TODAY IN HISTORY: Vancouver’s 1st Stanley Cup riot

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 the Dominion 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 1940, Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi concentration camps, was first opened near Krakow, Poland. Before its liberation by the Allies in 1945, over three million Jews would be murdered there.

In 1940, German forces occupied Paris during the Second World War.

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

In 1953, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill became Sir Winston when the Queen 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 first edition of the index was instituted by Pope Paul IV in 1557. It was a list of publications which the Roman Catholic Church censored for being a danger to the church itself or the faith of its members. The 1948 edition contained 4,000 titles censored for reasons including heresy, moral deficiency and political incorrectness.

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 a one-vote margin — 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. Police later used videotapes of the riot to lay charges.

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 to be convicted of manslaughter for failing to provide the necessities of life to a child.

In 2005, 22-year-old Asafa Powell of Jamaica set a then world record, running the men's 100 metres in 9.77 seconds, at the Athens super grand prix. (Fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt currently holds the record with a 9.58 at the 2009 world championships in Berlin.)

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 2012, 77-year-old retired judge Jacques Delisle, believed to be the first Canadian judge to ever stand trial for murder, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his invalid wife. He received the mandatory sentence of life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 25 years.