver Island from 1851-63 and of British Columbia from 1858-64.

In 1864, Sir Etienne Tache and John A. Macdonald formed a government that led to the first Confederation negotiations. Macdonald later became Canada’s first prime minister.Tache, described as judicious and fair-minded, died just over a year later, depriving the new government of his talents.

In 1868, Emily Murphy, the British Empire’s first female judge, was born in Cookstown, Ont. A prolific writer, she took the pen name Janey Canuck. In 1916, Murphy was appointed police magistrate for Edmonton, and later Alberta. Murphy was among the “Famous Five” women who led the battle to have women declared legal “persons” under the British North America Act. Their 1929 victory before the British Privy Council allowed women to be appointed senators. Murphy died in Edmonton in 1933.

In 1879, scientist Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany.

In 1916, women won the right to vote in Saskatchewan.

In 1923, CKCK Regina radio broadcaster Pete Parker made the world’s first complete play-by-play of a professional hockey game when the Regina Capitals hosted the Edmonton Eskimos in a Western Canada Professional Hockey League match.

In 1932, inventor-industrialist George Eastman, who founded the Eastman Kodak photography company, committed suicide in Rochester, N.Y. He was 77.

In 1939, the republic of Czechoslovakia was dissolved, opening the way for the Nazi occupation of Czech areas and the separation of Slovakia.

In 1946, Fred Rose, the only Communist MP in Canadian history, was charged with conspiracy to transmit wartime secrets to the Soviet Union. In 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a clerk in the Soviet Embassy, defected to Canada to give evidence that Rose and others were part of a widespread Soviet spy ring. Rose was among those convicted of espionage. He served four years in prison and then moved back to his

native Poland.

In 1950, Albert Guay was sentenced in Quebec City to be hanged for the murder of his wife, who was among 23 people killed when a timebomb exploded aboard a Canadian Pacific Airlines plane in September, 1949. In 1951, during the Korean War, United Nations forces recaptured Seoul.

In 1959, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker rejected Newfoundland Premier Joey Smallwood’s request for a royal commission on the province’s labour problems.

In 1961, Massey College for graduate students was established at the University of Toronto.

In 1964, Jack Ruby was convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy the previous November in Dallas. Ruby was sentenced to death. Both the conviction and death sentence were later overturned, but Ruby died in 1967 before he could be re-tried.

In 1967, the body of President John F. Kennedy was moved from a temporary grave to a permanent memorial site at Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1972, Howard Hughes, the billionaire U.S. recluse, arrived in Vancouver with a staff of about 14 and took over the top floor of a hotel. In June, Hughes was granted a oneyear extension to his Canadian visitors permit, once he had assured an immigration officer he would neither look for work nor apply for welfare assistance.

In 1978, for the first time, Statistics Canada reported that unemployment had passed the one-million mark in February.

In 1983, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed for the first time to cut prices in hopes of regaining control of the world oil market.

In 1984, Marc Garneau, Canada’s first man in space, was selected to fly aboard a mission of the U.S. space shuttle “Discovery.” During his eightday space mission, Garneau, a career naval officer from Quebec, carried out tests on a space vision system and on space-induced nausea. He returned to space on the space shuttle “Endeavour” in 1996, becoming the first Canadian to fly two shuttle missions.

In 1989, Zita, Austria’s last empress and widow of Charles I, the last crowned head of the Hapsburg dynasty, died at the age of 96.

In 1990, the Soviet Congress elected Mikhail Gorbachev to the country’s new presidency, one day after greatly expanding the position’s powers. In 1991, Kurt Browning of Carolina, Alta., won his third consecutive men’s world championship figure skating title.

In 1991, a British court reversed the convictions of the “Birmingham Six” — who had spent 16 years in prison for the 1974 bombing of pubs in Birmingham, England — and ordered them released.

In 1994, the B.C. Social Credit party came close to collapse after half of its six-member caucus quit to join the B.C. Reform party.

In 1995, a record high temperature was recorded in Metro Toronto when the mercury soared to 20.1 C, topping the previous high of 20 degrees set in 1946. In 1996, the headquarters of Zellers was moved from Montreal to Toronto after parent Hudson’s Bay Co. decided to merge Zellers’ office operationswiththoseofTheBay.The move meant a loss of 550 jobs in Quebec.

In 1997, Fred Zinnemann, the Oscar-winning director of such movies as “High Noon,” “A Man for All Seasons” and “From Here to Eternity,” died at age 89.

In 2004, Spanish voters threw out the ruling Popular Party of President Jose Maria Aznar as the Socialist opposition led by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero roared to victory in the national election. The upset came just three days after terrorist bombings in Madrid killed 191 people and injured more than 1,400.

In 2004, President Vladimir Putin was re-elected in Russia’s presidential election.

In 2010, Victoria, B.C.-native Steve Nash played in his 1,000th NBA game.

In 2010, Saskatoon’s Colette Bourgonje won silver in the women’s 10-km sit-ski cross-country at the Vancouver Paralympic Games, becoming the first Canadian to win a Paralympic medal on home turf.

In 2011, former radio talk show host Christy Clark was sworn in as B.C.’s 35th premier.

In 2012, the International Criminal Court convicted Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga of using child soldiers, a verdict hailed as a legal landmark in the fight against impunity for the world’s most serious crimes. (He was later sentenced to 14 years in prison.)

In 2013, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached an agreement to form a new coalition government, the first government in decades not to include any ultraOrthodox parties.

In 2018, renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, whose brilliant mind ranged across time and space though his body was paralyzed by ALS, died at age 76. Hawking wrote so lucidly of the mysteries of space, time and black holes that his book, “A Brief History of Time,” became an international bestseller, making him one of science’s biggest celebrities since Albert Einstein.