TODAY IN HISTORY:
In 1609, at Ticonderoga, French explorer Samuel de Champlain became the first European to use firearms against natives.
In 1793, Gen. John Graves Simcoe, lieutenantgovernor of Upper Canada, began clearing the site for the city of York, current-day Toronto. Worried about a possible war with the Americans, Simcoe moved the capital from Newark, now Niagara, to the Toronto bay area, which provided better transportation facilities. Simcoe called the new capital York in honour of the Duke of York’s victories in Europe.
In 1818, English novelist Emily Bronte was born in Thornton, Yorkshire. Bronte was one of three sisters who became famous novelists despite being raised in virtual isolation. Emily’s most famous work was her only novel, Wuthering Heights, the story of the passionate love of Catherine and Heathcliff.
In 1855, Jean Francois Gravelet became the first person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
In 1863, Henry Ford, U.S. industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Co., was born on a farm in Dearborn, Mich. After starting as a machinist and engineer, Ford organized the Detroit
Automobile Co. in 1899 and then the Ford Motor Co. in 1903. He introduced assembly-line production, manufacturing a car in 1913 that sold for $500. He died in 1947.
In 1908, the first round-the-world automobile race, which had begun in New York in February, ended in Paris with the drivers of the American car, a Thomas Flyer, declared the winners over teams from Germany and Italy.
In 1909, the U.S. government bought its first plane from the Wright brothers.
In 1928, American George Eastman demonstrated the first full-colour motion picture.
In 1954, the fifth British Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games) were opened in Vancouver by former governor general Earl Alexander. The Games attracted 671 athletes and saw Briton Roger Bannister and Australian John Landy break the world record for the mile.
In 1956, the U.S. Congress formally adopted “In God We Trust” as its national motto.
In 1962, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker officially opened the Trans-Canada Highway to traffic at ceremonies at Rogers Pass, B.C. The public had begun demanding a national road in 1910, but the work wasn’t started until 1950. The