TODAY IN HISTORY

In 325, the month-long Council of Nicea closed. Known as the first ecumenical council in the history of the Church, it formulated the “Nicene Creed” and established the method for calculating when Easter falls.

In 1566, James VI of Scotland was born. Upon the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, he ascended the English throne as James I. He is best remembered for authorizing the publication known today as the King James Version of the Bible.

In 1721, almost half of Montreal was destroyed by fire. In 1815, artist Cornelius Kreighoff, famed for his portraits of life in 19thcentury Quebec, was born in Amsterdam, Holland. He died in 1872.

In 1816, the Seven Oaks Massacre occurred in what is now Winnipeg. A group of Metis killed Hudson’s Bay Co. governor Robert Semple and 20 of his men when they tried to stop the Metis from transferring supplies to the rival North West Co.

In 1846, the first baseball game with set rules was played in Hoboken, N.J.

In 1862, slavery was outlawed in U.S. territories.

In 1867, deposed Mexican emperor Maximilian was executed.

In 1896, Wallis Warfield Simpson was born in Pennsylvania. The two-time divorcee became the Duchess of Windsor when she married the former King Edward VIII in 1937, a few months after he abdicated in favour of the woman he loved. The Duchess died in Paris in 1986.