TODAY IN history

In 1456, according to tradition, Johann Gutenberg first published the Bible using movable type.

In 1781, British astronomer Sir Walter Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.

In 1916, Manitoba became the first province to vote for prohibition.

In 1927, Canada’s old age pension bill received royal assent.

In 1928, Eileen Vollick of Hamilton, Ont., took her final flying tests and became the first Canadian woman to receive her pilot’s licence. Vollick said after her first flight that she felt “at home” in the cockpit. Instead of taking companies up on their offers to demonstrate their planes, she entered the world of aerobatic flying and skydiving.

In 1953, the Soviet Union vetoed a recommendation by the UN Security Council that Canada’s External Affairs Minister, Lester Pearson, be named UN secretary-general.

In 1991, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and U.S. President George Bush signed an agreement committing both countries to curb emissions that cause acid rain.

In 1999, after a formal signing ceremony in Independence, Mo., Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic became the first former members of the old Soviet bloc to join NATO, expanding the alliance to 19 members.

In 2013, astronaut Chris Hadfield took over command of the International Space Station, the first time that a Canadian assumed control of the giant orbiting space laboratory.