Today in History for Oct. 26:
In 1774, the American Congress invited Canada to join the 13 colonies opposing Britain.
In 1813, a small force of British and Canadian soldiers defeated an advance party of 1,500 Americans at the battle of Chateauguay.
In 1825, the Erie Canal opened, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
In 1850, Capt. McClure of the Royal Navy discovered the Northwest Passage while searching for the Franklin expedition.
In 1879, Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Russian Revolution, was born at Yanovka, Russia.
In 1881, the Gunfight at the OK Corral took place in Tombstone, Ariz. Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and Doc Holliday shot it out with Ike Clanton's gang. Three members of Clanton's gang, including his brother, were killed, and Earp's brothers were wounded.
In 1902, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an American pioneer in the fight for voting rights for women, died.
In 1905, Norway separated from Sweden, naming Prince Charles of Denmark king.
In 1934, the Honorable H. H. Stevens resigned from the Bennett government and formed his own Reconstruction Party.
In 1942, Japanese planes badly damaged the U.S. warship "Hornet" in the "Battle of Santa Cruz Islands" during the Second World War. (The "Hornet" sank early the next morning.)
In 1942, 16 people were killed when a Royal Air Force ferry bomber crashed at Montreal's Dorval Airport.
In 1948, the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America was organized at Des Moines, Iowa. The association is comprised of 24 Pentecostal groups and meets annually to promote unity among Pentecostal Christians.
In 1950, Canada and the United States agreed on economic principles for joint defence production.
In 1957, the Soviet Union's minister of defence, Marshal Zhukov, was relieved of his post, accused of promoting his own "cult of personality" and seen as threatening Khrushchev's popularity.
In 1958, Pan American Airways flew its first Boeing 707 jetliner from New York to Paris in eight hours and 41 minutes. At the same time, the first London-New York flight was inaugurated by British Overseas Airways.
In 1969, former prime minister John Diefenbaker was installed as chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan.
In 1970, the comic "Doonesbury" by Garry Trudeau premiered.
In 1976, Transkei became the first of South Africa's black homelands to be declared an independent republic.
In 1977, the experimental shuttle "Enterprise" glided to a bumpy landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
In 1979, South Korean President Park Chung-hee was shot to death by Kim Jae-kyu, the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.
In 1982, the Senate passed legislation renaming the July 1st holiday Canada Day. The legislation capped Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's plan to give Canada an independent identity complete with its own Constitution, which had been repatriated in April 1982.
In 1984, "Baby Fae," a newborn with a severe heart defect, was given the heart of a baboon in an experimental transplant, in Loma Linda, Calif. She lived 21 days with the animal heart.
In 1984, New Brunswick Premier Richard Hatfield was charged with possession of 26.5 grams of marijuana. The charges were laid after RCMP officers discovered the drug on Sept. 25 in Hatfield's luggage while he was accompanying the Queen during her visit to New Brunswick. Hatfield was later acquitted.
In 1985, Jacinth Fyfe, 25, of Roxboro, Que., became the first policewoman in Canada to die in the line of duty when she was fatally shot by a man while answering a call.
In 1988, two grey whales were freed by a Russian icebreaker in Barrow, Alaska. They were assisted by Inuit using chainsaws to cut the ice as the world looked on. A third trapped whale died before the rescue.
In 1992, the Charlottetown Accord, which would have drastically altered the Constitution, was defeated in a national referendum. Canada-wide, the "No" vote garnered 54 per cent, compared with a 45 per cent "Yes" vote.
In 1993, brush fires that would eventually destroy more than 1,000 homes broke out in southern California. Some of the fires, which scorched more than 2,700 hectares, were deliberately set. It took more than a month to contain the last major blaze.
In 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty to end 46 years of war.
In 1999, the British House of Lords, under pressure from Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government, agreed to abolish the 800-year-old right of hereditary nobles to sit and vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.
In 2000, the New York Yankees beat the New York Mets to win baseball's "Subway Series," their third consecutive World Series championship.
In 2001, U.S. President Bush signed the "Patriot Act," giving authorities the unprecedented ability to search, seize, detain or eavesdrop in their pursuit of possible terrorists.
In 2002, a three-day hostage crisis at a Moscow theatre came to an end as Russian forces stormed the building using a mysterious knockout gas that killed at least 120 hostages. About 50 hostage-takers were also killed.
In 2004, a Saskatchewan public inquiry found that aboriginal teenager Neil Stonechild, who froze to death in a snowy field on Saskatoon's outskirts nearly 14 years earlier, was in police custody just before he died and that investigators closed the case prematurely.
In 2005, 17 Alberta oil field workers shared a $54-million Lotto 6-49 lottery win.
In 2009, health officials launched a vaccination program targeting the pandemic H1N1 virus. It was the biggest vaccination program in Canadian history until being eclipsed by the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 that began in 2020.
In 2009, the Ontario law came into effect making it illegal for drivers to use hand-held cellphones and other electronic devices while behind the wheel.
In 2010, Iran began the process of loading 163 fuel rods into the reactor core of its first nuclear power plant. It was built with Russian help in the southern port city of Bushehr.
In 2010, Tariq Aziz, the dapper diplomat and highest-ranking Christian in Saddam Hussein's regime, was sentenced to death by hanging for persecuting members of the Shiite religious parties. (In November, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani declared he wouldn't sign off on the death penalty.)
In 2010, a day after an earthquake sparked a deadly tsunami, Indonesia saw another natural disaster as Mount Merapi began erupting, resulting in hundreds of deaths in the weeks that followed.
In 2011, Boeing's new 787, the much-anticipated $190 million long-haul jet nicknamed The Dreamliner, carried its first passengers on a four hour flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong. (In January 2013, regulators grounded all 50 of the planes in use after a series of mechanical problems. Flights began again in late April after the FAA approved the redesigned battery system.)
In 2012, a Milan court convicted former Premier Silvio Berlusconi of tax fraud and sentenced the media mogul to four years in prison, his first prison sentence in years of criminal probes. (The conviction was upheld after all his appeals were exhausted.)
In 2014, the CBC abruptly severed ties with "Q" radio host Jian Ghomeshi, who acknowledged he engaged in rough sex but said it was always consensual. In the following weeks, as many as nine women alleged they were victims of non-consensual violence during, or leading up to, sexual encounters with Ghomeshi. (In 2016, a judge acquitted him on all four charges of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking.)
In 2015, nearly 400 people died after a magnitude-7.5 earthquake, centred deep beneath the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan's sparsely populated Badakhshan province that borders Pakistan, Tajikistan and China.
In 2018, Investigators in Florida arrested a man they allege mailed at least 13 crudely fashioned pipe bombs to U.S. President Donald Trump's most visible critics and targets of his rhetoric. Cesar Sayoc, 56, was charged with five federal crimes. FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bombs were not hoax devices, even though none exploded.
In 2018, The family of billionaire philanthropists Barry and Honey Sherman offered up to $10 million for information that would solve the December 2017 killings of the Toronto couple. The reward was announced after their lawyer detailed what he described as major shortcomings of a Toronto police probe.
In 2018, John Ziegler Jr., the NHL president who oversaw the merger with the World Hockey Association and was eventually ousted following labour unrest and a players' strike in 1992, died in Florida at 84.
In 2018, Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News Channel personality who made a rocky transition to softer news at NBC, was fired from her morning show after triggering a furor by suggesting it's OK for white people to wear blackface at Halloween.
In 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was dead after a U-S military raid in northwest Syria. Trump called the ISIS leader's removal "the top national security priority of my administration." A U-S special operations forces mission killed several ISIS fighters and companions of Baghdadi, including two women wearing suicide vests and three children. The death of Baghdadi marked the culmination of a years-long hunt to find one of the most wanted terrorists in the world and the man who declared a so-called Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
In 2019, legendary and controversial Hollywood producer Robert Evans died at age 89. He produced "Chinatown,'' "The Godfather'' and "Rosemary's Baby.'' His career was a story of comebacks and reinventions. Evans had launched a successful women's clothing line with his brother, Charles, and was visiting Los Angeles on business when actress Norma Shearer saw him sunbathing by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She persuaded producers to hire the handsome, dark-haired 26-year-old to play her late husband, movie mogul Irving Thalberg, in "Man of a Thousand Faces," a film about horror movie star Lon Chaney. Evans was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 1980 after striking a plea bargain and was entangled in the 1983 murder of promoter Roy Radin.
In 2020, Opposition parties won their bid to launch a probe of the Liberals' handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. MPs from all four opposition parties voted to pass a Conservative motion that orders the Trudeau government to turn over to the House of Commons health committee all records on many issues related to the coronavirus response.
In 2020, the U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court by a 52-48 vote, with Republicans overpowering Democratic opposition a week before Election Day. Amy Coney Barrett is the third Supreme Court justice nominated by Trump. She fills the vacancy left by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal icon who died the previous month.
In 2020, the election in Saskatchewan gave the Saskatchewan Party its fourth straight win — a feat the province has not seen since the CCF under Tommy Douglas won five straight majorities more than 50 years ago. Scott Moe will remain premier for another four years after his party picked more than 60 per cent of the popular vote.
In 2021, the federal government quietly changed the criteria for its special humanitarian program for vulnerable Afghan refugees including women leaders, journalists and persecuted religious or ethnic minorities. It initially applied to Afghans stuck in their country, but now applied only to Afghans who are already out of Afghanistan. A second program, aimed at embassy staff, interpreters and others who helped Canada during its military mission, still allowed those inside Afghanistan to apply.
In 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave his cabinet a major overhaul -- dropping Harjit Sajjan from defence, Carolyn Bennett from Crown-Indigenous relations, Marc Garneau from global affairs and Patty Hajdu from health.
In 2021, Carolyn Bennett was shuffled out as minister of Crown-Indigenous relations. First Nations leaders had been deeply critical of her performance, saying she hadn't lived up to the government's mandate of reconciliation with Indigenous people. She was tapped to become the first minister of the new portfolio of mental health and addictions.
In 2021, an independent review found that the Chicago Blackhawks mishandled allegations that an assistant coach sexually assaulted a player during the team's Stanley Cup run in 2010. Stan Bowman resigned as the Blackhawks' general manager and president of hockey operations. He was among team officials who knew about the allegations and did nothing. The NHL fined the team $2 million for "the organization's inadequate internal procedures and insufficient and untimely response.''
In 2021, Nunavut residents elected 11 new members to the territory's legislative assembly, but voter turnout was low. Elections Nunavut said turnout in the territorial vote a day before was 49.9 per cent -- down from 63 per cent in 2017. Six women were elected to the 22-person assembly, tying a 2017 record for the most women elected in Nunavut.
In 2021, the Trudeau government now had one cabinet member from Alberta. Randy Boissonnault is minister of tourism and associate minister of finance. Boissonnault was elected in Edmonton Centre in 2015, defeated in 2019 and re-elected in the most recent federal election in September. He was one of only two Liberals elected in the province.
In 2021, comedian Mort Sahl died at age 94. Sahl helped pioneer a new, socially minded kind of comedy during an era when many comedians dressed in tuxedos and told mother-in-law jokes. Sahl faced his audience wearing slacks, a sweater, and an unbuttoned collar and carrying a rolled-up newspaper.
In 2021, U.S. health advisers endorsed kid-size doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for young children. The vote by the Food and Drug Administration panel moved the nation closer to vaccinating children ages five to 11.
In 2022, the latest release of 2021 census data showed immigrants make up nearly a quarter of all people in Canada. The data from Statistics Canada projected that immigrants will represent a third of all Canadians by 2041. The data also said 34.6 per cent of people in the country have no religious affiliation.
In 2023, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government would be doubling the top-up to the carbon price rebate for rural Canadians, beginning the following April. Alongside the increase, Trudeau also announced a temporary three-year pause to carbon pricing measures on heating oil.
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The Canadian Press