TODAY IN HISTORY: Chretien’s Shawinigan Handshake

In 1968, Little Walter, the legendary Chicago blues harmonica player, died after being stabbed the previous evening in a street fight in his hometown. He was 37.

In 1965, the very first Canadian Maple Leaf flag was unfurled at an Ottawa ceremony. Days later it was given to Lucien Lamoureux, who served as Speaker of the House of Commons and in several diplomatic posts before retiring to Belgium.

In 1969, hairdresser Vickie Jones was arrested in Fort Myers, Fla., for giving a phoney Aretha Franklin concert. Jones apparently was sufficiently realistic — it was reported that no one asked for a refund. The judge later dropped the charges as she was threatened by the show’s producer.

In 1979, at the Grammy Awards, Anne Murray won Best Female Pop Vocalist for her No. 1 hit “You Needed Me,” besting allstars Olivia Newton John, Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer. In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank in a storm 315 kilometres east of St. John's, Nfld. All 84 crew members died, most of them from Newfoundland. An American inquiry found the rig's U.S. owners had failed to provide adequate training and safety equipment.

In 1989, the Soviet Union announced its last troops had left Afghanistan,

In 1996, at a Flag Day ceremony in Hull, Que., prime minister Jean Chretien was wandering through a crowd of people when he was confronted by a tuque-clad protester (Bill Clennett). Chretien grabbed him by the throat and pushed him into the arms of police officers. The incident was dubbed "The Shawinigan Handshake."

In 2010, former Montreal financial adviser Earl Jones was sentenced to 11 years in prison, after pleading guilty to two fraud charges related to his $50-million Ponzi scheme. In 2012, the Harper government used its majority in the House of Commons to pass legislation to scrap the controversial longgun registry by a vote of 159-130, with the support of two maverick New Democrats. (A Quebec court stepped in at the 11th hour and ordered a delay in the destruction of registry data from that province just as legislation to kill the registry sailed through the Senate and was set to receive royal assent. In June 2013, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled against the province.)

In 2021, new rules went into effect requiring travellers driving into Canada from the U.S. to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test within the previous 72 hours, or proof of a positive test between 14 and 90 days before arrival — long enough to recover and still have some immunity.

In 2022, 54 possible unmarked graves on two former residential school sites in a First Nation in eastern Saskatchean.