On this date:

In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier left St-malo on his first voyage to Canada. After reaching Newfoundland in just 20 days, Cartier explored the Strait of Belle Isle, which he hoped was the beginning of a river leading to China. But after exploring the desolate Labrador coast, Cartier wrote in his diary, “I believe that this was the land God allotted to Cain.”

In 1902,

French scientists Marie and Pierre Curie succeeded in isolating the radioactive element radium.

In 1968, Pierre Trudeau was sworn in as Canada’s 15th prime minister, two weeks after winning the Liberal Party leadership. He went on to win a majority government in a general election that was swept by the “Trudeaumania” craze. Trudeau was Canada’s third-longest serving PM, behind William Lyon Mackenzie King and John A. Macdonald.

In 1989, the last Canadian $1 bill was printed by the Canadian Bank Note Company.

In 1999, the Columbine High School massacre took place in Colorado as two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives.

In 2014, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the middleweight title contender, whose murder convictions became an international symbol of racial injustice and inspired a Bob Dylan song and a Hollywood film, died at his home in Toronto. He was 76. The New Jersey native had suffered from prostate cancer.