Today in History for July 24:
On this date:
In 1216, Cencio Savelli was consecrated Pope Honorius III. During his 11-year pontificate, he confirmed two well-known religious orders: the Dominicans in 1216 and the Franciscans in 1223.
In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier landed on the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec on the first of his three voyages to North America. At the rocky headland of Gaspe known as Penouille Point, Cartier erected a 10-metre cross bearing the arms of France and claimed the territory for King Francis I.
In 1567, James VI was proclaimed King of Scotland after his mother's abdication.
In 1704, the British and Dutch captured Gibraltar, later ceded to the British by treaty.
In 1783, South American liberator Simon Bolivar was born in Caracas, Venezuela.
In 1802, Alexander Dumas, author of “The Three Musketeers,” was born in France.
In 1814, the bloodiest battle of the War of 1812 was fought at Lundy's Lane. The British suffered 878 casualties with 84 killed, and the Americans had 853 with 171 killed. Although neither side could claim victory, the battle checked the advance of invading U.S. forces and they withdrew to Fort Erie.
In 1824, the results of the world's first public opinion poll were published in Delaware. The subject was voting intentions for the next U.S. presidential election.
In 1846, the electric telegraph was demonstrated at Toronto.
In 1866, Tennessee was re-admitted to the United States.
In 1883, Captain Matthew Webb drowned while attempting to swim the rapids above Niagara Falls. Eight years earlier, he had become the first person to swim the English Channel.
In 1899, Oscar-nominated actor Chief Dan George was born on the Burrard Indian Reserve in B.C. He died in 1981.
In 1915, the excursion steamer “Eastland” overturned in the Chicago River, with the loss of 812 lives.
In 1918, on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, the cornerstone for Hebrew University was laid by Dr. Chaim Weizmann. Weizmann was later elected the first president of the modern state of Israel.
In 1922, the League of Nations approved the British mandate for Palestine.
In 1929, 60-year-old Abraham Lincoln Monteverde won the longest footrace in recorded history. The oldest contestant was also the only one to finish the 5,000-km course from New York to San Francisco. It took him 73 days, 10 hours and 10 minutes.
In 1958, the national CCF convention in Winnipeg accepted a Canadian Labour Congress proposal to found a “people's political movement.” The New Democratic Party came into being in 1961.
In 1959, during a visit to Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon engaged in his famous “Kitchen Debate” with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. (The impromptu exchanges occurred in the kitchen of a model home at the American National Exhibition, with each man arguing for his country's technological advances.)
In 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle delivered his “Vive le Quebec Libre!” speech from the balcony of Montreal city hall to a crowd of 10,000 gathered to hear his address. After a public rebuke from Prime Minister Lester Pearson, de Gaulle returned to France a day ahead of schedule.
In 1969, the "Apollo 11" spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific, ending the historic flight which first put a man on the moon.
In 1974, U.S. President Richard Nixon was ordered by the Supreme Court to surrender the "Watergate" tapes. The decision led to Nixon's resignation two weeks later.
In 1984, federal party leaders John Turner, Brian Mulroney and Ed Broadbent met in the first televised election debate held solely in French.
In 1988, nine-year-old Emma Houlston of Medicine Hat, Alta., became the youngest pilot to fly across Canada when she landed her single-engine plane in St. John's, Nfld. Emma and her father had left Victoria two weeks earlier.
In 1988, Spain's Pedro Delgado won the Tour de France. Canadian Steve Bauer finished fourth, the best result ever by a Canadian.
In 1989, the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa bought a Victoria Cross for about $79,000 in an auction in London, England. The medal had been posthumously awarded to Pte. William Milne, a Scot who moved to Saskatchewan to work on a farm. It was one of five awarded to Canadians for the 1917 battle of Vimy Ridge.
In 1991, Quebec police found more than 270 barrels of hashish floating -- some in the water, some in lifeboats -- in the St. Lawrence near Sept-Iles.
In 1992, Tory Defence Minister Marcel Masse announced Ottawa's plan to buy 50 British-built EH-101 helicopters -- with a price tag of $4.4 billion. The contract was cancelled when the Liberals came to power in 1993, incurring a $500-million tab in penalties for backing out of the deal.
In 1995, in one of the harshest sentences ever handed down for child abuse, Steven and Lorelei Turner were each sentenced to 16 years in prison for manslaughter in the death of their three-year-old son, who died of starvation at CFB Chatham, N.B.
In 1997, the British government announced plans to create a separate parliament for Scotland. The plan was approved by Scots in a Sept. 11th referendum, and the parliament came into being in 1999.
In 2004, an Iranian court cleared secret agent Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, the sole defendant, of killing Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage while in detention a year earlier, due to "lack of sufficient evidence."
In 2005, Quebec newspaper baron Jacques Francoeur who helped found the Unimedia newspaper chain, died at age 80.
In 2008, Ford Motor Co. reported its largest quarterly loss in history, $8.7 billion in the second quarter, amid rising oil prices and reduced demand for pickup trucks and SUVs.
In 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 4-3 that a Hutterite community in Alberta must abide by provincial rules that make a digital photo mandatory for all new driver's licences as a way to prevent identity theft. The court rejected the claim by the Hutterian Brethren of Wilson Colony that the regulation requiring photographs on licences breached their charter of right to freedom of religion.
In 2011, Sean O'Hair defeated Kris Blanks on the first playoff hole to win the RBC Canadian Open at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club in Vancouver. Canadian Adam Hadwin finished two shots back, tied for fourth.
In 2011, Roberto Alomar became the first player ever to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame as a representative of the Toronto Blue Jays. Former Toronto GM Pat Gillick and pitcher Bert Blyleven were also inducted.
In 2013, 79 people were killed when a speeding eight-carriage passenger train hurtled off the tracks while rounding a curve and smashed into a security wall near the shrine city of Santiago De Compostela, Spain, on the eve of a major Christian religious festival.
In 2014, an Air Algerie jetliner crashed in a rainstorm in a desolate region of restive northern Mali, killing all 116 aboard, including five Canadians. French forces and UN peacekeepers in Mali secured the wreckage site.
In 2016, Jhonattan Vegas rallied with a final round 64 to finish at 12-under and win the RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey by one stroke. Canadian amateur Jared Du Toit began the day in the final pairing, but finished tied for ninth at 9-under.
In 2018, Queen's Plate winner Wonder Gadot led wire-to-wire to win a muddy Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie Racetrack, capturing the second jewel of Canada's Triple Crown.
In 2019, Puerto Rico's embattled Governor announced he would resign on August 2nd. Ricardo Rossello (roh-SAY'-oh) conceded power after nearly two weeks of furious protests and political upheaval touched off by a leak of crude and insulting chat messages between him and his top advisers in which they discussed the awarding of government contracts in ways that some observers called potentially illegal. They also insulted women and mocked constituents, including victims of Hurricane Maria. The obscenity-laced online messages involving the governor and 11 other men infuriated Puerto Ricans already frustrated with corruption, mismanagement, an economic crisis and the sluggish hurricane recovery efforts. A crowd of thousands outside the governor's mansion erupted into cheers and singing after Rossello's announcement on Facebook just before midnight.
In 2019, politicians of all stripes expressed shock and sadness at the death of former provincial health minister David Caplan, a recent colleague they described as a dedicated and hard-working public servant. Premier Doug Ford offered his condolences via Twitter to the Liberal politician's family and friends, thanking Caplan for his service to the province. Caplan was just 54. His family said he died after a fire in his north Toronto home. Caplan was first elected in 1997 and served in Dalton McGuinty's cabinet when the Liberals rose to power in 2003. He was forced out as health minister in 2009 over the eHealth scandal in which millions of dollars went to consultants with government ties, and over expense account abuses. Many felt Caplan had been treated unfairly, particularly since most of the abuses at the agency took place under his predecessor.
In 2020, the Toronto Blue Jays announced they will play home games at their triple-A affiliate's stadium in Buffalo, N.Y., this season. Canada's lone Major League Baseball team was forced to find a new home for 2020 after the federal government rejected the club's proposal for the Jays and visiting teams to stay in the hotel inside Rogers Centre and never leave the facility during stints in Toronto.
In 2020, legendary television personality Regis Philbin died at 88. According to a statement from his family, Philbin died of natural causes. The genial host shared his life with television viewers over morning coffee for decades and helped himself and some fans strike it rich with the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."
In 2023, Elon Musk posted on Twitter that he will change the site's logo from the famous blue bird to the letter "X" after buying the social media platform for $44 billion the previous year.
In 2023, the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan encouraged crop farmers to help neighbouring cattle producers by converting crops to livestock feed. The association said it would be a solution as some farmers wrote off drought-afflicted crops and cattle producers complained of feed shortages.
In 2023, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health got $156 million from the federal government over three years to launch and operate a new three-digit suicide-prevention hotline. Anyone in crisis would be able to dial 988 anywhere in the country to be connected with trained responders beginning at the end of November of that year. The 24-hour service would be free and offered in English and French.
In 2024, Canada's Olympic women's soccer team was dealt a blow just as play was set to begin at the Paris Games. The Canadian Olympic Committee said an assistant coach and a Canada Soccer analyst were removed from the team and sent home after two drone incidents, including one over a New Zealand practice the previous week. Women's soccer assistant coach Jasmine Mander and Canada Soccer analyst Joseph Lombardi were allegedly using a drone to record New Zealand's women's soccer team during practice. Head coach Bev Priestman removed herself from coaching the team's opening game against New Zealand the next day.
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The Canadian Press