MORE TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1887, the first CPR intercontinental passenger train arrived at the new west coast terminal of Vancouver.

In 1903, American Congregational missionary Henry Blodget died at age 78. He served 40 years in China (1854-94), and helped translate the New Testament into the colloquial Mandarin language of Beijing.

In 1915, Germany declared war on Italy during the First World War.

In 1929, the first non-stop Winnipegto-Edmonton flight was made in six hours and 48 minutes.

In 1934, bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot to death in a police ambush on a road in Bienville Parish, La.

In 1943, William Aberhart, the inaugural leader of Alberta’s Social Credit party, died in Vancouver. He had led the Socreds to power in 1935. He was born Dec. 30, 1878, on a farm near Kippen in Hibbert Township, Perth County, Ont.

In 1945, Nazi S.S. chief Heinrich Himmler committed suicide at Luneburg, Germany -- three days after his capture by the British.

In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was established.

In 1956, the Presbyterian Church in the United States began accepting women ministers.

In 1960, former Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann was captured by Israeli agents in Argentina. He was later flown to Israel, where he was convicted of war crimes and executed.

In 1974, New Brunswick became the first province to draft statutes in both English and French.

In 1975, in what’s believed to have been the first operation of its kind, British doctors kept a critically ill baby alive for 16 hours by linking his heart and kidneys to those of a living baboon.

In 1977, South Moluccan terrorists seized hundreds of hostages in a train and a school in northern Holland. The siege ended nearly three weeks later in a military attack that took the lives of six terrorists and two hostages.

In 1983, Canada’s first heart-lung transplant was performed in London, Ont. John Adams of Thunder Bay, Ont., received a heart and two lungs from an American donor.

In 1986, the U.S. imposed a 35 per cent tariff on imported Canadian cedar shakes and shingles.