Today in History for Feb. 10:
In 3641 BC, according to the calculations of the Mayans, the world was created.
In AD 60 (traditional date), the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked at Malta.
In 1763, Canada passed from French control into the British Empire with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. The treaty, which ended the Seven Years War, stripped France of all her possessions north of what became the United States, except for the islands of St-Pierre and Miquelon. Those islands, just south of Newfoundland, remain under French control.
In 1802, Alexander Mackenzie was knighted for being first to cross the North American continent by land, in 1793.
In 1829, King's College, Fredericton -- now the University of New Brunswick -- was given a royal charter.
In 1837, Russian poet and novelist Alexander Pushkin was killed in a duel.
In 1840, Britain's Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
In 1841, Upper and Lower Canada were united as the Province of Canada, with Kingston as the capital.
In 1846, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons, left Illinois and began an exodus to the American West, now Utah. They were led by Brigham Young, newly elected as their leader.
In 1870, the Young Women's Christian Association -- YWCA -- was formed.
In 1890, Russian novelist Boris Pasternak, author of Dr. Zhivago, was born in Moscow.
In 1906, Prince Rupert was chosen from 15,000 entries as the name of the Grand Trunk Railway's Pacific terminal. Eleanor Macdonald of Winnipeg won $250 for suggesting the name.
In 1933, the first singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegraph Company in New York.
In 1947, peace treaties between the Allies and some of the Axis powers were signed in Paris. Canada signed treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary and Finland.
In 1949, Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman" opened at Broadway's Morosco Theater with Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman.
In 1956, Wilbert Coffin was hanged in Montreal for the murders of three American hunters, killed in the Gaspe in 1953. Many people believed he was innocent.
In 1983, the federal government agreed in principle to allow the testing of American weapons over Canadian territory.
In 1991, Peru's health minister reported at least 51 deaths from cholera. An epidemic later spread across South America.
In 1992, Alex Haley, the author of "Roots," died in Seattle at age 70.
In 1992, an Indianapolis jury found former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson guilty of rape and other sex-related charges in a 1991 incident involving a beauty pageant contestant.
In 1996, a machine scored its first victory under classic chess tournament rules as an IBM computer called "Deep Blue" beat world champion Gary Kasparov.
In 2003, Inderjit Singh Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people, and was sentenced to five years in prison. He admitted to acquiring material for a bomb that police alleged caused the mid-air explosion. Reyat had completed a 10-year sentence for his role in a second bombing the same day that killed two baggage handlers at Japan's Narita airport. In January 2011, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for perjury. Reyat was convicted of lying at the trial of the two men who were accused and then acquitted of the Air India bombing. (In 2017, the Parole Board of Canada allowed him to leave a halfway house where he was required to stay following his release from prison in 2016.)
In 2003, The World Health Organization's Beijing office received an email describing a "strange contagious disease" in Guangdong province that killed dozens within one week. The disease was later identified as SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.
In 2004, France's National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to banish religious emblems such as Muslim headscarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses from state schools, a measure meant to keep tensions between Muslim and Jewish minorities out of public classrooms.
In 2004, Auditor General Sheila Fraser reported massive abuses in a federal sponsorship program run by the Public Works Department that funnelled cash to Quebec advertising agencies with close ties to the Liberal Party. Prime Minister Paul Martin fired former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano as ambassador to Denmark and ordered an independent judicial inquiry into the scandal.
In 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin testified at the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship scandal, becoming the first sitting prime minister to have appeared in public at an inquiry since 1873.
In 2005, the engagement of Prince Charles and his longtime lover, Camilla Parker Bowles, was announced. (They married two months later.)
In 2005, American playwright Arthur Miller, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for "Death of a Salesman," died at age 89.
In 2009, a working U.S. commercial satellite and a derelict Russian satellite collided in space over Siberia, believed to be the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit.
In 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that in court cases where national security is an issue, the Federal Court alone, and not a trial judge, can decide what evidence can be kept secret. The issue arose in the high-profile terrorism case known as the Toronto 18, when Ontario Superior Court Justice Fletcher Dawson struck down provisions of the Canada Evidence Act.
In 2011, the Ontario Court of Appeal quashed the second-degree murder conviction of Tammy Marquardt, saying the Oshawa mother had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Marquardt, 38, spent 14 years in prison after she was convicted in 1995 of killing her toddler based in part on evidence from disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith. The appeal court ordered a new trial but the Crown withdrew the charge on June 7.
In 2014, Shirley Temple, the dimpled, curly-haired child star who sang, danced, sobbed and grinned her way into the hearts of Depression-era moviegoers, died at her home near San Francisco. She was 85.
In 2015, Jon Stewart, who turned his combination of biting and free-wheeling humour into an unlikely source of news and analysis for viewers of "The Daily Show," announced he was leaving as host after 16 years. His final show was on Aug. 6. (31-year-old South Africa comedian Trevor Noah was named his replacement.)
In 2019, former politician, diplomat and longtime mental health advocate Michael Wilson died at 81. Wilson served for over a decade as the Progressive Conservative MP for the Toronto-area riding of Etobicoke Centre, including time as finance minister and minister of international trade under then prime minister Brian Mulroney. From March 2006 until October 2009, he served as Canada's ambassador to the United States. Former prime minister Stephen Harper, who appointed Wilson to the post in Washington, said he served Canada with "exceptional skill and dedication."
In 2019, actor Jan Michael Vincent died of cardiac arrest at his home in North Carolina. He was reported to be 74. He was best known for his role as helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the C-B-S hit show "Airwolf," which ran from 1984 to 1986.
In 2020, researchers with the University of Calgary and Royal Tyrrell Museum said they'd identified the first new Canadian tyrannosaur species in 50 years. A paper published in the journal Cretaceous Research described the fearsome lizard -- whose name means "reaper of death'" in Greek.
In 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Canadian military personnel in Kuwait. The Canadians were moved to Kuwait just hours before Iranian missiles were fired at two Iraqi airbases housing Canadian, American and some coalition soldiers.
In 2020, a U.S. sheriff's deputy filed a lawsuit against the president of the Toronto Raptors. Alan Strickland said Masai Ujiri injured him at Oakland's Oracle Arena when the two got into an alleged shoving match following the Raptors' championship win.
In 2020, Canadian epidemiologist Bruce Aylward led a team of World Health Organization experts in China to study the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
In 2021, clinical trials began for another Canadian-made COVID-19 vaccine. The Canadian Center for Vaccinology said the first of 108 healthy adult volunteers received injections in Halifax. The new serum is being developed by the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, or VIDO, at the University of Saskatchewan. It is being administered in two doses, 28 days apart.
In 2021, Larry Flynt, who turned Hustler magazine into an adult entertainment empire while championing First Amendment rights, died at age 78. His nephew, Jimmy Flynt Jr., said Flynt died of heart failure at his Hollywood Hills home in Los Angeles. Larry Flynt's life was depicted in the 1996 film "The People vs. Larry Flynt,'' which garnered an Oscar nomination for star Woody Harrelson.
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(The Canadian Press)
The Canadian Press
