TODAY IN HISTORY:
In 1100,
Henry I ascended the throne of England, three days after his brother, King William II, was killed in a hunting accident.
the Pilgrim ships The Mayflower and The Speedwell sailed from England.
the little settlement of Lachine, just west of Montreal, was attacked by 1,500 Iroquois in a pre-dawn raid. Twenty-four settlers were killed and more than 60 were taken prisoner.
The Royal William, the first Canadian ship to cross the Atlantic entirely under steam power, left Quebec. It first travelled to Pictou, N.S., and from there took 25 days to cross the ocean to Gravesend, England with a load of coal.
American businessman Cyrus Field finished laying out the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable between Newfoundland and Ireland. However, after several weeks of use, the cable burned out.
the first parcel post service from Canada to Britain began.
In 1620,
In 1689,
In 1833,
In 1858,
In 1886,
In 1891, the first traveller’s cheque, devised by American Express, was cashed.
In 1913,
in Victoria, John Bryant became the first air-crash fatality in Canada.
Saskatoon’s Ethel Catherwood won the women’s high jump at the Amsterdam Olympics. She remains Canada’s lone Olympic
In 1928,
women’s track and field gold medallist.
daredevil William (Red) Hill Jr. was killed as he attempted to go over Niagara Falls in a contraption of rubber inner tubes, canvas and fishnet. A crowd estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000 watched Hill go over the falls. His body was found two days later.
Satchel Paige, 47, became the oldest pitcher in major-league baseball history to pitch a complete game or a shutout when he beat Virgil Trucks and the Detroit Tigers 1-0 in 12 innings.
Arthur Meighen, Canada’s ninth prime minister, died at age 86 in Toronto.
actress Marilyn Monroe was found dead of an overdose of sleeping pills in her Hollywood home. She was 36.
U.S. president Richard Nixon admitted that six days after the Watergate burglary, he acted to obstruct the FBI’s investigation for political as well as national security reasons.
Cindy Nicholas swam across the English Channel and back in a then-record time of 19 hours, 12 minutes.
a Chicago woman burst into flames and died. She was the eighth recorded victim of human spontaneous combustion, based on records dating to the 18th century.
Welsh actor Richard Burton, former
In 1951,
In 1952,
In 1960,
In 1962,
In 1974,
In 1979,
In 1982,
In 1984,