TODAY IN history

In 547, Italian monk Benedict, author of the Benedictine rule which established the pattern for European monastic life through the Middle Ages, died at Monte Cassino. In 1965, Pope Paul VI proclaimed him the patron saint of Europe.

In 1617, Pocohontas, an Indian princess who married English settler John Rolfe, one of the founders of a colony in Virgina, died in England at the age of 22.

In 1942, J.S. Woodsworth, the founding leader of the federal Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, died in Vancouver at age 67. Woodsworth, a Methodist minister and ardent social democrat, founded the Manitoba Independent Labour Party in 1919. From the time he was first elected to the Commons from Winnipeg in 1921, Woodsworth pushed Liberal and Conservative governments for social reforms. He became CCF leader at the party’s founding convention in Regina in 1933. But the staunch pacifist split with his colleagues six years later, when he opposed Canada entering the Second World War. Woodsworth retired soon after as leader of the CCF, which was renamed the New Democratic Party in 1961.

In 1965, a five-day civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., began. Led by Rev. Martin Luther King, 8,000 people set out to cover the 80-kilometre walk for equality and desegregation. The marchers were supervised by 1,000 military police.