Mount St. Helens volcano rains ash
In 1281, after 100 years of Christian occupation, Muslim forces besieged the Crusader city of Acre for 33 days. It ended with the storming of the city and the massacre or enslavement of 60,000 Christians.
In 1504, Michelangelo’s statue of David was erected in Florence.
In 1642, the city of Montreal was founded by Sieur de Maisonneuve. The site had originally been settled by Jacques Cartier in 1535 and later by Samuel de Champlain, but neither settlement survived.
In 1765, one-quarter of Montreal was destroyed by fire.
In 1785, Saint John, N.B., became the first incorporated city in Canada.
In 1804, the French Senate proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte emperor.
In 1868, Nicholas II, Russia’s last czar, was born. The eldest son of Czar
Alexander III contributed to his own unpopularity after taking the throne in 1893. He was overthrown in 1917 and executed with his family by the Bolsheviks the next year.
In 1910, Halley’s Comet, as seen from Earth, moved across the Sun.
In 1926, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while visiting a beach in Venice, Calif. She reappeared a month later, claiming to have been kidnapped.
In 1927, actress Norma Talmadge accidentally left her footprint in wet cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Leaving footprints in cement soon became a thing Hollywood stars wanted to do.
In 1944, during the Second World War, Allied forces finally occupied Monte Cassino in Italy after a fourmonth struggle that claimed some 20,000 lives.
In 1980, the Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington state erupted. The blast left 57 people dead, took 400 metres off the top of the mountain and blew an ash cloud around the world.
In 1994, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were married in a private ceremony at a judge’s home in the Dominican Republic.
In 2017, rocker Chris Cornell, a leader of the grunge movement with Seattle-based Soundgarden, hanged himself in a Detroit hotel room hours after performing at a Soundgarden concert. He was 52.
In 2021, Canada reached a grim milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic today with the death toll climbing to 25,000. The country’s first COVID-19 death was recorded on March 9th of 2020.