Today in History for March 3:
On this date:
In 1801, David Emanuel, the first Jewish governor in the United States, took office in Georgia.
In 1841, Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Co., began a trip around the world. The trip would take 20 months. Simpson was 53 when the trip began and had been governor of what is now Western Canada for 20 years. Simpson once told a Commons committee that the soil in Western Canada was useless for farming. He knew better -- he was just trying to protect the area for fur trading.
In 1847, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Bell is considered one of the most important inventors of the 19th and 20th centuries. He left Scotland in 1870 and settled in Brantford, Ont., where he worked as a speech therapist for the deaf. He invented the telephone from 1874 to '76, patented it and promoted its commercial development in the U.S. He founded Bell Telephone in 1876. Bell died in Nova Scotia in 1922.
In 1861, serfdom was abolished in Russia.
In 1871, the House of Commons approved British Columbia's terms to join Canada.
In 1875, the first recorded hockey game under new rules developed by McGill University student J.G.A. Creighton took place in Montreal. Those rules formed the basis of the current game.
In 1875, one of the most popular operas ever written, Georges Bizet's "Carmen," premiered in Paris.
In 1887, the United States passed the Fisheries Retaliation Act against Canada, which excluded Canadian vessels from U.S. waters and stopped the importation of Canadian goods.
In 1887, Anne Sullivan arrived at the Alabama home of Captain and Mrs. Arthur Keller to teach their blind and deaf six-year-old daughter, Helen.
In 1890, Dr. Norman Bethune was born in Gravenhurst, Ont. The Canadian physician served during several wars and was the first westerner recognized as a hero by China. Bethune died in 1939 of blood poisoning in northern China where he was serving as a surgeon during China's war with Japan.
In 1894, British Prime Minister William Gladstone submitted his resignation to Queen Victoria, ending his fourth and final premiership.
In 1918, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ended Russian participation in the First World War. The treaty was annulled by the November, 1918 armistice which ended the war.
In 1919, the world's first international airmail was flown from Vancouver to Seattle, Wash.
In 1920, the Montreal Canadiens set the NHL record for goals in one game, routing the Quebec Bulldogs 16-3.
In 1921, Doctors Frederick Banting and Charles Best officially announced their University of Toronto team had discovered insulin to treat diabetes.
In 1931, "The Star Spangled Banner" was made the official anthem of the United States.
In 1944, around 500 passengers died of carbon monoxide poisoning after their train stopped in a pair of tunnels near Balvano, Italy.
In 1945, Canadian and U.S. armed forces linked up in Germany during the Second World War as German troops retreated along the Rhine. Although the Allies were already thrusting deep into German territory, the war in Europe did not end until May.
In 1945, the Allies fully secured the Philippine capital of Manila from Japanese forces during the Second World War.
In 1953, the world's first commercial jet crash took place. Eleven people died when a Canadian Pacific Comet jet crashed in Karachi, Pakistan.
In 1959, comedian Lou Costello died of a heart attack in East Los Angeles, Calif., three days before his 53rd birthday.
In 1962, Cairine Wilson, Canada's first woman senator, died at age 77. She was named to the Upper House in 1930, after the British Privy Council ruled that women are persons under the Constitution. In 1949, Wilson became Canada's first woman delegate to the United Nations.
In 1964, the House of Commons approved a bill changing the name of Trans-Canada Air Lines to Air Canada. The law, proposed by then Liberal MP Jean Chretien, took effect the following Jan. 1st.
In 1965, "The Sound of Music," the Oscar-winning film adaptation of the Broadway hit, was released. It starred Julie Andrews and Canadian actor Christopher Plummer.
In 1974, a Turkish Airlines DC-10 on a flight to London from Paris crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 346 on board.
In 1975, a high-speed inter-city passenger train known as the LRC was tested by CN Rail on its Sarnia-Toronto run.
In 1978, the remains of comedian Charlie Chaplin were stolen by extortionists from his grave in Switzerland. Chaplin had died the previous Christmas. His body was recovered 11 weeks later.
In 1985, Britain's coal miners union called off a 357-day-old strike, ending the longest and most violent walkout in British history.
In 1991, voters in Latvia and Estonia voted for independence from the Soviet Union.
In 1991, motorist Rodney King was severely beaten by several Los Angeles police officers in a scene captured on amateur video. A year later, the acquittals of four officers on state charges touched off riots in Los Angeles. Two officers were later re-tried and convicted on federal charges.
In 1991, Arthur Murray, the dean of ballroom dancing instructors, died in Honolulu at age 95.
In 1994, a Boston grand jury indicted Alan Eagleson, the former National Hockey League players' union head and hockey power broker, on 32 counts of embezzlement, fraud and racketeering. The Toronto lawyer pleaded guilty in 1998 to fraud charges in both Boston and Toronto. He was fined and served six months in prison.
In 1998, the three surviving Dionne quintuplets were honoured as among the top newsmakers of the century by "Time" magazine at its 75th birthday celebration in New York. The five identical girls -- Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile and Marie -- were born on May 28, 1934 to a French-Canadian farmer and his wife in Corbeil, Ont.
In 1999, RCMP raided B.C. Premier Glen Clark's residence in full view of cameras from a local television station, as part of an investigation into the conditional grant of a casino licence to his neighbour, who was accused of running an illegal gambling operation. The accused had done $10,000 worth of construction work on Clark's residence.
In 1999, Gerhard Herzberg, one of Canada's most distinguished scientists, died at age 94. He won the 1971 Nobel Prize for chemistry.
In 2002, Switzerland voted to join the United Nations.
In 2002, Colleen Jones became the first skip to win four Canadian women's curling titles. Jones led her Halifax team to an 8-5 win over Saskatchewan's Sherry Anderson in Brandon, Man. Jones also won in 1982, 1999 and 2001.
In 2004, Canadian poet Miriam Waddington died at age 86.
In 2005, four RCMP officers were shot dead by gunman James Roszko, who then killed himself, on a farm in northwest Alberta near Mayerthorpe, during a raid to investigate stolen property and a small marijuana grow operation. It was the greatest single loss of life in the force since the Northwest Rebellion of 1885.
In 2005, American adventurer Steve Fossett made aviation history by completing the first solo, around-the-world, flight without stopping or refuelling.
In 2008, Sarah Polley's film "Away From Her" and David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" each won seven awards at the 28th Genie Awards.
In 2008, Conrad Black began his six year sentence in a Florida prison for fraud and obstruction of justice over the theft of US$6.1 million from Chicago-based Hollinger International Inc.
In 2008, Ed Stelmach led Alberta's Progressive Conservatives to their 11th straight majority government since 1971, winning 72 of 83 ridings with 53 per cent of the popular vote.
In 2009, a damning report into Newfoundland and Labrador's breast-cancer-testing scandal found that patients were failed by the health system at every level. The inquiry heard evidence that the St. John's laboratory that processed the tests was overwhelmed by staff shortages, improper training and a lack of internal controls.
In 2009, Warrant Officer Dennis Raymond Brown, Cpl. Dany Olivier Fortin and Cpl. Kenneth Chad O'Quinn were killed and two other soldiers were injured when their armoured vehicle was struck by a massive roadside bomb in the Afghanistan district of Arghandab, just north of Kandahar City.
In 2009, about a dozen gunmen killed at least eight people, including six police officers and two civilians, when they opened fire on a vehicle carrying the Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore, Pakistan, where they were scheduled to play a test match. Seven members of Sri Lanka's team were wounded.
In 2010, the Ukrainian parliament ousted the government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in a no-confidence vote just weeks after she lost in her bid for the presidency to Viktor Yanukovych.
In 2010, the throne speech in Ottawa proposed reviewing the national anthem to consider using the original words "thou dost in us command" instead of "in all thy sons command." A public backlash ensued and the government backed down two days later.
In 2010, same-sex marriages became legal in Washington, D.C.
In 2011, May Cutler, the founder of Tundra Books and a former journalist, died at her Montreal home. She was 87. She was the first woman publisher of children's books in Canada, the first woman mayor of upscale Westmount, Que., and the second woman hired by The Canadian Press.
In 2013, "Rebelle" won 10 trophies including best film and best actress at the inaugural Canadian Screen Awards, which combined the previous Gemini and Genie Awards into one joint TV and film celebration. "Flashpoint" took the top prizes in the TV race, including best drama.
In 2014, the murder trial for double-amputee Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius began in Pretoria, South Africa. He was charged in the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day 2013. (He was acquitted of first-degree murder but was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison. After serving only one year, he was released from prison and placed under house arrest. In 2015, an appeals court overturned the lower court decision and convicted him of murder. He was sentenced to six years in prison, but the State appealed the sentence. In November 2017, the South African Supreme Court of Appeal more than doubled it to 13 years and five months.)
In 2018, Roger Bannister, who as a lanky medical student at Oxford in 1954 electrified the sports world and lifted postwar England's spirits when he became the first athlete to run a mile in under 4 minutes, died at age 88. He had been slowed in recent years by Parkinson's disease.
In 2018, David Ogden Stiers, a prolific actor best known for playing aristocratic surgeon Maj. Charles Winchester III on the "M.A.S.H." TV series, died after battling bladder cancer. He was 75.
In 2018, Saskatchewan's NDP chose Ryan Meili to be its new leader.
In 2020, finance ministers and central bankers from the G7 industrialized nations decided against a co-ordinated response to the economic threat caused by the novel coronavirus, but vowed to use "all appropriate tools'' to deal with the issue.
In 2021, a Toronto-area man was found guilty on 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 of attempted murder in the April 2018 Toronto van attack. Twenty-eight-year-old Alek Minassian had admitted planning and carrying out the attack but argued he should be found not criminally responsible for his actions due to his autism spectrum disorder. Justice Anne Molloy ruled that Minassian was fully capable of making a rational choice at the time and deliberately chose to commit mass murder. She refused to name Minassian in her decision and referred to him only as John Doe, telling the court that notoriety was his motivation to commit the attack.
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The Canadian Press
