Trudeau resigns for a few days

In 1783, the first free flight was made by two men who rose 100 metres above Paris in a hot-air balloon.

In 1877, Thomas Edison announced he invented a “talking machine” — something that became known as the phonograph.

In 1916, 40 people died when the Royal Navy hospital ship HMS Brittanic, sister ship of the Titanic, was torpedoed in the Aegean Sea.

In 1927, picketing strikers at the Columbine Mine in northern Colorado were fired on by state police. Six miners were killed.

In 1929, a tidal wave caused by an underwater earthquake in the Atlantic Ocean off southeastern Newfoundland, killed 29 people who drowned in wooden homes that were swept into the sea.

In 1942, the Alaska Highway was formally opened.

In 1950, a troop train collided with a CNR passenger train at Canoe Lake, B.C., killing 21 people and injuring 53. A transport board inquiry found the accident had been caused by conflicting orders delivered to the conductors of the trains.

In 1954, the Canadian icebreaker HMCS Labrador completed a 29,000-kilometre trip around the continent via the Northwest Passage and the Panama Canal. It was the largest vessel to have circled North America, and the first to traverse the Northwest Passage from east to west within a year. T

In 1959, Alan Freed, at the time the top disc jockey in the U.S., was fired by New York station WABC after he refused to sign an affidavit that he had participated in bribes. Freed was the prime target in the payola investigations launched by the U.S. Congress. By the time he pleaded guilty to two counts of commercial bribery, taking money from record promoters, in December 1962, he was a broken man.

In 1979, Pierre Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader. He postponed his retirement, however, when Joe Clark's minority Tory government was defeated on Dec. 13. Trudeau returned five days later and led the Liberals to a majority government in the Feb. 18 election.

In 1980, fire in the 26-floor MGM Grand hotel casino in Las Vegas killed 84 people and injured over 700. Improper ventilation and several safety code violations were blamed for the disaster.

In 1981, an estimated 100,000 people gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to protest high interest rates. The demonstration, initiated by Canadian Labour Congress president Dennis McDermott, was the largest demonstration ever held on Parliament Hill.

In 1983, in the N.W.T. election, native politicians won a majority of seats on the 24-member Territorial Council, the N.W.T. legislative body.

In 1988, the Tories under Brian Mulroney defeated the Liberals under John Turner and Ed Broadbent’s NDP in a federal election. The key issue was the Conservatives' free-trade agreement with the United States.

In 1990, American junk bond king Michael Milken was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He had been accused in the insider-trading scandal that came to symbolize a decade of excess on Wall Street. Milken pleaded guilty to lesser charges of violating U.S. securities and tax laws and served 22 months.

In 1995, leaders of Bosnia’s three warring factions, Muslims, Serbs and Croats, accepted a U.S.-brokered peace plan designed to end 43 months of bloody fighting.

Also in 1995, Lucien Bouchard announced he would resign as leader of the federal Bloc Quebecois to become leader of the provincial Parti Quebecois and Quebec premier.

In 2002, Princess Anne became the first member of the Royal Family in modern times to be convicted of a criminal offence. She pleaded guilty to allowing her English bull terrier to run loose and attack two children. She was fined the equivalent of C$1,240 and ordered to pay C$620 in compensation for violating the Dangerous Dogs Act.

In 2017, Ride-hailing service Uber came clean about its coverup of a year-old security breach that saw hackers steal the personal information of 57 million customers around the world.