TODAY IN HISTORY

In 325, the Council of Nicea closed. Regarded as the first ecumenical council, its 300 attending bishops drafted the Nicene Creed and fixed the formula for Easter Sunday.

In 1593, the Protestant king of France, Henry IV, converted to Roman Catholicism.

In 1787, British navigator Capt. George Dixon named the Queen Charlotte Islands, after the wife of George III.

In 1799, botanist-explorer David Douglas was born in Scotland. The Douglas fir is named after Douglas, who died in 1835.

In 1845, Canadian-born Roman Catholic missionary Francois Blanchet was consecrated bishop of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. He devoted 45 years to building churches, and is remembered today as the Apostle of Oregon.

In 1845, English explorer Sir John Franklin disappeared while on an expedition in the eastern Arctic trying to chart and navigate the Northwest Passage. It was later learned that Franklin’s ships were frozen in ice west of King William Island. Franklin died June 11, 1847, and his 105 crew members perished while trekking southward.

In 1847, Liberia, settled in West Africa by freed U.S. slaves, became a republic.

In 1874, “The Maple Leaf Forever,”one of Canada’s most famous patriotic songs, was said to have been performed for the first time during the laying of the foundation stone for the Christian Baptist Church in New market, Ont. The song’s composer, Alexander Muir, conducted a choir of schoolchildren. But the song likely had its first public performance years earlier.An 1871 sheet music edition said it had been“sung with great applause by J.F. Hardy, Esquire, in his popular entertainments.”

In 1952, Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.