Today in History for Nov. 4:
In 1809, the steamer "Accommodation," the first on the St. Lawrence, arrived at Quebec from Montreal. The trip took 66 hours at a speed of five knots but 30 hours were spent at anchor. The fare was $8.
In 1838, Robert Nelson and Cyrille Hector Octave Cote launched a second rebellion in Lower Canada (now Quebec). The rebellion, which followed the previous year's failed French uprising, was encouraged by American sympathizers but lasted only five days.
In 1847, composer Felix Mendelssohn died in Leipzig, Germany, at age 38.
In 1862, American Richard Gatling received a patent for his rapid-fire gun -- the forerunner of the modern machine gun.
In 1873, Scottish immigrants Alexander Dennistoun and John and David Sidey founded North America's first golf club -- the Montreal Golf Club. With Queen Victoria's permission, it was renamed the Royal Montreal Golf Club 11 years later.
In 1879, it was ruled that the Queen or the governor-general had the sole right of appointing Queen's Counsels.
In 1880, the first cash register was patented by James and John Ritty of Dayton, Ohio.
In 1889, large deposits of coal were discovered in Nova Scotia.
In 1911, Galbraith Rodgers arrived at Pasadena, Calif. -- completing the first transcontinental flight, which began on Sept. 17th in New York.
In 1916, Walter Cronkite, the premier TV anchorman of the U.S. networks' golden age, was born in St. Joseph, Miss. He was the face of the "CBS Evening News" from 1962-81, when stories ranged from the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to racial and anti-war riots, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis. He reported a tumultuous time with reassuring authority and came to be called "the most trusted man in America." He died of cerebral vascular disease on July 17, 2009.
In 1922, King Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered by British archeologist Howard Carter. Tutankhamen was an Egyptian pharaoh of little importance during the middle of the 14th century B.C. He is renowned due to the discovery of his almost intact tomb, which took eight years to excavate and contained magnificent treasures.
In 1924, Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming was elected the first female governor in the U.S. -- to serve out the remaining term of her late husband, William B. Ross.
In 1942, during the Second World War, Axis forces retreated from El Alamein in North Africa in a major victory for British forces commanded by Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery.
In 1944, the Allies announced that Greece had been liberated from the Nazis during the Second World War.
In 1946, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was established.
In 1952, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was elected Republican president of the United States.
In 1956, Lester Pearson, then external affairs minister, proposed a special UN peacekeeping force to ease the British and French out of Egypt. The plan was approved by the UN General Assembly and Pearson was rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957. He served as prime minister from 1963-68.
In 1956, Soviet troops moved into Hungary to crush a week-old anti-communist revolution.
In 1960, Justice Minister Davie Fulton announced a 15-year program to rehabilitate prisoners in federal penitentiaries. The work-day for convicts was increased to seven hours and they were allowed to spend evenings socializing, participating in sports or just watching television.
In 1966, direct air service began between Montreal and Moscow.
In 1966, Defence Minister Paul Hellyer introduced legislation to amalgamate the army, navy and air force under the umbrella of the Canadian Armed Forces. The bill became law Feb. 1, 1968. (In August 2011, Ottawa restored the historic names to the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Land Force Command was renamed the Canadian Army.)
In 1977, the Security Council ordered a world-wide embargo on the supply of arms and military material to South Africa because of that Government's repressive racial acts against its black population.
In 1979, Muslim students captured more than 50 Americans at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Backed by the Ayatollah Khomeini, the students held the Americans hostage for 444 days to pressure the U.S. to return the deposed Shah of Iran.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the White House as he defeated U.S. President Jimmy Carter by a strong margin.
In 1985, the Canadian Red Cross began testing blood for HIV, the virus linked to AIDS.
In 1988, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed legislation enabling the United States to ratify the United Nations Genocide Convention.
In 1990, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offered an apology to Canadians of Italian origin forced to live in internment camps during the Second World War.
In 1993, Jean Chretien was sworn in as Canada's 20th prime minister. A few hours after assuming office, he cancelled the previous Conservative government's controversial $4.8-billion EH-101 helicopter deal.
In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot to death by a right-wing Jewish extremist, Yigal Amir, after having addressed a peace rally attended by more than 100,000 people in Tel Aviv.
In 1997, Mordecai Richler won Giller Prize, Canada's riches literary award, for his novel "Barney's Version."
In 1997, in a landmark decision, a New Brunswick court ruled that aboriginals own the crown lands and forests of New Brunswick.
In 1999, the federal government approved the so-called morning-after pill, to be taken following unprotected sex to reduce the chances of an unwanted pregnancy.
In 2001, former Quebec cabinet minister Gerard Tremblay was elected the first mayor of the amalgamated city of Montreal. (In 2012, he resigned in the midst of a construction corruption scandal.)
In 2002, the U.S. expanded the war on terror with its first overt attack on suspected al Qaida operatives outside Afghanistan. A CIA missile strike killed the top al-Qaida operative in Yemen and five others in their car.
In 2002, the Yukon Party was elected to a majority government with Party leader Dennis Fentie becoming the Yukon Territories first premier to come from outside Whitehorse. The party won 12 of the Yukon's 18 ridings.
In 2003, M.G. Vassanji, who won the first Giller Prize in 1994, became the first two-time winner with his novel "The In-Between Life of Vikram Lall."
In 2007, King Tutankhamen's face was bared to the public, the first time the iconic pharaoh had been displayed since he was buried in a golden tomb around 1323 BC.
In 2008, Democrat candidate Barack Obama, 47, become the first African-American president in U.S. history. He defeated Republican John McCain, 72, in a landslide -- winning more than 335 of the 538 Electoral College votes. Massive turnout delivered about 136.6 million votes, the second-highest number in the modern era cast for a U.S. presidential election.
In 2008, Michael Crichton, the million-selling author of such historic and prehistoric science fantasies as "Jurassic Park," "Timeline" and "The Andromeda Strain," died of cancer in Los Angeles at age 66. In 1994, he also created the award-winning TV hospital series "ER."
In 2010, Sparky Anderson, the first manager to win World Series titles in both leagues and the only manager to lead two franchises (Detroit, Cincinnati) in career wins, died from complications of dementia at age 76.
In 2011, Andy Rooney, the curmudgeonly commentator who spent more than 30 years wryly talking about the oddities of life for "60 Minutes," died from complications after minor undisclosed surgery. He was 92. Only a month earlier, he gave his final commentary on television's favourite newsmagazine.
In 2015, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was sworn in as Canada's 23rd prime minister and named a 30-member cabinet that was predominantly young, ethnically diverse and the first gender-balanced in Canadian history. Bill Morneau became the first political rookie to take on the finance portfolio since 1919 and Jody Wilson-Raybould was the first aboriginal person to be sworn in as justice minister.
In 2017, four years after he walked away from the UFC for a mental breather, Canadian Georges St. Pierre returned to the octagon and defeated Michael Bisping by submission to capture the middleweight championship at UFC 217 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
In 2018, the tiny Pacific territory of New Caledonia voted by 56 per cent to remain part of France in a long-awaited independence referendum. It was the first of three possible referenda on the territory's future.
In 2018, brash American shareholder activist Evelyn Y. Davis, who owned stock in more than 80 public companies and rarely failed to make her presence known at corporate-investor meetings, died in Washington at the age of 89.
In 2019, Elizabeth May stepped down as the leader of the federal Green party after 13 years in the job. She appointed deputy leader Jo-Ann Roberts as her interim successor.
In 2019, colleagues praised Nicholas Kasirer as a nimble legal mind and devoted professional at a ceremony to welcome the newest member of the Supreme Court of Canada. The fluently bilingual Kasirer served on the Quebec Court of Appeal for a decade and spent 20 years as a professor of law at Montreal's McGill University, including as dean of the law faculty. Kasirer was confirmed as a high court judge in August after being nominated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He officially joined the Supreme Court on Sept. 16.
In 2021, Canada joined the U.S., the U.K. and 21 other countries in a historic deal to stop new direct public finance for coal and oil and gas development by the end of 2022. The deal, signed at the COP26 climate meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, also promised more emphasis on financing renewable energy.
In 2021, Britain became the first country to approve a potentially game-changing COVID-19 pill that can be taken from home. Drugmaker Merck's coronavirus antiviral was the first pill shown to successfully treat COVID-19. The antiviral reduces symptoms and speeds recovery, which could ease caseloads on hospitals and help to curb outbreaks in poorer countries with fragile health systems.
In 2022, thousands of Ontario education workers hit picket lines across the province on the first day of an indefinite walkout that closed many schools. The strike went ahead, even after the Ford government enacted a law imposing a contract on 55,000 education workers represented by CUPE. It also banned them from striking, pre-emptively using the notwithstanding clause to guard against constitutional challenges.
In 2023, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond lost her status as a member of the Order of Canada after the once high-profile judge's claims to Indigenous identity were questioned.
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The Canadian Press