TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1771, Mother Marie Marguerite D’Youville, the founder of the Grey Nuns or Sisters of Charity, died in Montreal. The Nuns, a Roman Catholic Community which still operates to this day, performed charity work in hospitals, orphanages and schools. She was declared venerable in 1890 and in 1959 she became the first Canadian to be beatified.

In 1990, Pope John Paul canonized her as Canada’s first saint.

In 1788, Maryland passed an act to cede an area “not exceeding ten miles square” for the seat of the national government; about two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.

In 1823, the poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” more commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas,” by Clement C. Moore was published anonymously in the Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel.

In 1834, Joseph Hansom patented the Hansom cab.

In 1865, Canadian publisher, Joseph E. Atkinson, was born in Newcastle, Ont.

In 1888, a depressed Vincent Van Gogh sliced off half of his left ear.

In 1900, “One Two Three Four -- is it snowing where you are Mr. Thiessen? If it is, telegraph back to me.” Canadian Reginald Fessenden spoke these first words ever transmitted by radio from a site on Cobb Island in the middle of the Potomac River near Washington. A kilometre away, Mr. Thiessen, his assistant, quickly reported by Morse code that it was snowing, and he could hear Fessenden’s voice. This was the birth of radio broadcasting. However, it was six years later, after much finetuning, that radio’s potential was demonstrated. Fessenden presented radio’s first program on Christmas Eve 1906, from Boston.

In 1908, portait photographer Yousuf Karsh was born in Turkey. He came to Canada in 1924. Among his many subjects were Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway and Audrey Hepburn. He died July 13, 2002.

In 1918, Pte. Thomas Ricketts of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment became the youngest soldier ever to be awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in battle. The 17-year-old was decorated for running through enemy fire to get vital ammunition during the Allied advance through Belgium during the recently-ended First World War.

In 1928, the National Broadcasting Co. set up a permanent coast-tocoast radio network in the U.S. NBC had been formed two years earlier by