TODAY IN HISTORY: Mr. Bieber goes to Ottawa
In 1621, poet John Donne was elected dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
In 1765, Frederick County, Maryland, became the first colonial entity to repudiate the British Stamp Act.
In 1809, following the first piracy trial in Canada, Edward Jordan was hanged for piracy and murder in Halifax.
In 1815, Canada’s first street lamps, fueled by whale oil, were installed in Montreal.
In 1877, Canada was awarded $5.5 million from the United States for fishing rights and free navigation on the St. Lawrence River.
In 1910, the first criminal brought to justice by the use of radio was hanged at London’s Pentonville Prison. Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American-born physician, murdered his wife after falling in love with his receptionist. The pair sailed to Canada, with the mistress disguised as a young man. But the vessel’s captain became suspicious and radioed for detectives to intercept the ship. Crippen was arrested in Montreal.
In 1921, U.S. President Warren Harding signed a law prohibiting the consumption of beer.
In 1936, “Life,” the photojournalism magazine created by Henry R. Luce, was first published.
In 1943, during the Second World War, U.S. forces seized control of the Tarawa and Makin atolls from the Japanese.
In 1947, E. L. Sukenik of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University first received word of the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The documents, dating between 200 BC and AD 70, had been accidentally discovered the previous winter by two Bedouin shepherds in the vicinity of Qumran.
In 1951, British automobile producers Austin and Morris announced a merger.
In 1960, George Chuvalo regained the Canadian heavyweight title by defeating Bob Cleroux.
In 1963, Ron Lippert of Kitchener, Ont., a self-confessed CIA agent, was sentenced to 30 years in a Havana jail for flying into Cuba with concealed explosives. He was released in 1973.
In 1963, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Nov. 25th a day of national mourning following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In 1964, Latin was used as the official liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church for the last time.
In 1971, China took a seat as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
In 1975, the Grey Cup Game was played on the Prairies for the first time. The Edmonton Eskimos edged the Montreal Alouettes 9-8 on a bitterly cold day at Calgary’s McMahon Stadium.
In 1976, Jerry Lee Lewis was arrested outside Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion in Memphis, where he had been caught brandishing a pistol and demanding to see Elvis. Lewis was charged with public intoxication and possession of a weapon.
In 1980, a massive earthquake in southern Italy killed nearly 3,000 people — mostly in Naples, Salerno, Avellino and Potenza.
In 1987, the United Nations opened its archives on Nazis and Japanese war crimes, exposing facts and allegations about 36,000 people including Kurt Waldheim.
In 1994, singer-songwriter Tommy Boyce, who helped write hit songs for “The Monkees” and “Jay and the Americans,” shot himself to death in his Nashville home. He was 55. Boyce and his songwriting partner, Bobby Hart, were appointed musical directors for “The Monkees” TV show in 1966. They penned several of the group’s hits, including “Last Train to Clarksville.”
In 1995, Motown saxophonist and singer Junior Walker died of cancer in Battle Creek, Mich. He was 53. He was known to a new legion of fans for his legendary sax solo on Foreigner’s hit record, “Urgent.”
In 1995, the CBC announced that it would drop all American-produced television programs from its prime-time schedule.
In 1996, the Edmonton Eskimos set a CFL record for points in a playoff game, routing the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers 68-7 in the West Division semifinal.
In 1996, a hijacked Ethiopian jetliner crash-landed in the Pacific Ocean before breaking apart, killing 125 of the 175 people on board, including all three hijackers.
In 1998, Andy Scott resigned as Canada’s Solicitor-General, following weeks of Opposition allegations that he compromised the 1997 APEC inquiry during an in-flight conversation and then lied about it.
In 1998, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal overturned Robert Latimer’s sentence (two years less a day) in the killing of his disabled daughter and sentenced him to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. In 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the decision. He starting serving day parole in March 2008 and was granted full parole on Dec. 6, 2010.
In 2001, a UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague charged former Yugloslav president Slobodan Milosevic with genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
In 2002, organizers of the Miss World beauty contest decided to relocate the pageant finale from Nigeria to London, England, after Muslim-Christian riots over the event killed more than 200 people over a week. The immediate spark for the riots was the publication of a newspaper article with the comment that the Prophet Muhammad would probably have chosen a wife from among the contestants.
In 2002, astronaut John Herrington made history as the first American Indian to fly in space. Herrington, a member of Oklahoma’s Chickasaw Nation, was one of seven crew aboard space shuttle “Endeavour” when it took off from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
In 2003, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze was forced to resign, sending thousands of cheering people into the street. Georgians had blamed him for endemic poverty and corruption.
In 2004, Ukraine’s opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko declared himself the winner of the presidential election as about 200,000 supporters gathered in Kyiv to protest election fraud.