TODAY IN HISTORY: The snowblower is invented

In 1790, the Aztec calendar stone was uncovered by workmen in Mexico City. Nearly four metres wide and weighing 22 tonnes, the hand-carved slab accurately described the solar calendar.

In 1792, the first legislative assembly of Lower Canada met in Quebec City.

In 1876, snowblower inventor Arthur Sicard was born in Saint-Leonard-de-Port-Maurice, Que. Sicard invented the Sicard Snow Remover Snowblower in 1925 and made his first sale two years later to the Montreal-area town of Outremont. He died in 1946.

In 1893, the Canadian Bankers' Association was organized in Montreal.

In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew their first airplane at Kitty Hawk, N.C. The brothers used their Dayton, Ohio, bicycle shop to construct their early aircraft. The Wright Flyer, a biplane with two propellers chain-driven by a gasoline motor, flew 35 metres in 12 seconds — enough to convince the brothers that sustained flights were possible.

In 1917, Russia's Bolshevik government announced it was confiscating the property of the Russian Orthodox Church and abolishing religious instruction in schools.

In 1917, Canada's 13th federal election was won by Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden's pro-conscription coalition.

In 1924, the legislature of British Columbia adopted a resolution opposing further immigration of Asians to Canada.

In 1939, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand signed an agreement whereby pilots from all four countries would be trained in Canada for service in the Second World War.

In 1954, NATO advised its military commanders to plan on using atomic weapons in the event of Communist aggression.

In 1957, the U.S. successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.

In 1969, the U.S. Air Force closed its Project Blue Book by concluding there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.

In 1971, India and Pakistan ended a two-week war that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh as a separate country.

In 1982, the European Economic Community banned the import of harp and hooded seal pelts to EEC members. This pledge to take action against seal-pup hunting marked the ending of the main market for the products of the Canadian seal hunt.

In 1982, Indian and Northern Affairs Minister John Munro announced the federal government had agreed to pay Yukon natives $183 million to settle one of the three largest land claims cases in Canada. In exchange for the money, the Council for Yukon Indians gave up its aboriginal claim to most of the Yukon.

In 1986, the report of Mr. Justice Albert Malouf's royal commission on sealing was tabled in the House of Commons. The report recommended Canada end the hunting of seal pups but that a carefully controlled hunt of adult seals be allowed.

In 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to formally dissolve the 74-year-old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Jan. 1, 1992.

In 1996, 51-year-old Vancouver nurse Nancy Malloy was slain, along with five other aid workers, as they slept at a hospital in Chechnya, Russia. She was the first Canadian Red Cross worker ever killed in the field.