TODAY IN HISTORY

On this day in 1961

The city of Berlin was divided by a concrete wall as East Germany sealed off the border between the Eastern and Western sectors in a move to control emigration to the West. The wall snaked 166 kilometres around the enclave of West Berlin and was backed by floodlights, barbed wire, trip wires, minefields and scattered guns. On Nov. 9, 1989, East German authorities unexpectedly opened the borders. The wall was then dismantled and the two Germanys were unified. Also on this day: In 1863, John Sandfield Macdonald became prime minister of United Canada with A.A. Dorion. A lawyer who was heavily involved in the Confederation process, Macdonald had also been part of an earlier administration — the Macdonald-Sicotte government — since 1862. Macdonald also served later as Ontario’s first premier. He was no relation to Sir John A. Macdonald, although he did work closely with Canada’s first prime minister.

In 1886, Sir John A. Macdonald drove in the last spike of the Esquimault-Nanaimo railway in British Columbia.

In 1910, Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, died in London at the age of 90. The English woman’s dedication to helping others began in her youth as she studied nursing and visited hospitals and reformatories in Europe. During the Crimean War, Nightingale went with 34 nurses to the battlefield to help wounded soldiers who had suffered from poor medical care. Her self-sacrificing service made her name synonymous with care and compassion in the nursing field. She was bedridden for the last 54 years of her life. In 1926, Cuban leader Fidel Castro was born. In 1960, the first two-way telephone conversation by satellite took place with the help of “Echo 1.”