TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1923, Dr. Frederick Banting and Dr. J.J.R. Macleod of the University of Toronto were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for their discovery of the hormone insulin, and became the first Canadians to win a Nobel. Macleod supervised the research, but Banting was considered the principal discoverer because his idea launched the research, involving Charles Best and J.B. Collip. Insulin injections have saved and improved the lives of millions of diabetics.

In 1951, Montreal became the first Canadian city to reach a population of more than one million.

In 1993, Jean Chretien’s Liberals ended nine years of Conservative rule in Ottawa by winning a majority in a federal election. The Tories, under recently-elected leader Kim Campbell, were all but wiped off the federal political map, going from 154 Commons seats to only two. The separatist Bloc Quebecois became the Official Opposition with 54 seats, two more than the Reform party. Chretien’s Liberals won repeat majorities in 1997 and 2000.

In 2005, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty ordered the evacuation of more than half the 1,900 residents of the northern reserve of Kashechewan plagued with contaminated drinking water.

In 2009, in the worst attack in Iraq in more than two years, at least 155 people were killed and over 500 injured in two suicide bombings in Baghdad.