Today in History for Aug. 6:
On this date:
In 1623, Anne Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare, died.
In 1691, Henry Kelsey claimed the Red River Valley for Britain.
In 1774, English religious leader Ann Lee and a small band of followers arrived in America. Her sect called itself "The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming," but to the rest of the world her followers came to be known as "The Shakers."
In 1806, the Holy Roman Empire came to an end when King Francis II abdicated. Founded in 962 by Otto I of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in west and central Europe, made up primarily of German states, over which the Pope had spiritual control. Imperial power was greatest under the Hohenstaufens (1138-1254). The empire ended under pressure from Napoleon Bonaparte through the Confederation of the Rhine, a league of German principalities which had renounced allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1809, one of the leading literary figures of the Victorian era, poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England.
In 1812, an armistice to end the War of 1812 was signed by the governor of British North America and an American general. But it was later revoked by the U.S. Congress, and the war continued for two more years.
In 1866, an imperial statute established union between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland. The island had been granted to the Hudson's Bay Co. and became a colony in 1850. The united colony entered Confederation as the province of British Columbia in 1871.
In 1881, Sir Alexander Fleming, Nobel Prize-winning bacteriologist and discoverer of penicillin, was born.
In 1890, the electric chair was used for the first time as murderer William Kemmler was executed in Auburn, N.Y.
In 1896, Madagascar became a French colony.
In 1911, comedienne Lucille Ball was born in Jamestown, N.Y. She starred in the TV sitcoms "I Love Lucy," "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour," "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy." She died on April 26, 1989.
In 1914, Serbia declared war on Germany.
In 1915, the British landed troops at Gallipoli in an effort to dislodge the Turks on the peninsula in northwest Turkey.
In 1926, Gertrude Ederle of the United States became the first woman to swim the English Channel, arriving in Kingsdown, England, from France in 14-and-a-half hours.
In 1926, Warner Brothers premiered its Vitaphone sound-on-disk movie system at a gala in New York.
In 1932, the modern Welland Canal, one of the world's busiest inland waterways, was officially opened. The canal links Lake Ontario to Lake Erie by a series of locks cutting across the Niagara Peninsula. It is one of the principal sections of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which allows ships access to the interior of North America from the Atlantic. The first Welland Canal opened almost 100 years earlier, in 1829, with most of the credit going to Hamilton Merritt, a businessman in St. Catharines, Ont.
In 1939, regular air-mail service was inaugurated between Canada and Britain.
In 1942, the Allied invasion of North Africa was launched during the Second World War.
In 1945, the American B-29 bomber "Enola Gay" dropped a four-tonne atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The city was engulfed by clouds of radioactivity generated by the bomb, innocently nicknamed "Little Boy." An estimated 140,000 people were killed and 50,000 buildings destroyed in what marked the beginning of the nuclear era. A second bomb was dropped three days later on Nagasaki, leading to Japan's surrender and the end of the Second World War.
In 1954, one of the Dionne quintuplets, Emilie, 20, died at Ste. Agathe des Monts, Que., of suffocation during an epileptic attack.
In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov became the first man to orbit the Earth more than once when he made 17 orbits in "Vostok 2."
In 1962, Jamaica became an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.
In 1969, most of the windows in an eight-block area of Kelowna, B.C., were smashed when a U.S. navy jet broke the sound barrier. Washington agreed to pay damages.
In 1978, Pope Paul VI died of a heart attack at the age of 80. He had led the Roman Catholic Church for 15 years.
In 1980, hurricane Allen hit Jamaica, leaving a trail of destroyed crops and 68 dead in the Caribbean.
In 1982, the first province-wide walkout of civil servants in British Columbia began. More than 30,000 of the 40,000 members of the B.C. Government Employees Union left their jobs after overwhelmingly rejecting a government offer of a 6.5 per cent pay increase. But they shortly agreed to return to work while negotiations resumed.
In 1983, the Spanish supertanker Castillo de Bellver broke up off the coast of South Africa, spilling 60 million litres of oil. The same amount went down with the stern section of the ship.
In 1986, William Schroeder, the world's longest-surviving recipient of a permanent artificial heart, died after living 620 days with the Jarvik-7 manmade pump.
In 1991, Roland Michener, one of Canada's most popular governor generals, died in Toronto. He was 91. Michener was especially known for his commitment to an active lifestyle and was often photographed in his jogging suit. Born in Alberta, he was a politician and high commissioner to India before being named governor general in 1967.
In 1992, the first Oscar to be sold was put on the auction block in New York. Harold Russell had won the award in 1947 for “The Best Years of Our Lives” and sold it against the Academy’s wishes. It brought in $60,500.
In 1997, more than 200 people were killed in a Korean Air jumbo jet crash at a Guam airport.
In 1999, Canada ratified a deal, known as UNFA, for international co-operation on fisheries management on the high seas.
In 2001, Hugo Banzer resigned as president of Bolivia because of cancer.
In 2001, Gen. Duong Van Minh, who was president of South Vietnam for just a few days before the country fell to Communist invaders in 1975, died. He was 86.
In 2002, Joe Clark announced his decision to resign as Progressive Conservative leader.
In 2006, Tiger Woods won the Buick Open to become the youngest golfer, at 30 years and seven months, to reach 50 career victories.
In 2007, six miners were trapped deep below the surface and feared dead in a mine collapse in Huntington, Utah. Three rescuers working underground were killed in a second collapse 10 days later. The search for the six men was suspended at the end of August, when officials determined rescuers had run out of options.
In 2008, Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, was found guilty on a terrorism charge in the first verdict to come through the controversial U.S. military tribunal process at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Hamdan, a Yemeni citizen who was captured in Afghanistan in November, 2001, was convicted of providing material support for terrorism but acquitted of conspiring with al-Qaeda.
In 2009, Donald Marshall Jr., the man at the centre of one of Canada's highest-profile wrongful conviction cases, died in Sydney, N.S., at age 55. The Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia brought scrutiny to the province's justice system after being convicted as a 17-year-old of a murder he didn't commit. He served 11 years in prison. He also transformed aboriginal fishing rights in Canada.
In 2009, writer-director John Hughes died of a heart attack during a morning walk in Manhattan. He was 59. He was influential for capturing the youth market in the 1980s and '90s with such favourites as "The Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Home Alone." He also wrote or directed such hits as "National Lampoon's Vacation," "Pretty in Pink," "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" and "Uncle Buck."
In 2010, an evacuation order was issued for about 1,500 B.C. residents after one of the largest slides in Canadian history dammed Meager Creek and partially blocked the Lillooet River, near the southern B.C. community of Pemberton, triggering fears of a flood. A majority of the people were cleared to return home the next day.
In 2011, a Chinook helicopter was shot down by insurgents in Afghanistan, killing 30 American troops, most of them belonging to the same elite Navy commando unit that had slain Osama bin Laden. Also killed were seven Afghan commandos and an Afghan interpreter. It was the highest number of American casualties recorded in a single incident in the decade-long war.
In 2011, a peaceful protest in London's Tottenham neighbourhood against the fatal police shooting of a young man degenerated into a rampage, with rioters torching buildings, looting and destroying property. Three more days of rioting ensued in other areas of London and also spread to other U.K. cities. Five people died amid the mayhem and over 3,000 people were arrested with over 1,200 people charged. Property damage was pegged at C$350 million.
In 2015, Jon Stewart said goodbye after 16 years on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" which had established him as America's foremost satirist of politicians and the media. Trevor Noah replaced him as host in September.
In 2018, actress Charlotte Rae, best known for playing the wise and patient housemother to a brood of teenage girls on the long-running TV sitcom "The Facts of Life,'' died at age 92.
In 2020, China sentenced a third Canadian citizen to death on drug charges amid a steep decline in relations between the two countries. Local media reports in Guangzhou said police confiscated more than 120-kilograms of ketamine from Xu Weihong's home and another address. China has also handed a death sentence to Robert Schellenberg in a sudden retrial on drug trafficking charges. And in April 2019, a Canadian citizen identified as Fan Wei also was sentenced to death in a multinational drug smuggling case.
In 2020, Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil announced his intention to step down. McNeil, who has been premier since 2013 and spent a total of 17 years in provincial politics, said he would stay on until the provincial Liberal party chooses a new leader.
In 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed tariffs on Canadian aluminum. Trump said he signed a proclamation that to restore the 10 per cent tariffs, saying "Canada was taking advantage of us, as usual.'' In a speech at a Whirlpool factory in Ohio, Trump touted his record of defending American workers. The Trudeau government promised to impose retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump's announcement.
In 2021, Canada's women's soccer team upped the drama to the max and beat Sweden 3-2 on penalty kicks to win Olympic gold. The game was tied 1-1 after extra time. Vancouver's Julia Grosso scored the winner and Stephanie Labbe was outstanding in goal to end a nail-biter of a game. The first-ever Olympic title for the women's soccer team followed a bronze medal performance by the men's 4x100 relay team and a silver for Moh Ahmed in the men's 5,000 metres. Canada's men's 4x100 relay team raced to the bronze medal -- giving Andre De Grasse his third medal of the Games.
In 2022, the chair of Hockey Canada's board of directors resigned, saying immediate action was essential to address the important challenges facing the organization and the sport. Michael Brind'Amour's departure came as Hockey Canada was under intense scrutiny for its handling of sexual assault allegations against members of two men's junior teams.
In 2022, the man accused in the Amanda Todd harassment case was found guilty on all charges. Aydin Coban was accused of extortion, harassment, communication with a young person to commit a sexual offence and possession and distribution of child pornography. Todd was 15 when she died by suicide in 2012 after posting a video that described being tormented by an online harasser. The harrowing account, seen by millions of viewers since her death, saw her using flash cards to describe the torment from her anonymous cyberbully.
In 2024, the Canadian Olympic Committee revoked accreditation from the coach of six-time Olympic medal-winning sprinter Andre De Grasse. The COC announced that "new information'' had come to light about the appropriateness of accrediting Rana Reider. It said Reider was on probation with the U.S. Center for SafeSport until the previous May, and his approval had been based on the understanding that he had no other sanctions against him. The COC did not specify the nature of the new information. But U.K. media outlets reported the decision was tied to safeguarding concerns and allegations of sexual and emotional abuse, and court documents filed in Broward County, Fla., showed three women filing suit against Reider there.
In 2024, Canada's women's basketball team centre Natalie Achonwa retired from Olympic competition. The 31-year-old from Guelph, Ont. was just 16 when she joined the national team and went on to play in four Olympics. She holds the women's team's record for most appearances, games played and all-time assists.
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The Canadian Press