TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1691, Englishman George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, died.

In 1695, satirist Jonathan Swift, author of “Gulliver’s Travels,” was ordained an Anglican priest in Ireland.

In 1837, a fire destroyed almost half of the business district of Saint John, N.B.

In 1849, the Hudson’s Bay Company signed a lease with the British government acquiring control of

Vancouver Island – for seven shillings a year.

In 1885, Alfred Carl Fuller, who founded the Fuller

Brush Company, was born in Nova Scotia.

In 1893, Britain’s Independent Labour Party, a precursor to the current Labour Party, held its first meeting.

In 1898, French novelist Emile Zola published his article “J’accuse.” Zola made serious charges against the French government with respect to the Alfred Dreyfus affair.

In 1906, the first advertisement for a radio, a Telimco selling for $7.50, appeared in the magazine “Scientific American.” Not until the 1920s, though, would commercial radio be widespread.

In 1915, a major earthquake in Avezzano, Italy, left about 30,000 people dead.

In 1918, a ferocious winter storm crippled southwestern Ontario around Sarnia and London for over a week. Snow 30 centimteres deep was whipped by brisk winds into four-metre-high drifts, crippling trains and rescue snowplows.

In 1920, the “New York Times” ridiculed aviation pioneer Robert Goddard for saying that rockets would work in outer space. The paper issued an apology and retraction after the 1969 “Apollo 11” Moon landing.