Today in History for Nov. 29
On this date:
In 1530, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, adviser to King Henry VIII of England, died. He had fallen out of the king’s favour because of his failure to secure an annulment from the pope for the king’s marriage to Catharine of Aragon.
In 1760, France formally transferred Detroit to British control.
In 1798, the legislature of the Island of St. John voted to change its name to Prince Edward Island. The name was chosen in honour of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, who was stationed with the army in Halifax at the time. It was felt that the change was necessary because the Island was being confused with Saint John, N.B. and St. John’s, N.L.
In 1814, the "London Times" became the first newspaper to be printed by a steam-powered press.
In 1818, George Brown, journalist and Father of Confederation, was born at Alloa, Scotland.
In 1832, Louisa May Alcott, author of "Little Women," was born in Germantown, Pa.
In 1855, the Grand Trunk Railway completed the line between Montreal and Brockville.
In 1864, a Colorado militia killed at least 150 peaceful Cheyenne Indians in the Sand Creek Massacre.
In 1898, British academic and children’s author C.S. Lewis was born.
In 1916, the National Research Council of Canada was established at Ottawa.
In 1924, in the first hockey game played at the Montreal Forum, the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto St. Pats 7-1.
In 1929, U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd became the first man to fly over the South Pole. Three years earlier, Byrd made the first flight over the North Pole.
In 1945, the monarchy was abolished in Yugoslavia and a republic was proclaimed.
In 1947, Canada voted with 32 other countries in the United Nations in favour of the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Israel proclaimed its independence the following May 14th -- the day British control of the region ended. Palestinians rejected the partition plan, and decades of tension and violence have followed.
In 1948, the sport of roller derby made its U.S. television network debut on CBS.
In 1949, British eye surgeon Dr. Harold Ridley performed the first operation to replace a cataract-scarred lens. The first patient was a 45-year-old woman.
In 1952, Archbishop Paul-Emile Leger of Montreal was named cardinal -- the sixth cardinal in the history of the Roman Catholic church in Canada. In 1967 he resigned as archbishop to do missionary work among the lepers and handicapped children in Cameroon, Africa. He died in 1991.
In 1961, "Enos" the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the "Mercury-Atlas Five" spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.
In 1963, a Trans-Canada Airlines jet crashed near Ste. Therese, Que., killing all 118 on board.
In 1963, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In 1976, the first commercial flight landed at Mirabel International Airport.
In 1979, model Anita Pallenberg, Keith Richard’s common-law wife, was cleared of murder charges. Her young male companion had been found shot to death in her home in New York state.
In 1982, Canadian athlete Percy Williams, winner of the 100-metre and 200-metre races at the 1928 Olympics, died in Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»at age 74.
In 1987, Gwendolyn MacEwan, poet and recipient of the Governor General’s Award for English-language poetry, died in Toronto at age 46.
In 1988, Sir Victor Hubert Tait, one of the few Canadians to hold a knighthood, died in London at age 96. Born in Winnipeg, he served in the air force during both world wars, reaching the rank of air vice-marshal in the Royal Air Force. He played a key role in the planning of the Normandy invasion. He later worked for British Airways.
In 1989, veteran New Democrat MP Lorne Nystrom was charged with stealing a $7.79 container of contact lens cleaner from a drugstore. He was acquitted of a shoplifting charge on Jan. 9, 1990, after an Ontario judge accepted his explanation that he must have put the container into his pocket in a moment of distraction.
In 1989, Czechoslovakia’s National Assembly overwhelmingly passed three constitutional amendments, ending the Communist Party’s 40-year monopoly, opening the way for new parties and removing Marxist-Leninism from the basis of education.
In 1990, the UN Security Council, led by the United States, voted 12-2 to authorize military action if Iraq did not withdraw its troops from Kuwait and release all foreign hostages by Jan. 15, 1991. The hostages were taken when Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2.
In 1994, Guelph, Ont., became the first Canadian city to pick a woman police chief with the appointment of Lenna Bradburn.
In 1995, Ontario's Progressive Conservative government embarked on one of Canada's most extensive cost-cutting programs, vowing to slash $6.2 billion in spending over three years for hospitals, schools, universities and municipalities and balance the budget by the year 2000.
In 1996, Sydney Melbourne Pozer, a Canadian who helped engineer the "Great Escape" during the Second World War from prison camp Stalag Luft 3, died in Prince George, B.C.
In 1998, Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected legalizing heroin and other narcotics.
In 1999, Wayne Gretzky was named the Male Athlete of the Century in The Canadian Press/Broadcast News survey of newspaper sports editors and broadcasters.
In 2001, lawyers for Steven Truscott submitted a brief to the federal justice minister calling for their client to be exonerated for the 1959 murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper near Clinton, Ont. In 2007, he was acquitted of the crime and in 2008 was awarded $6.5 million in compensation.
In 2007, AbitibiBowater Inc. announced the permanent or indefinite closure of eight money-losing mills across Canada as part of a massive reduction in newsprint production capacity.
In 2009, the Montreal Alouettes erased a 16-point deficit in the final 10:52 of play to defeat the Saskatchewan Roughriders 28-27 and win the Grey Cup. Damon Duval missed a last second field goal but Saskatchewan was called for too many men on the field. Duval made no mistake on his second attempt. Montreal's Avon Cobourne and Ben Cahoon were named the MVP and top Canadian respectively.
In 2012, the UN voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution upgrading the Palestinians to a non-member observer state, a vote that came exactly 65 years after the General Assembly voted to divide Palestine into separate states for Jews and Arabs. Canada, the U.S. and Israel were among the nine nations that voted "No."
In 2013, a police helicopter crashed through the roof of a crowded Glasgow pub, killing its crew - two police officers and a civilian pilot - and six patrons. Thirty-two people were injured, 12 seriously. One person died in hospital days later.
In 2013, Cpl. Ron Francis, a New Brunswick Mountie who ran afoul of a policy banning RCMP officers from smoking medicinal marijuana while in uniform, returned his red serge dress uniform to the department's headquarters in Fredericton after he said he was ordered to do so. (In September 2014, he pleaded guilty to assaulting a total of four RCMP officers in two separate incidents. He committed suicide in October, a month before his sentencing date.)
In 2014, a judge dismissed murder charges against former Egytian president Hosni Mubarak and acquitted his security chief over the killing of protesters during Egypt's 2011 uprising that ended Mubarak's nearly three-decade rule.
In 2014, Darren Wilson, the white police officer who killed black teenager Michael Brown, resigned from the Ferguson (Mo.) Police Department nearly four months after the fatal confrontation that led to protests across the U.S. A grand jury spent more than three months reviewing evidence before declining to issue any charges against Wilson.
In 2015, the Edmonton Eskimos overcame an early 13-0 deficit to defeat the Ottawa Redblacks 26-20 and capture the Grey Cup championship. Edmonton secured its first title since 2005 and 14th overall in a record 25th appearance.
In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Sheilah Martin to the Supreme Court of Canada, to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin on Dec. 15.
In 2017, NBC News fired longtime "Today" show host Matt Lauer for "inappropriate sexual behaviour."
In 2017, Warner Bros. Television Group fired Andrew Kreisberg, executive producer for several Vancouver-shot superhero shows, following allegations of sexual harassment from 19 former and current employees.
In 2017, convicted Croat war criminal Slobodan Praljak died after swallowing poison just after his 20-year sentence for involvement in crimes during the Bosnian war of the 1990s was upheld by appeals judges at a UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
In 2018, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced targeted sanctions against 17 Saudi nationals that Canada believed were involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The sanctions froze any assets the targets might have in Canada and barred them from entering Canada.
In 2018, the remains of a Winnipeg woman who vanished July 11, 2015 were found in a wooded area southeast of the city. DNA testing confirmed the remains to be those of 57-year-old Thelma Krull, who left home to go for a walk and never returned. Police believe she was murdered.
In 2018, Ontario announced it would create performance standards for large carbon emitters under a new climate plan to replace the province's cap-and-trade system. The Progressive Conservative government also announced the province would provide $400 million over four years to a fund aimed at enticing companies to invest in technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2019, Bill Peters resigned as coach of the Calgary Flames amid allegations of racial slurs and physical abuse of players in previous jobs. General manager Brad Treliving announced November 29th that he accepted Peters’ resignation. Peters had not been on the ice or behind the bench with his team since former player Akim Aliu levelled the accusations of racist slurs on Twitter on November 25th. Aliu said in the minors in 2009-10 that Peters “dropped the N bomb several times towards me in the dressing room in my rookie year because he didn’t like my choice of music.” In a letter to Treliving, Peters said he regretted such conduct and apologized to anyone harmed by it. Aliu called Peters’ statement “misleading, insincere and concerning.” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour also confirmed Peters physically abused his players behind the bench while in Carolina.
In 2019, a man convicted of manslaughter in the 2012 shooting at Toronto's Eaton Centre was sentenced to life in prison. Christopher Husbands was handed the sentence in a Toronto courtroom more than seven years after the attack at the busy downtown mall left two people dead and six others injured. Husbands was also found guilty earlier in 2019 of five counts of aggravated assault and one count each of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and reckless discharge of a firearm. It was his second trial in connection with the Eaton Centre shooting, after his conviction on second-degree murder charges was overturned on appeal. Husbands admitted at trial that he was the shooter but his lawyers argued he should be found not criminally responsible due to mental illness. The Crown acknowledged Husbands suffered from PTSD due to a stabbing months earlier, but said he was carrying out a vendetta against his attackers.
In 2019, a man wearing a fake explosive vest stabbed two people to death in what police called a terrorist attack before being tackled by members of the public and then fatally shot by officers on London Bridge. Metropolitan Police counterterrorism chief Neil Basu said the suspect appeared to be wearing a bomb vest but it turned out to be “a hoax explosive device." The attacker, 28-year-old Usman Khan, was a convicted terrorist who had been released from prison the previous year. The violence erupted two-and-a-half years after a van and knife attack in the same area killed eight people.
In 2020, Dave Prowse, the man behind the mask of Darth Vader in the original "Star Wars'' trilogy, died at 85. Prowse was a weightlifter before taking up acting and was noticed by director George Lucas. Although physically perfect for the Vader part, his lilting English West Country accent was considered less ideal, and the lines were re-recorded by James Earl Jones.
In 2021, the federal government extended the myriad of travel restrictions and rules meant to curb the spread of COVID-19. Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and Health Minister Patty Hajdu said the rules, first imposed near the beginning of the global outbreak, would now be in effect until Jan. 21, 2021, for travellers entering Canada from a country other than the United States. Among the rules is a requirement for anyone entering the country to self-isolate for 14 days.
In 2021, Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé confirmed the province's first case of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
In 2021, the word "vaccine'' was declared the 2021 word of the year by Merriam-Webster. The selection followed last year's choice by the dictionary company of "pandemic'' as tops in lookups on its online site.
In 2022, former Alberta premier Jason Kenney resigned as a member of the provincial legislature. His announcement came the same day his successor, Premier Danielle Smith, introduced her sovereignty bill in the legislature -- which Kenney had criticized.
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The Canadian Press