Today in History for March 2:
On this date:
In 1492, 800,000 Jews were banished from Spain by King Ferdinand V.
In 1699, French explorer Sieur d'Iberville located the mouth of the Mississippi River.
In 1791, English preacher John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, died. In 1738, at a religious meeting in London, he experienced an assurance of salvation through faith in Christ alone, which formed the basis of his message for the rest of his life. He is said to have preached 40,000 sermons. In 1831, Upper Canada's parliament passed an act legalizing marriages performed by Methodist ministers.
In 1835, Francis I -- Emperor of Austria and the last Holy Roman Emperor -- died. That ended an institution founded by Charlemagne more than 900 years before.
In 1836, the Republic of Texas declared independence from Mexico.
In 1863, the Union Pacific Railroad adopted a track width of four feet, eight and a-half inches (1.43 metres). It became the standard for most railroads.
In 1882, Roderick Maclean tried to assassinate Queen Victoria. It was the eighth recorded attempt on her life. Maclean shot into her carriage as she was leaving Windsor train station, but neither she nor the women travelling with her were hurt. Maclean was tried for high treason and found "not guilty, but insane."
In 1899, Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state was established.
In 1916, Ontario passed a Temperance Act.
In 1923, "Time" magazine published its inaugural issue.
In 1930, author D.H. Lawrence died in Vence, France at age 44.
In 1933, the movie "King Kong" had its world premiere in New York.
In 1938, Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, who helped found the Confessing Church, was sentenced to seven months in prison for opposing German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. "First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist," he said. "Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me."
In 1939, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope on his 63rd birthday. He served as Pius XII until his death in 1957.
In 1939, a fire at Queen's Hotel in Halifax claimed 28 lives.
In 1943, the Second World War's "Battle of the Bismarck Sea" began. Australian and American warplanes intercepted a Japanese convoy en route to New Guinea. Most of the 16-vessel convoy was destroyed and more than 3,000 Japanese troops were killed.
In 1949, an American B-50 bomber landed in Fort Worth, Texas, to complete the first non-stop flight around the world in 94 hours. The plane, which carried 13 crew members, was refuelled four times in mid-air.
In 1949, Joe Louis announced his retirement as the world heavyweight boxing champion.
In 1951, the first Canadian casualty list from the Korean War was issued. Six soldiers had been killed.
In 1958, Dr. Vivien Fuchs, a British explorer and scientist, completed the first overland crossing of the Antarctic. The vast continent had received little attention from explorers until comparatively modern times. But today, a number of countries, most notably the United States, Russia, Britain, Australia and Argentina, have claimed sovereignty over wide areas of the ice-locked land mass.
In 1961, a Saskatoon team skipped by Joyce McKee won the first Canadian women's curling championship. They went 9-and-0 in the round-robin event at the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club. McKee went on to win four more national titles -- as skip in 1969 and as second in 1971, '72 and '73.
In 1962, Philadelphia 76ers centre Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in an NBA game against the New York Knicks in Hershey, Pa.
In 1965, accused drug trafficker Lucien Rivard escaped from the Bordeaux Jail in Montreal, causing scandal for the federal Liberal government. Rivard escaped after being given a garden hose to flood the skating rink on a warm spring evening. Charges of bribery were raised and a royal commission into the affair criticized Justice Minister Guy Favreau, who then resigned. Rivard was caught four months later and was extradited to the U.S., where he was wanted for his part in a giant narcotics ring. Rivard was sentenced in Laredo, Texas, to 20 years in prison.
In 1969, the first of two prototype Concorde supersonic airplanes made its maiden flight from Toulouse, France.
In 1970, Keith Spicer was appointed Canada's first commissioner of official languages. The decision was unanimously approved by the House of Commons and the Senate. The post was set up under the Official Languages Act on July 7, 1969.
In 1972, wind, snow and ice combined to snap Hydro-Quebec lines from Quebec City to the Ontario border. The power outages were brief, with Quebec City waiting the longest -- about three hours -- for power to be restored.
In 1976, the last issue of the Canadian edition of "Time" was distributed. It folded because of a loss of advertising after a change in government tax policy.
In 1983, broadcaster Tom Darling, of CHML/CKDS-FM, in Hamilton, Ont., died at age 72. He is credited with originating telephone talk shows and helicopter reports in Canada.
In 1984, the moon swung to a point 406,700 kilometres from the Earth -- the farthest from the planet it had been since 1750, and an event that won't be repeated until about 2100.
In 1986, in her first proclamation as Philippine president, Corazon Aquino restored full civil rights.
In 1989, representatives from the 12 European Community nations agreed to ban all production of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) by the end of the 20th century.
In 1990, Nelson Mandela was elected deputy president of the African National Congress.
In 1993, proceedings at the Canadian Supreme Court were televised for the first time. The hearing involved a challenge to Canada's tax laws by a Toronto lawyer.
In 1995, German police arrested 28-year-old Nicholas Leeson, a young trader blamed for destroying Barings PLC, Britain's oldest investment bank. (He was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.)
In 1998, Prime Minister Jean Chretien accepted the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award, on behalf of Canada, for policies on disabled people. The award, established on the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in 1995, recognizes nations that expand the participation of people with disabilities. Roosevelt, despite contracting polio in 1921 and never walking again, was elected U.S. president four times.
In 1999, Jack Webster, legendary B.C. hotline host and television broadcaster, died at the age of 80 in Vancouver.
In 2000, world and Olympic champion curler Sandra Schmirler died in Regina of cancer at the age of 36. She skipped her team to three national and world curling titles in the 1990s, as well as the 1998 Olympic title in Nagano.
In 2003, Tiger Woods won the Accenture match play championship in Carlsbad, Calif. -- becoming the first golfer to have won all four World Golf Championship trophies.
In 2004, multiple suicide bombings killed at least 143 Iraqis at shrines in Baghdad and Karbala during a procession marking Ashura -- a Shiite holy day.
In 2004, Bernard Ebbers, the Edmonton-born co-founder of bankrupt WorldCom Inc. was charged with three counts of securities fraud relating to the firm's misstatement of US$11-billion in revenue and expenses to cover up a sagging long-distance telephone and Internet business.
In 2006, Cpl. Paul Davis of Bridgewater, N.S., and Master Cpl. Timothy Wilson of Grande Prairie, Alta., were killed and five other Canadian soldiers injured when their light-armoured vehicle collided with a taxi in Afghanistan.
In 2006, former "Beatle" Sir Paul McCartney and his then-wife Heather Mills staged a high-profile, anti-hunt protest at the annual seal hunt on barren ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
In 2006, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a Montreal school board's ban on the wearing of ceremonial daggers by Sikh students.
In 2007, Laval police Det. Sgt. Daniel Tessier, 42, was fatally shot during a cocaine-trafficking investigation at a Montreal area home.
In 2007, Doris Anderson, women's rights pioneer and the editor of "Chatelaine" magazine for more than two decades, died of pulmonary fibrosis She was 85. After "Chatelaine," the Calgary-born Anderson went on to become president of the Advisory Council on the Status of Women. She was also a newspaper columnist and wrote several books.
In 2007, Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby became the youngest player in NHL history to reach the 200-point plateau, achieving the milestone at the age of 19 years, 207 days. Wayne Gretzky is the only other teen to reach 200 points, doing it just before he turned 20.
In 2008, 25-year-old trooper Michael Hayakaze, from Lord Strathcona's Horse regiment based in Edmonton, was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
In 2008, Dmitry Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin's protégé, won a massive victory in Russia's presidential election.
In 2012, BP agreed to pay US$7.8 billion to settle lawsuits over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, making it one of the largest class-action settlements ever. The money would come from the US$20 billion compensation fund that it previously set out.
In 2012, a violent wave of storms in the U.S. Midwest and South flattened some rural communities, killing at least 37 people in four states - Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.
In 2012, Sears Canada announced the October closures of three high-profile stores in Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa, affecting some 670 jobs.
In 2016, Edmonton-based Katz Group agreed to sell the Rexall Health drugstore chain, including its 470 retail pharmacies, in a C$3-billion deal with U.S. health care company McKesson.
In 2016, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth after an unprecedented year at the International Space Station, landing their Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan.
In 2018, a destructive nor'easter pounded the coastal areas from Maryland to Maine with hurricane-force winds and sideways-blown rain and snow. The storm flooded coastal towns, downed trees and power lines, and was blamed for nine deaths. At the height of the storm, more than two million homes and businesses were without electricity.
In 2018, a serial bomber began his reign of terror in the Texas capital of Austin when a package bomb killed a 39-year-old man. Four more bombings in the coming weeks killed a 17-year-old boy and injured four others. On March 21, the suspect detonated an explosive device inside his vehicle as authorities closed in.
In 2020, the man who spent two decades as chairman and chief executive officer of General Electric died. Jack Welch was 84. Welch personified what became known as the "cult of the CEO'' during the late-1990s boom, and in 1999, Fortune magazine named him "Manager of the Century."
In 2020, the number of new COVID-19 cases in China dropped to its lowest level in six weeks, but clusters of infections in South Korea, Italy and Iran continued to expand.
In 2020, Mark Bourrie was named the final winner of the RBC Taylor Prize. Bourrie beat out four other authors to win the prize. The prize shut down after two decades of celebrating Canadian literary non-fiction.
In 2020, James Lipton, longtime host of "Inside the Actors Studio,'' died in his New York home from bladder cancer at age 93. Lipton interviewed hundreds of master actors and Hollywood luminaries for nearly 25 years on Bravo.
In 2020, the head of the Canadian Public Health Agency raised the risk level to three in response to the spread of COVID-19, meaning "avoid all non-essential travel." In addition Dr. Teresa Tam asked people in Canada who have travelled to Iran to get in touch with health officials and self-isolate for two weeks. (Iran was an early hotspot in the global pandemic.)
In 2020, work resumed on a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia at the centre of protests that disrupted both rail and road traffic across country.
In 2021, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization said the recently-approved Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is not recommended for seniors. The Committee cited a lack of data on how well the vaccine would work in older populations. They said the m-R-N-A vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are preferred for people 65 years old and above "due to suggested superior efficacy.''
In 2021, gross domestic product shrank 5.4 per cent in 2020, making it the worst year for the Canadian economy since the agency started keeping records in 1961. The economy did grow at a better-than-expected annualized rate of 9.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year. But that was down from growth of 40.6 per cent in the third quarter.
----
The Canadian Press
