TODAY IN HISTORY: Chappaquiddick

In A.D. 64, the Great Fire of Rome began.

In 1932, Canada and the U.S. signed a treaty laying the groundwork for what eventually became the St. Lawrence Seaway. Considered by some to be the largest work of engineering ever, it would be years before the seaway was first used. That didn’t happen until April 25, 1959. The seaway was officially opened on June 26, 1959 by the Queen and U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War began. In 1945, an ammunition barge blew up at Bedford Basin in Halifax, causing one death and forcing half the city’s population to be evacuated. Damage totalled nearly $4 million.

In 1953, 18-year-old Elvis Presley visited the Memphis Recording Service to record “My Happiness” as a gift for his mother. The so-called vanity disc, which cost Presley $3.98, was his first recording. It surfaced 37 years later in the RCA compilation album, “Elvis — the Great Performances.” In 1966, singer Bobby Fuller, leader of “The Bobby Fuller Four,” was found dead in his car in Los Angeles. He was 22. Police ruled his death a suicide — death by asphyxiation — but it was later revealed that he had been beaten and had ingested gasoline. Only six months earlier, “The Bobby Fuller Four” had been in the top-10 with “I Fought the Law.” In 1968, a Canada-wide postal strike involving 24,000 workers began. It ended Aug. 9.

In 1969, secretary Mary Jo Kopechne died when a car driven by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass.

In 1973, Mississauga, Ont., model Christine Demeter was discovered bludgeoned to death in her home. Her husband Peter was convicted of hiring an assailant to kill her in an attempt to collect $1 million in insurance.

In 1976, Romanian Nadia Comaneci, age 14, performing on the uneven bars at the Montreal Olympics, scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastic history.

In 1984, 21 people were killed by a gunman at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif. just days before L.A. was to host the Summer Olympics.

In 1986, the world got its first look at the remains of the Titanic as videotapes of the British luxury liner were released by researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The Titanic sank April 14, 1912, with the loss of 1,513 lives after the ship struck an iceberg about 600 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland.

In 1990, Alphonsus Penney, Newfoundland’s Catholic archbishop, offered his resignation after a church-sponsored report accused church officials of ignoring and covering up sexual abuse by priests in the province.

In 1993, Paul Tracey, 24, of West Hill, Ont., won the Molson Indy in Toronto, the first Canadian to win this race.

In 1995, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of Robert Latimer for killing his disabled daughter.

In 1997, DNA tests cleared David Milgaard of the 1969 sexual assault and fatal stabbing of Saskatoon nursing aide Gail Miller. Milgaard served 23 years in prison for the crime. The Saskatchewan government apologized to Milgaard and compensated him, and ordered a public inquiry.

In 2003, David Kelly, a British government scientist and former United Nations weapons inspector, was found dead near his home in Oxfordshire, in an apparent suicide. He was the anonymous source behind BBC reports that accused the British government of “sexing up” an intelligence report on Iraqi weapons capability that was used as major justification for the Iraq invasion.

In 2004, a judge declared a mistrial in the second trial of Kelly Ellard, accused of killing 14-year-old Reena Virk of Victoria in 1997 after the jury said it was deadlocked. In 2005, her third trial found her guilty of second-degree murder, but in 2008, a B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the conviction. In June 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada restored the guilty verdict.

In 2010, Annie Welsh, who as a toddler survived the Dec. 6, 1917 Halifax Explosion and came to be known as Ashpan Annie, died at a Halifax seniors residence. She was 95. Her mother and brother died when the blast ripped through their Barrington Street home and she was thrown under the kitchen stove. Her father was a soldier overseas. Relief efforts were hampered by a major snowstorm, but she survived because the ashes in the ashpan kept her warm for 26 hours until soldiers rescued her. In 2013, Detroit, the once-mighty symbol of the U.S.’s manufacturing strength, became the biggest U.S. city ever to file for bankruptcy — the result of a long, slow decline in population and automobile manufacturing.