TODAY IN HISTORY: Leaning Tower of Pisa closed

In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo discovered the four satellites of Jupiter and named them Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

In 1789, the first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation’s first president.

In 1830, the first commercial U.S. railroad service started as the B&O Railway Company put a horsedrawn carriage onto a steel track.

In 1859, Canadian silver coins were first issued.

In 1867, Private Timothy O’Hea was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery. In June 1866, he protected the lives of 800 immigrants on a Grand Trunk Railway train from a fire in a boxcar carrying explosives at Danville, Que. It was the only V.C. awarded for a brave deed not done in the face of the enemy.

In 1914, the first steamship passed through the Panama Canal.

In 1927, commercial phone service began between New York and London, England.

In 1942, the Japanese siege of Bataan began during the Second World War.

In 1953, President Harry Truman announced that the U.S. had developed a hydrogen bomb.

In 1955, the opening of the Canadian Parliament was broadcast on television for the first time.

In 1979, Vietnam forces conquered the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.

In 1980, the Philadelphia Flyers’ unbeaten streak ended at 35 games (25 wins, 10 ties) with a 7-1 loss to the Minnesota North Stars.

In 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan ordered an economic boycott of Libya and recalled all American citizens from the country in retaliation for its backing of terrorist attacks on passengers at the Rome and Vienna airports.

In 1989, Emperor Hirohito of Japan died at the age of 87, after ruling for 62 years.

In 1990, for safety reasons, Italy’s famous Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public for the first time since it opened around 1275. It re-opened Dec. 15, 2001 after being stabilized in an effort that cost an estimated $40 million.

In 1996, a large part of the eastern U.S. was buried by the worst blizzard to hit the region in 70 years. The two-day storm was blamed for at least 100 deaths, including two Ontario men killed in separate traffic accidents.

In 1998, former NHL players’ union leader Alan Eagleson, once considered the mightiest man in professional hockey, pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in Canada Cup money from the 1984, 1987 and 1991 tournaments. Eagleson was fined and served six months in prison. He resigned from the Hockey Hall of Fame, was removed from the Order of Canada and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, and disbarred by the Law Society of Upper Canada.

In 1999, the U.S. Senate formally opened its impeachment trial against President Bill Clinton.

In 2002, Ottawa said Canadian troops would be heading into a combat mission under U.S. control in southern Afghanistan.

In 2007, the first sextuplets were born in Canada - to a woman in Vancouver and weighing 1.8 pounds each. The birth of the six babies was hailed as miraculous, but two of the infants, born three months premature, died a short time later. The B.C. government temporarily seized three of the babies and gave blood transfusions to two of them for health reasons. The parents, who were Jehovah's Witnesses, filed a court challenge because their religion forbids blood transfusions.

In 2009, trooper Brian Good, 42, a member of the Royal Canadian Dragoons stationed at the Canadian Forces base in Petawawa, Ont., was killed by a roadside bomb north of Kandahar City, Afghanistan.

In 2011, Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only man ever convicted in the 1985 Air India bombings that killed 331 people, was sentenced to nine years in prison for perjury at the 2003 trial of two men acquitted in the attacks. (In 2017, the Parole Board of Canada allowed him to leave a halfway house where he was required to stay following his release from prison in 2016.)