Some interesting May 10 moments

In 1534, Jacques Cartier arrived at Cape Bonavista, Nfld., on his first voyage to Canada.

In 1559, Scottish Protestants under John Knox rose up against the Regent, Mary of Guise, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots.

In 1570, Russian Czar Ivan IV became a Protestant.

In 1798, English explorer George Vancouver died in London at age 40.

In 1844, the capital of Canada was moved from Kingston to Montreal, where it remained for five years.

In 1869, a gold spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railway in the U.S.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Philadelphia.

In 1920, it was announced that Ottawa’s own minister, not the British ambassador, would represent Canada in Washington.

In 1924, J. Edgar Hoover was given the job of FBI director. He remained there until his death on May 2, 1972.

In 1933, the Nazis staged massive public book burnings in Germany.

In 1940, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill formed a government. Churchill’s stirring oratory and his refusal to make peace until Adolf Hitler was crushed were crucial in maintaining British and Commonwealth resistance to the Nazis during the Second World War. But in 1945, Britain’s desire for rapid social reform led to a Labour party victory in a general election. Churchill returned to power in 1951. He died in 1965 at the age of 90.

In 1941, German deputy fuhrer Rudolf Hess flew to Britain on a self-described peace mission. He crash-landed in Scotland and was captured and jailed. Hess was sentenced to life in prison at the 1945 Nuremberg war crimes trial. He was 93 when he died in prison in 1987.

In 1955, Ontario-born Tommy Burns, the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1906-08, died in Vancouver at age 73.

In 1968, the Vietnam peace talks began in Paris.

In 1978, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon announced they had agreed to end their 18-year marriage.

In 1981, France took a left turn as Socialist candidate Francois Mitterrand defeated incumbent Valery Giscard D’Estaing in a presidential election.

In 1991, a B.C. court convicted Inderjit Singh Reyat of manslaughter in a 1985 bombing that killed two baggage handlers at Tokyo’s Airport.