Today in History for Aug. 1: On this date: In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier sighted the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Today in History for Aug. 1:
On this date:
In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier sighted the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Charged by King Francois I to look for gold in the New World and a passage to China, Cartier left St-Malo, France, on April 20, 1534, with two ships and 61 men, arriving off Newfoundland 20 days later. Before heading home on Aug. 15, he claimed Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the lands adjacent for France.
In 1714, Queen Anne died at age 49. She was succeeded by George I.
In 1774, British scientist Joseph Priestley succeeded in isolating oxygen from air.
In 1778, the world’s first savings bank opened in Hamburg, Germany.
In 1790, the first U.S. census showed a population of almost four million.
In 1793, France became the first country to use the metric system of weights and measures.
In 1798, the “Battle of the Nile” between the British and the French isolated Napoleon’s army in Egypt. One of the greatest victories of British admiral Horatio Nelson, it ensured the ultimate disintegration of the French army and secured Britain’s possession of the Mediterranean and India.
In 1824, John Galt proposed the formation of the Canada Land Co. for settlement in Ontario.
In 1834, slavery was abolished in all British possessions. But it was not until the victory of the Union in the U.S. Civil War in 1865 that slaves were freed in the United States. Opening up of the West Indies and the southern states of America had made slavery a lucrative trade. But in the latter part of the 18th century and early 19th century, public conscience was aroused over the issue.
In 1834, Robert Morrison, the first English Protestant missionary to reach China, died at age 52. Sent by the London Missionary Society in 1807, in 1823 he completed a Chinese translation of the Bible. It filled 23 volumes.
In 1876, Colorado was admitted as the 38th state.
In 1885, a six-man jury in Regina found Metis leader Louis Riel guilty of treason. He was hanged the following November.
In 1890, Walther Eichrodt, German Reformed Old Testament scholar, was born. He taught at Basel and Erlangen universities, and is highly regarded among Christian evangelicals for his book Theology of the Old Testament.
In 1909, the British ship “Waratah” vanished after leaving London with 300 aboard.
In 1914, Germany declared war on Russia in the First World War.
In 1928, Vancouver sprinter Percy Williams earned his second gold medal of the Amsterdam Olympics. He won the 200 metres, two days after winning the 100.
In 1930, the British airship “R100” crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Montreal. The trip was financed by Britain and Canada, part of a plan to provide airship service throughout the Commonwealth. The flight took 78 hours and 52 minutes. But airships were too vulnerable to the elements, and after the explosion of the Hindenburg in 1937, airship travel ceased.
In 1932, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a democratic socialist political party and the forerunner of the New Democratic Party, was formed in Calgary. Under the leadership of J. S. Woodsworth, the CCF brought into one federation a number of farm and labour groups and socialist parties in Western Canada. Their avowed aim was the transforming of the competitive capitalist economic system into a co-operative commonwealth through democratic means.
In 1933, Bell Telephone’s first unattended dial exchange went into service in Oka, Que.
In 1936, the Olympic Games opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler. American Jesse Owens went on to win four gold medals in track and field.
In 1944, an uprising broke out in Warsaw against Nazi occupation forces during the Second World War. The revolt collapsed after two months.
In 1950, Guam became a U.S. territory.
In 1950, the RCMP took over policing in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In 1952, the Social Credit, under W.A.C. Bennett, took office in British Columbia. Bennett was premier in B.C. during a time of unparalleled economic expansion. The hardware store owner was first elected a member of the legislature for Okanagan in 1941. Bennett’s administration took credit for the construction and improvement of highways, the northern extensions of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway and major hydroelectric projects on the Peace and Columbia Rivers. From 1953 on, Bennett acted as his own finance minister. Following a pay-as-you-go policy that closely watched spending and transferred debts to provincial agencies, he claimed in 1959 that the province was free of debt. Bennett resigned in 1972 after losing to the NDP under David Barrett. Barrett was later succeeded by Bennett’s son, Bill Bennett.
In 1957, the North American Air Defence Agreement was announced. The agreement integrated the air-defence forces of the United States and Canada. In 1981, the command was renamed the North American Aerospace Defence Command, or NORAD.
In 1959, Major-General Georges Vanier was appointed governor general. He served until his death in 1967.
In 1966, a sniper atop the University of Texas tower shot 48 people, killing 13. The shooter, Charles Whitman, was killed by a police officer after a 92-minute rampage. Whitman had killed his wife and mother before going to the tower.
In 1971, the federal government ended the censorship of letters to and from prisoners in federal institutions.
In 1975, Canada and East Germany agreed to exchange diplomatic missions in an agreement signed by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and President Erich Honecher.
In 1975, the Helsinki Accord was signed by Canada, the United States, the Soviet Union and 35 European nations. It outlined a broad basis for peaceful relations in Europe, including military manoeuvres, human-rights and recognition of existing borders.
In 1979, Linda Joy Holtzman was appointed spiritual leader of the Conservative Beth Israel congregation in Coatesville, Pa., making her the first female rabbi to head a U.S. Jewish congregation.
In 1983, an Ontario Hydro nuclear reactor in Pickering was shut down after a leak of radioactive heavy water.
In 1985, a U.S. icebreaker left Greenland for a voyage through the Northwest Passage without Canada’s permission.
In 1995, Ottawa sportscaster Brian Smith was shot in the head as he was leaving the CJOH-TV building. The former NHL player died the next day. An Ottawa man, Jeffrey Arenburg, was found not criminally responsible due to mental illness.
In 1995, the 98-year-old Crowsnest Pass freight subsidy ended. Formally known as Western Grain Transportation subsidy, it was paid by taxpayers to railways to offset the cost of hauling Prairie crops to port.
In 1999, players from Canada’s gold medal-winning roller-hockey team at the Pan Am Games were stripped of their medals after goalie Steve Vezina tested positive for steroids.
In 2000, a burst oil pipeline dumped about 10,000 barrels of oil into the Pine River, in northeastern B.C., threatening the water supply of the region. The 21 km-long slick moved towards Chetwynd, 100 kilometres downstream from the pipeline break.
In 2001, Air Canada announced it was eliminating 4,000 more jobs as part of an aggressive action plan to further cut costs, generate new revenues and modify business processes in response to the economic downturn and changing market conditions.
In 2001, the United States scrapped import restrictions on most P.E.I. potatoes, bringing an end to a nine-month dispute with Canada over a small fungus outbreak that had severely curbed exports of the province’s primary cash crop.
In 2001, Minnesota Vikings Korey Stringer, 27, died from heat stroke after practising on the year’s hottest day, the first death of its kind in the NFL.
In 2003, a massive forest fire in B.C. forced the evacuation of 7,500 people from McLure, Barriere and a suburb of Kamloops. The fire destroyed about 60 homes and a sawmill in Barriere.
In 2004, at least 409 people were killed when fire swept through a crowded supermarket outside Asuncion, Paraguay.
In 2005, Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd died after prolonged illness at the age of 82. He was succeeded by his half-brother Abdullah.
In 2006, Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raul, Cuba’s defence minister, after undergoing surgery. Castro formally resigned as president of Cuba after 49 years on Feb. 19, 2008, ending the longest rule in the world for a head of government.
In 2007, the eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, collapsed into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour, killing 13 people.
In 2007, Hollinger Inc. was put into bankruptcy protection in both Canada and U.S. as part of a move to take tighter control of its one remaining valuable asset, the Sun-Times newspaper group in Chicago.
In 2008, General Motors Corp. said its losses widened to US$15.5 billion in the second quarter as North American sales plummeted, the third worst quarterly loss in the automaker’s history.
In 2009, Corazon Aquino, the former Philippines president whose “people power” revolt in 1986 ended the repressive 20-year regime of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, died at age 76. Aquino was the first woman to lead the Philippines.
In 2009, Jade Scognamillo, a 15-year-old girl from Bolton, Ont., became the youngest person to swim solo across Lake Ontario. She swam 52 kilometres in 19 hours, 59 minutes and 49 seconds.
In 2009, Sapper Matthieu Allard, 21, and Cpl. Christian Bobbitt, 23, were killed after their convoy was hit with two IED’s while on a refuelling mission in Zhari district, west of Kandahar City in Afghanistan. Both were members of the 5th Combat Engineer Regiment, based in Valcartier, Que.
In 2010, Ontario’s zero alcohol tolerance law took effect for drivers 21 years of age and under and new motorists of all ages.
In 2010, the Montreal Gazette’s Sunday print edition was published for the last time after 22 years. Beginning Aug. 8, the newspaper offered a web-only version for Sundays in an effort to cut costs.
In 2011, Ford recalled more than a million pickup trucks, including 120,000 in Canada, that were sold in cold-weather climates where road salt could erode metal straps holding up the gas tank.
In 2012, new federal legislation kicked in to end the Canadian Wheat Board’s decades-long monopoly on western wheat and barley sales. To celebrate, Prime Minister Stephen Harper pardoned renegade grain farmers who were convicted in the 1990s for selling their grain in the U.S.
In 2013, Russia granted a year of asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, allowing him to leave the Moscow airport where he had been holed up for almost six weeks as he evaded charges of espionage in the U.S. (Russia granted Snowden permanent residency in October 2020.)
In 2018, representatives announced legal action against the Soulpepper Theatre Company and its co-founder, Albert Schultz, over sexual-harassment allegations had been “resolved.” Schultz had resigned from the Toronto theatre company in January, hours after four actresses filed lawsuits alleging he groped them, exposed himself, pressed against them or otherwise behaved inappropriately.
In 2018, bowing to concerns about international competitiveness, the Trudeau government scaled back carbon pricing requirements for some of the country’s heaviest energy users before the plan was to take effect in 2019. New requirements issued by Environment and Climate Change Canada increased the emissions threshold at which polluters would have to pay a carbon price.
In 2018, the military opened fire on protesters in the capital of Zimbabwe who claimed the country’s presidential election was rigged. Six people were killed in Harare when the army rolled in tanks to disperse rock-throwing demonstrators who also denounced President Emmerson Mnangagwa. He was declared the winner of the tight election two days later.
In 2018, an Aeromexico jet crashed just after taking off in Durango, Mexico after being hit by a strong burst of wind and hail. Terrified passengers scrambled to flee the plane when it burst into flames but all 103 people on board survived.
In 2020, the recipient of the first partial face transplant in the U.S. died almost a dozen years after the groundbreaking operation. The Cleveland Clinic said 57-year-old Connie Culp died at the Ohio clinic of complications from an infection unrelated to her transplant. She once told reporters she did not care about what people thought of her looks. She had the operation after her husband shot her in the face in a murder-suicide attempt.
In 2020, Minnesota’s Matt Dumba became the first NHL player to kneel during the U.S. anthem when he did so before an Oilers-Blackhawks game in Edmonton. Dumba made a speech about racial injustice prior to Edmonton’s first game of the NHL restart. Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse and Blackhawks goalie Malcolm Subban each put a hand on Dumba’s shoulder as he knelt for a recording of the American anthem. All three players are Black. The death of George Floyd in May 2020 led to widespread demonstrations against racial injustice, including in major sports leagues.
In 2021, Toronto’s Penny Oleksiak earned a seventh career medal to make her Canada’s most decorated Olympian of all time. And sprinter Andre De Grasse became the first male athlete on Canada’s team to win a medal in Tokyo. He claimed the bronze medal in the men’s 100 metres with a personal-best time of 9.89 seconds.
In 2021, the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake elected a new grand chief for the Indigenous community west of Montreal. Victor Bonspille defeated Serge Otsi Simon, who held the title for 10 years. Bonspille said he hopes to bring positive change to Kanesatake, which, over the past decade, has seen a rise in cannabis dispensaries and criminal activities, prompting calls for the creation of a local police force.
In 2023, the last surviving miner from the October 1958 Springhill, Nova Scotia coal mine disaster died. Harold Brine was 91. Only 19 of the 174 men working in the mine were rescued after a seismic shock wave trapped them near the bottom of North America’s deepest coal mine. Brine was just 26 at the time.
In 2024, the Israeli military confirmed the death of Hamas’ military leader, Mohammed Deif. Deif was killed in an airstrike in Gaza in July 2024, knocking another leader of the militant terror group off Israel’s hit list. Israel said it targeted Deif in a July 13 strike on the outskirts of Khan Younis.
In 2024, the U.S. and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history. Moscow released some two dozen people, including Canadian-born Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, in a multinational deal. The exchange took place in Turkey and officials there confirmed the news. U.S. President Joe Biden thanked Turkey as well as Germany, Poland, Slovenia and Norway for their assistance. He praised the negotiations as a “feat of diplomacy.”
In 2024, Canadian swimming sensation Summer McIntosh brought another gold home from Paris. The 17-year-old won her second gold medal and set an Olympic record in the women’s 200-metre butterfly. She became one of three Canadians to ever win two gold medals at an Olympic games.
In 2024, Nova Scotia marked its first Acadian Heritage Month with a flag-raising ceremony. The month is designed to celebrate over four centuries of Acadian culture and language in the province.
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The Canadian Press