today in history

In 1560, King Gustav I of Sweden, founder of the Vasa dynasty which ruled until 1818, died. He was born in 1496.

In 1829, London’s reorganized police force, which became known as Scotland Yard, went on duty.

In 1913, German engineer Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, died. He was 55. Although his family refused to accept his death as suicide, he’s said to have thrown himself over the rail of an English Channel steamer after having lost control over his invention.

In 1962, Canada became the third nation to have a satellite in space with the launch of “Alouette 1’’ from Cape Kennedy, Fla. The satellite cost $3 million and weighed 146 kilograms. It spent a decade studying the ionosphere from an altitude of 1,000 kilometres before being deactivated.

In 2004, the Expos played their last game in Montreal, as the club moved to Washington after 36 seasons.

In 2008, financial markets nosedived in the wake of the rejection of the $700-billion package negotiated by U.S. congressional leaders to bail out the financial industry. The Dow industrial average plummeted as much as 700 points, its biggest single-day drop, and Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite index fell as much as 800 points. The TSX lost $100-billion in market value, and the Dow $1.2-trillion. Both indexes rebounded somewhat later in the afternoon.