TODAY IN HISTORY: The Stones release Exile on Main Street

In 1727, Jews were expelled from Ukraine by Empress Catherine I of Russia.

In 1907, the Vancouver Stock Exchange was incorporated.

In 1915, during the First World War, the Cunard steamship “Lusitania” was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland with the loss of nearly 1,200 lives.

In 1920, the first exhibition of the Group of Seven went on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. The seven artists were Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald and Frederick Varley. Initial reviews were favourable, but only three of the 100-plus works were purchased.

In 1972, the Rolling Stones released their masterpiece “Exile on Main Street,” now considered one of greatest rock albums of all-time. The double album, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard album charts on both sides of the Atlantic included the top5 single “Tumbling Dice.”

In 1975, U.S. President Gerald Ford formally declared an end to the Vietnam Era. In Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City, the North Vietnamese military staged a rally to celebrate their takeover.

In 1980, Paul Geidel was released from a New York prison after serving a record term of nearly 69 years. He’d been convicted of second-degree murder in 1911. It’s believed that he died in 1987 in a nursing home in Beacon, New York at age 93.

In 1983, Sunny’s Halo became the second Canadian horse to win the Kentucky Derby.

In 1984 a US$180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the “Agent Orange” class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans who charged they’d suffered injury from exposure to the defoliant.

In 1994, 1,322 guitarists, led by Randy Bachman, gathered in Vancouver to play Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business” for 68 minutes and 40 seconds. The outdoor strumathon, at the time, set two world records — the greatest number of guitarists and the longest mass guitar jam.

In 2001, one of Britain’s 1963 Great Train Robbers returned home from Brazil after 35 years as an escaped fugitive. The ailing 71-year-old Ronnie Biggs had been in Brazil since 1970. A London judge sent him back to prison. (He was released from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds. He died on Dec. 18, 2013.)

In 2012, British Columbia formally apologized to the Japanese-Canadian community for the internment of thousands of people during the Second World War. Over 22,000 Japanese-Canadians placed in internment camps in B.C. and Western Canada.

In 2017, French voters elected 39-year-old independent centrist Emmanuel Macron as the country’s youngest president, delivering a resounding victory to the pro-European former investment banker and dashing the populist dream of far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

In 2019, The Edmonton Oilers officially named Ken Holland as their new general manager and president of hockey operations.