Today in History for Aug. 7:
On this date:
In AD 117, Roman emperor Marcus Trajan died at age 65. His attitude toward Christianity gradually changed from toleration to persecution. It was during his rule that Apostolic Father Ignatius of Antioch was martyred.
In 1679, the first ship to sail the Upper Great Lakes, the "Griffon," was launched. The vessel was built at Niagara for Cavalier De La Salle. She set out on her maiden voyage on Aug. 27. On Sept. 18, laden with furs, the "Griffon" sailed from Green Bay on Lake Michigan and was never seen again.
In 1846, giantess Anna Swan, who measured 7-feet 6-inches and appeared at P.T. Barnum's American Museum in New York, was born at Mill Brook, N.S.
In 1858, George Etienne Cartier put forward the idea of the confederation of the British North American colonies, which was presented to the British colonial secretary in September by a Canadian delegation. It was rejected on the grounds that it lacked wide support in British North America.
In 1876, Mata Hari, Dutch dancer and spy for Germany in the First World War, was born in the Netherlands.
In 1882, the legendary feud began between the Hatfields of West Virginia and the McCoys of Kentucky. By the time it ended, about 100 men, women and children had been either killed or wounded.
In 1919, Capt. Ernest Hoy flew from Lulu Island, B.C., to Calgary, becoming the first person to fly across the Canadian Rockies.
In 1919, William Lyon Mackenzie King was elected leader of the federal Liberal party, succeeding Sir Wilfrid Laurier. He served as prime minister for 22 years between 1921 and 1948.
In 1927, the International Peace Bridge between Fort Erie, Ont., and Buffalo, N.Y., was dedicated.
In 1930, R. B. Bennett became Conservative prime minister when his party easily beat William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberals in the unhappiness of the "Great Depression." The Depression only worsened, however, and the Conservatives lost the next election in 1935.
In 1950, the cabinet decided to create a special Canadian armed force to serve with the United Nations in Korea.
In 1954, England's Roger Bannister beat Australia's John Landy in what became known as the "Miracle Mile" at the British Empire Games in Vancouver. It was the first time two men ran the same mile race in under four minutes. Three months earlier, Bannister became the first runner to break the four-minute barrier.
In 1956, dynamite trucks exploded in Cali, Colombia, killing 1,100 people.
In 1957, comedian Oliver Hardy died at age 65.
In 1959, the U.S. spacecraft "Explorer VI" took the first photos of Earth from space.
In 1963, the UN Security Council passed a resolution banning all shipments of military equipment to South Africa.
In 1974, French stuntman Philippe Petit walked a tightrope strung between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York.
In 1979, Jacques Cossette-Trudel and his wife Louise were sentenced to two years less a day in jail for the October 1970 FLQ kidnapping of British Trade Commissioner James Cross in Montreal.
In 1979, at least three people were killed by a tornado in the Woodstock area of southwestern Ontario. Damage was estimated at $7-10 million. About 300 buildings were damaged or destroyed and the provincial government declared Woodstock a disaster area.
In 1980, the Gossamer Penguin, a solar-powered airplane, flew three kilometres across the California desert.
In 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted for the fifth time since May 18, sending a plume of ash and steam 12,000 metres into the air.
In 1982, Don Muir, 26, a bush pilot from Sioux Lookout, Ont., and Andre Daemen, 22, a Montreal flying instructor, touched down at Montreal's Dorval Airport after flying around the world in the record time of six days, seven hours and 30 minutes.
In 1985, British radio and television journalists staged a 24-hour strike to protest the BBC's cancellation of a documentary on Northern Ireland.
In 1987, marathon swimmer Vicki Keith, a swimming instructor from Kingston, Ont., completed the first double crossing of Lake Ontario. Keith, 26, estimated she lost 40 pounds during the 56-hour swim. Marilyn Bell was the first to complete a one-way crossing in 1954.
In 1987, the presidents of five Central American nations signed an 11-point agreement to bring peace to their region.
In 1990, the African National Congress agreed to end its 30-year armed struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
In 1990, the first American forces took off for Saudi Arabia in a deployment dubbed Operation Desert Shield.
In 1992, the 39-nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva produced the final draft of a treaty to ban chemical weapons, ending 24 years of talks.
In 1992, the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth 2 ran aground off southeastern Massachusetts.
In 1993, Buckingham Palace in London was opened to the public for limited tours. The money raised from the $12 admission and souvenirs was earmarked for repairing Windsor Castle, which had been damaged by fire the previous November.
In 1997, Bjarni Tryggvason became the seventh Canadian in space when the shuttle "Discovery" blasted off. Tryggvason performed various experiments during his 13-day mission as a payload specialist.
In 1998, simultaneous bombings at two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
In 2000, astronomers announced the discovery of nine new planets that circle the stars outside the Earth's solar system.
In 2003, a bomb attack at the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, killed 17 people.
In 2005, Toronto-born ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings, died of lung cancer at age 67.
In 2007, San Francisco's Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run off Washington pitcher Mike Bacsik to break Hank Aaron's storied record. (Bonds finished his career with 762).
In 2009, senior security officials confirmed that Pakistan’s most dreaded Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. Predator strike on Aug. 5.
In 2013, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and the U.S. amid a flurry of lawsuits over the rail disaster in Lac-Megantic, Que., and growing cleanup costs the company estimated would surpass $200 million.
In 2014, a UN-assisted tribunal sentenced two top surviving leaders of Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge regime (Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea) to life in prison for crimes against humanity during their late 1970s reign of terror that left as many as two million people dead.
In 2018, longtime Quebec Liberal John Ciaccia, whose quarter century in provincial politics was marked by a stint as native affairs minister during the explosive Oka Crisis in 1990, died at age 85.
In 2018, Tesla's stock jumped more than five per cent after CEO Elon Musk sent out a tweet saying he was considering taking the electric car maker private at $420 a share and had already secured funding.
In 2019, two bodies believed to be British Columbia murder suspects who were the focus of a massive manhunt were found in dense brush in northern Manitoba. R-C-M-P assistant commissioner Jane MacLatchy said the bodies were found near the shoreline of the Nelson River -- within a kilometre from where several items linked to the two young men were found the previous week. 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky (shmuh-GEHL'-skee) of Port Alberni were facing a second-degree murder charge in the death of Leonard Dyck, a university lecturer from Vancouver. Dyck's body was discovered along a highway pullout two kilometres south of Dease Lake, B-C on July 19th. McLeod and Schmegelsky were also suspects in the shooting deaths of American tourist Chynna Deese and her Australian boyfriend, Lucas Fowler. Their bodies were found along a highway near B-C's Liard Hot Springs on July 15th.
In 2020, another Canadian was sentenced to death in China — the second in the same week and the fourth in less than two years. Ye Jianhui had been found guilty of manufacturing and transporting illegal drugs.
In 2020, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Americans would be the first casualties of President Donald Trump's tariff on Canadian aluminum. Freeland said Canada will strike back with $3.6 billion in tariffs on a list of American products.
In 2021, no charges would be filed against Canada's top military officer after a six-month misconduct investigation. Military police identified and interviewed a large number of potential witnesses, which investigators said led them to conclude that there simply wasn't enough evidence against Admiral Art McDonald to warrant charges.
In 2021, Canada earned a bronze in the first-ever women's C-2 500-metre canoe race to give the country its record 23rd medal at the Olympics. Sprint canoeists Laurence Vincent-Lapointe and Katie Vincent ended up in the water after they accidentally tipped the canoe while sharing a post-race hug. Track cyclist Kelsey Mitchell of Sherwood Park, Alta., claimed gold in track cycling before the closing ceremonies.
In 2021, Olympic decathlon champion Damian Warner was named Canada's flag-bearer for the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. Warner won Canada's first-ever decathlon gold medal with a stellar performance across the event's 10 disciplines, finishing with a score of 9,018 points.
In 2022, Bill Graham, who served as foreign affairs minister in the Liberal government of Jean Chretien when Canada decided against joining the U-S invasion of Iraq in 2003, died at age 83. Graham served as minister of foreign affairs, minister of national defence, leader of the Opposition and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He had recently been a member of the Minister's Advisory Panel for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.
In 2023, hundreds of Canadian scouts attending the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea were treated for heat stress as temperatures soared during the event. The entire contingent of 235 scouts and 143 volunteers were then moved to the Seoul area because of an approaching tropical storm.
In 2024, a second woman came forward claiming she was sexually targeted as a child by the husband of late Canadian writer Alice Munro. Sixty-four-year-old Jane Morrey said she was nine when Gerald Fremlin exposed himself to her while he was staying at her family's Toronto home. She spoke publicly about it - 55 years later - after learning that Fremlin sexually abused one of Munro's daughters.
In 2024, Alysha Newman scored Canada's first-ever medal in women's pole-vault at the Paris Games. The Delaware, Ont.-native cleared the same height as the silver medallist from the U.S., but the American vaulter was able to clear the 4.85 metre-bar in fewer attempts. Newman is the first Canadian pole vaulter to win a medal since the 1912 Stockholm Games, and the third in Olympic history.
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The Canadian Press