Today in History for Sept. 4:
On this date:
In 1535, French explorer Jacques Cartier landed at Ile au Coudres and attended the celebration of the first Roman Catholic mass in Canada.
In 1768, French novelist Francois Rene Chateaubriand was born in St. Malo.
In 1781, Spanish settlers, led by Governor Felipe de Neve, founded Los Angeles, Calif.
In 1852, the first controlled airship flight occurred in France.
In 1870, the Third French Republic was proclaimed during the Franco-Prussian War following the capture of Napoleon III. With the fall of the empire in France, a government of national defence tried to continue the war but France surrendered the following year. The Third Republic was made official with a decree in January, 1875.
In 1876, Edward (Ned) Hanlan of Toronto won the world rowing championship in Philadelphia.
In 1882, American inventor Thomas Edison turned on the world's first commercial electric lighting, in New York's Grand Central Station.
In 1886, Geronimo and his Apache forces surrendered to the United States army at Skeleton Canyon, Ariz.
In 1888, George Eastman patented the first roll of film and registered his trademark, Kodak.
In 1893, English author Beatrix Potter first told the story of Peter Rabbit in the form of a "picture letter" to Noel Moore, the son of Potter's former governess.
In 1909, the first Boy Scout rally was held in London.
In 1918, Canadian forces broke through the Drocxourt-Queant line during the First World War.
In 1929, the German dirigible "Graf Zeppelin" completed a trip around the world.
In 1929, lignite was discovered at Abitibi River, Ont.
In 1936, Beryl Markham left Abingdon, England, to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, from east to west.
In 1937, a League of Nations commission approved the creation of Jewish and Arab states in Palestine.
In 1943, the Italian fleet surrendered to the Allies during the Second World War.
In 1944, British and Canadian troops liberated Brussels and Antwerp during the Second World War.
In 1946, Clarence Campbell was elected president of the National Hockey League. Campbell, a former referee, succeeded Mervyn "Red" Dutton and held the post until 1977. Campbell was instrumental in creating the all-star game in 1947 and the Hockey Fall of Fame in Toronto in 1960. He died June 23, 1984.
In 1948, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands abdicated in favour of her daughter Juliana. Wilhelmina became queen as a child, on her father's death, in 1890. She had considered abdicating 10 years earlier but her government persuaded her to continue.
In 1951, transcontinental television was inaugurated in the United States.
In 1957, Ford Motor Co. began selling its ill-fated Edsel, a medium-priced luxury car named after Henry Ford's son. The car proved so unpopular it was taken off the market in 1959.
In 1963, the desegregation of public schools in Birmingham, Ala., led to racial riots.
In 1965, French theologian-missionary Dr. Albert Schweitzer died at age 90. He gave up the life of a talented musician to work as a medical missionary in Africa, where he set up a native hospital at Lambarene in French Equatorial Africa. He was awarded the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1971, an Alaska Airlines plane crashed in the mountains near Juneau, Alaska, killing 111 people.
In 1972, paintings worth about $3 million, including a $1 million Rembrandt, were stolen from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
In 1972, American swimmer Mark Spitz became the first athlete to win seven gold medals in one Olympics when he helped win the 400-metre medley relay at the Munich Olympics. (American swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.)
In 1975, Egypt and Israel signed an agreement giving Israel use of the Suez Canal for non-military purposes and forcing the removal of Israeli troops from strategic passes in the Sinai.
In 1981, 15-year-old Jocelyn Muir became, at the time, the youngest person to complete the 51-km swim across Lake Ontario. (In 2012, 14-year-old Annaleise Carr completed the crossing to raise funds for a summer camp for children with cancer.)
In 1984, the Progressive Conservative party under Brian Mulroney amassed the largest majority in Canadian electoral history. The Tories gained 211 seats in the 282-seat House of Commons, leaving only 40 seats for John Turner's Liberals, 30 for the Ed Broadbent's New Democrats and one for an independent candidate. Mulroney defeated the same opponents in 1988 to win a second, but smaller majority. He resigned as prime minister in 1993.
In 1985, on the first anniversary of her husband's sweep to power, Mila Mulroney gave birth to son Daniel Nicholas Dimitri.
In 1987, the location of the biggest dinosaur nest in the world was revealed in the Badlands, 80 kilometres east of Lethbridge, Alta. Fetuses in the dinosaur eggs were the first ever uncovered. More dinosaur bones have been found in the Alberta Badlands than anywhere else in the world.
In 1993, six people were killed in a car-Via Rail train crash at a rural crossing near Stratford, Ont.
In 1995, a splinter group of about 30 members of the Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation occupied the Ipperwash Provincial Park, northeast of Sarnia, Ont., claiming it contained a sacred burial ground. Two days later, one of the protesters, Dudley George, was shot dead by a police officer who was later convicted of criminal negligence causing death. The standoff ended on Sept. 13.
In 1998, in the first genocide sentence by an international court, a United Nations tribunal sentenced former Rwandan prime minister Jean Kambanda to life in prison for the slaughter of more than 500,000 Rwandans in 1994.
In 1999, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak signed a revised Wye River peace accord that would hand over more occupied West Bank land to the Palestinian Authority and free Palestinian prisoners.
In 2004, legendary Canadian golfer Moe Norman died at age 75.
In 2006, a U.S. warplane mistakenly fired on Canadian soldiers about to attack Taliban forces in Afghanistan, killing Private Mark Anthony Graham. About 30 others were wounded, five seriously.
In 2006, Steve Irwin of the TV show "Crocodile Hunter" was killed when a stingray's barb pierced his heart while he was filming an underwater documentary. He was 44.
In 2008, hockey star Sidney Crosby became the youngest person to be named to the Order of Nova Scotia. The 21-year-old captain of the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins received the award in recognition of his skill on the ice and his support for youth in his home province.
In 2010, the remnants of hurricane Earl made landfall near Halifax, toppling trees and bringing down power lines as the storm barrelled through the Maritimes. One man died trying to save a boat from damage.
In 2010, a powerful magnitude-7.1 earthquake rocked New Zealand's South Island, centred near Christchurch. At least 500 buildings were destroyed and geologists later said it ripped a 3.5-metre-wide fault in the Earth's surface.
In 2011, the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon took place for the first time without Jerry Lewis, who hosted it since its start in the 1960s. It raised $61.5 million, an increase of about $2.6 million over 2010. In August, the MDA announced that they were parting ways with Lewis, its chairman since the early 1950s before the famed telethon began.
In 2012, Quebec voters returned the separatist Parti Quebecois to power after nine years in opposition, albeit with a minority government. PQ leader Pauline Marois became the first female premier of the province. (In 2014, Philippe Couillard led the Liberals to a majority win as voters rebuffed the PQ's agenda for a possible third sovereignty referendum and its devisive secular charter. Marois lost her riding and resigned.)
In 2014, former NHL rookie Steve Moore's multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Todd Bertuzzi and the Vancouver Canucks over the infamous on-ice attack in 2004 was settled shortly before it was set to go to trial. The terms of the settlement are confidential.
In 2014, raucous and acid-tongued comedian Joan Rivers died at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. She was 81. Rivers had been hospitalized Aug. 28 after going into cardiac arrest in a doctor's office following a routine procedure.
----
(The Canadian Press)
The Canadian Press
