Today in History for Aug. 4:
On this date:
In 1586, a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth I was uncovered. Anthony Babington, supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots, planned to kill Elizabeth and her ministers and assume power with the aid of English Roman Catholics and Spanish soldiers. The plot was discovered when letters to Mary were intercepted and one conspirator confessed. Babington and six others were executed for high treason.
In 1769, Prince Edward Island, then called the Island of St. Jean, was made a separate colony from Nova Scotia.
In 1792, Edward Irving, a clergyman whose teachings gave birth to the Catholic Apostolic Church, was born.
In 1792, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place near Horsham, England.
In 1821, the "Saturday Evening Post" magazine was founded.
In 1870, the Red Cross Society was founded in Britain.
In 1875, Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer of children's stories, died of liver cancer at age 70.
In 1892, English medical missionary Wilfred Grenfell arrived in Labrador. For 42 years he laboured among the fisherfolk, helping build hospitals and orphanages as well as churches.
In 1892, Andrew Borden and his wife Abby were the victims of an axe murderer in Fall River, Mass. Their daughter Lizzie was acquitted of the slayings but was immortalized in the rhyme, "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41."
In 1892, Francisco Franco was born in El Ferrol, Spain. He was Spain's dictator from 1939 until his death in 1975.
In 1900, Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, was born. In 1923, she married Prince Albert, the Duke of York, who became King George VI in 1936. They earned the love and respect of millions of Britons when they refused to leave London during the Nazi Blitz. In the early days of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler described her as the most dangerous woman in Europe for her effect on British morale. Massive celebrations were held in Britain when she turned 100. She died in 2002 at the age of 101.
In 1914, Canada automatically entered the First World War when Britain declared war on Germany after the Germans invaded Belgium.
In 1914, British Columbia acquired its own navy for a few days when the government of Premier Richard McBride paid $1.5 million to a Seattle shipyard for two submarines. The submarines were intended to protect Vancouver and Victoria from German cruisers in the Pacific Ocean. On Aug. 7, the federal government took over the submarines for the British admiralty.
In 1922, Bell Telephone suspended service for one minute during Alexander Graham Bell's funeral in Baddeck, N.S. The inventor of the telephone had died two days earlier at age 75.
In 1936, Toronto runner Phil Edwards became the first Canadian to win five Olympic medals. Edwards added the 800-metre bronze medal at the Berlin Games to his three bronzes in 1932 - in the 800, 1,500 and four-by-400 relay -- and his 1928 bronze in the same relay.
In 1939, Gen. Francisco Franco's party was proclaimed the sole government in Spain.
In 1942, tea and coffee war rationing went into effect in Canada.
In 1944, Nazi police raided the secret annex of a house in Amsterdam and arrested eight people, including 14-year-old Anne Frank. The diary Anne kept while in hiding gained international fame after her death in 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
In 1944, Calgary-born Royal Air Force Squadron-Leader Ian Bazalgette won a posthumous Victoria Cross. He died during a successful bombing raid on German positions in France during the Second World War.
In 1945, Byron Nelson won the last of his record 11 consecutive victories on the PGA Tour, taking the Canadian Open in Toronto.
In 1952, fire broke out in the library of Parliament. Thousands of books in the library, one of Canada's most valuable collections, were damaged by water that was used to douse the fire. The building had to be completely renovated and it was not officially reopened until 1956.
In 1952, a uranium rush began in Saskatchewan when Uranium City was opened to prospectors.
In 1960, the Commons approved the Canadian Bill of Rights. It guaranteed freedom of speech, religion and the press -- provisions eventually enshrined in the constitution's Charter of Rights in 1982. It was given royal assent Aug. 10.
In 1976, Canadian-born media baron Lord Thomson of Fleet died at age 82.
In 1983, Bettino Craxi took office as Italy's first socialist prime minister.
In 1983, in the "Fowl Ball" incident, New York Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield was charged by Toronto police after killing a seagull with a thrown baseball. A charge of unnecessary cruelty to an animal was later dropped.
In 1984, Alex Baumann of Sudbury, Ont., won his second swimming gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics. Baumann added the 200-metre individual medley title to the 400-metre individual medley he won five days earlier. The 20-year-old set world records in both races.
In 1986, Canada became one of six Commonwealth countries to adopt economic measures against South Africa.
In 1993, a federal judge sentenced Los Angeles police officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights with a vicious beating which was caught on videotape. The acquittals of Koon, Powell and other officers on state charges set off riots in L.A.
In 1996, the Olympic Games ended in Atlanta. Canada won 22 medals.
In 1997, Jeanne Calment, listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest person in the world, died in Arles, France, at age 122.
In 1998, the Nisga'a First Nation signed a historic treaty with the federal and B.C. governments. The treaty gave them exclusive rights to resources in the 2,000-square kilometre area along the Nass River in B.C., a cash settlement and a self-designed system of government.
In 2007, Barry Bonds hit his 755th homer to tie Hank Aaron’s career record. He broke the record on Aug. 7 and finished the year with 762. An ongoing steroid scandal effectively ended his career after the 2007 season when no team would sign him when he became a free agent.
In 2010, 20 first-degree murder charges against serial killer Robert Pickton were formally stayed after the Crown announced it would not pursue the rest of its case against the former farmer because he already faced the stiffest sentence available in Canadian law. He was convicted in December 2007 of second-degree murder of six other women and sentenced to 25 years in prison before being eligible for parole. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld those convictions.
In 2010, the Conservative government broadened the definition of a "serious offence" under organized-crime legislation in an effort to prosecute and punish those groups' most lucrative activities: gambling, prostitution and drugs.
In 2010, Ontario Superior Court Justice Christopher Speyer stayed Abdullah Khadr's U.S. extradition proceedings. Speyer ruled Khadr's charter rights had been violated when arrested in Pakistan in October 2004, immediately followed by three days of mistreatment by Pakistani agents. The U.S. wanted him to face charges in Boston, where he is accused of supplying weapons to al-Qaida to be used against American forces in Afghanistan.
In 2011, Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced Prairie farmers would get $448 million in aid from Ottawa and three provincial governments to help with devastating flood damage.
In 2011, Montreal Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo surpassed Damon Allen's completions record of 5,158. Earlier in the season, Calvillo broke Allen's all-time mark of 394 career TD passes. (Calvillo retired with 5,892 completions and 455 TD passes.)
In 2012, Rosannagh MacLennan won Canada's only gold medal at the Summer Olympics in London, in women's trampoline.
In 2014, a massive tailings pond breach at Imperial Metals' Mount Polley Mine in central B.C. sent 10 million cubic metres of water and 4.5 million cubic metres of toxic silt into Polley Lake and Quesnel Lake. It prompted a week-long ban on drinking or bathing in water from surrounding lakes and rivers.
In 2018, Robert Brazile, Bobby Beathard, Brian Dawkins, Jerry Kramer, Ray Lewis, Randy Moss, Terrell Owens and Brian Urlacher were inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Lewis used his induction speech to call for more enlightened leadership in America.
In 2019, a gunman in body armour opened fire in a popular entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio, killing nine people, including his own sister, and wounded dozens of others. The gunman - 24-year-old Connor Betts - was killed by police within 30 seconds of the first shots being fired.
In 2020, the United Nations chief said the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the largest disruption of education in history. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at least 40-million preschool-age children worldwide have missed out on critical education.
In 2020, massive explosions that sent a mushroom cloud into the sky over downtown Beirut flattened much of the port in Lebanon's capital. The blast blew out windows and doors and knocked down apartment balconies more than two kilometres away. More than 200 people were killed, and more than 6,000 were injured in the blast.
In 2021, NBA veteran Pau Gasol was voted by his fellow Tokyo Games athletes to represent them as a member of the International Olympic Committee. The IOC said the older brother of former Toronto Raptor Marc Gasol got the most votes among 30 candidates for four vacant seats on the Olympic body. Results were announced the day after the Gasols and their native country Spain lost in the Olympic quarterfinals to the U.S. A three-time Olympic medalist, Pau Gasol will be an IOC member through the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
In 2021, Canadian Andre de Grasse won the gold medal in the men's 200-metre race in Tokyo and set a Canadian-record of 19.62 seconds. He was the first Canadian to win gold in the event in 93 years. De Grasse's victory came 25 years after Donovan Bailey raced to 100-metre gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
In 2021, the first planeload of Afghan refugees who supported the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan touched down in Canada.
In 2022, an independent review of Hockey Canada's governance began with former Supreme Court of Canada judge Thomas Cromwell leading it. There had been calls for a change of leadership at Hockey Canada for the way it handled recent sexual assault allegations against players. Members of the 2003 and 2018 world junior team were accused of separate incidents of group sexual assault. It was also revealed that the organization maintained a fund for uninsured payments -- including settlements of sexual assault complaints -- that was funded by player fees.
In 2022, American basketball star Brittney Griner was convicted in Russia of drug possession and sentenced to nine years in prison. She had been detained since February after police said they found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage at a Moscow airport. U.S. President Joe Biden denounced and sentence as "unacceptable''
In 2024, a firefighter died while on duty in Jasper National Park. RCMP said the 24-year-old man was fighting an active fire north of Jasper when he was seriously injured by a falling tree. He was rushed from the scene to hospital by an air ambulance -- but later succumbed to his injuries. Officials said the man was originally from Calgary and was based out of the Rocky Mountain House area.
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The Canadian Press