TODAY IN HISTORY: Churchill becomes Britain’s PM

In 1278, Jews in England were imprisoned on charges of coin clipping (shaving silver off of coins).

In 1427, Jews were expelled from Berne, Switzerland.

In 1534, Jacques Cartier arrived at Cape Bonavista, Nfld., on his first voyage to Canada.

In 1559, Scottish Protestants under John Knox rose up against the Regent, Mary of Guise, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots.

In 1570, Russian Czar Ivan IV became a Protestant.

In 1798, English explorer George Vancouver died in London at age 40.

In 1841, the city of Halifax was incorporated.

In 1844, the capital of Canada was moved from Kingston to Montreal, where it remained for five years.

In 1869, a gold spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railway in the U.S.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Philadelphia.

In 1920, it was announced that Ottawa's own minister, not the British ambassador, would represent Canada in Washington.

In 1924, J. Edgar Hoover was given the job of FBI director. He remained there until his death on May 2, 1972.

In 1924, prohibition ended in Alberta.

In 1933, the Nazis staged massive public book burnings in Germany.

In 1940, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill formed a government.

In 1941, German deputy fuhrer Rudolf Hess flew to Britain on a self-described peace mission. He crash-landed in Scotland and was captured and jailed. Hess was sentenced to life in prison at the 1945 Nuremberg war crimes trial. He was 93 when he died in prison in 1987.

In 1968, the Vietnam peace talks began in Paris.

In 1978, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon announced they had agreed to end their 18-year marriage.

In 1981, Socialist candidate Francois Mitterrand defeated incumbent Valery Giscard D'Estaing in the French presidential election.

In 1991, a B.C. court convicted Inderjit Singh Reyat of manslaughter in a 1985 bombing that killed two baggage handlers at Tokyo’s Narita Airport. Reyat was later sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's first black president.

In 1994, Serial killer John Wayne Gacy was executed by injection at an Illinois prison. He was convicted of murdering 33 young men and boys in the Chicago area between 1972-78.

In 1999, a military jury at Camp Lejeune, N.C., sentenced Capt. Richard Ashby, a Marine pilot whose jet had clipped an Italian gondola cable, sending 20 people plunging to their deaths, to six months in prison and dismissed him from the corps for helping destroy a videotape made during the flight. Ashby had been acquitted earlier of manslaughter.

In 2004, Chuck Guite and Jean Brault, two central figures in the federal sponsorship scandal, were arrested and each charged with six fraud-related charges. They were later found guilty.