Today in History for Feb. 13:
In 1542, the fifth wife of England's King Henry VIII, Catherine Howard, was executed for adultery.
In 1633, Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition. More than three centuries later, in 1992, the Vatican acknowledged that the excommunicated Italian astronomer correctly said the Earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa.
In 1741, Andrew Bradford of Pennsylvania published the first American magazine. Titled "The American Magazine, or A Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies," it lasted three issues.
In 1759, Nova Scotia became the first legislature in British territory to use a secret ballot.
In 1804, theologian and philosopher Immanuel Kant, author of "The Critique of Pure Reason," died in Konigsberg, East Prussia, now Kaliningrad, Russia. According to reports, his last words were "Es ist gut," -- it is good.
In 1838, William Lyon Mackenzie fled to the United States after he led an abortive uprising against the establishment families that virtually ruled Toronto.
In 1841, Kingston, Ont., was temporarily made the capital of Canada.
In 1866, the James-Younger gang carried out their first bank robbery, in Lincoln, Mo. Jesse James was 19.
In 1868, the first session of the New Brunswick legislature was opened.
In 1869, Friedrich Nietzsche, noted for his harsh critique of religion, was appointed professor of philology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
In 1895, the Lumiere brothers were granted a French patent on their film projection machine.
In 1900, the national organization of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire was established in Montreal.
In 1907, the city of Portage La Prairie, Man., was incorporated.
In 1917, Mata Hari, accused of being a German spy, was arrested by French police. She was later executed by a firing squad.
In 1920, the League of Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.
In 1933, Dagwood married Blondie in the "Blondie" comic strip.
In 1935, a jury in Flemington, N.J., found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of first-degree murder in the kidnap-slaying of the son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. (Hauptmann was later executed.)
In 1945, Allied bombing raids began against the German city of Dresden. The Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, from the Germans.
In 1946, the world's first electronic computer, "ENIAC," was switched on. The Electronic Numerical Integration and Computer weighed several tonnes and contained 1,800 tubes, but wasn't nearly as powerful as today's pocket calculator.
In 1947, an oil well dubbed Imperial Leduc No. 1 became the biggest oil strike in Canadian history when it began producing near Edmonton. The discovery touched off a drilling boom across Alberta and led to the establishment of the province's oil and natural gas industry.
In 1954, Canada's first woman MP, Agnes Macphail, died in Toronto. She was 63. A country school teacher, she ran successfully in the 1921 federal election and continued to represent the Ontario region of Grey County until she was defeated in 1940. Macphail, who championed the rights of farmers and women, later became a member of the Ontario legislature. She was the first woman appointed to Canada's delegation to the League of Nations.
In 1960, France exploded its first atomic bomb, in the Sahara Desert.
In 1963, Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., was given a charter to open the following year.
In 1969, a bomb exploded in the visitors gallery of the Montreal and Canadian Stock Exchanges, injuring 27 people.
In 1974, dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was stripped of his citizenship and deported from the Soviet Union. He returned to Russia from the United States in 1994.
In 1984, Konstantin Chernenko was appointed to succeed Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
In 1985, Cpl. Denis Lortie was found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of three government workers in a submachine-gun attack at the Quebec national assembly. Thirteen people were wounded. Lortie, 25, was arrested five hours after the attack after negotiating with Rene Jalbert, the legislature's sergeant-at-arms. Lortie was sentenced to the mandatory life term and put on day parole in January 1995.
In 1986, millionaire Helmuth Buxbaum was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Hanna, and sentenced to life in prison. The verdict and sentence brought to an end one of Ontario's longest (68 days) and most sensational murder trials. Hanna Buxbaum had been shot in the head July 5, 1984, after she and her husband stopped to help people who appeared to be having car troubles on a highway near London, Ont.
In 1986, the U.S. government issued a nation-wide alert warning Americans not to use Tylenol capsules. The alert followed the death of a woman from cyanide poisoning after she took a capsule that had been tampered with. Two more bottles of Tylenol taken from store shelves in Westchester County, N.Y., were also found to contain cyanide. On Feb. 17, the makers of Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson, announced they would stop selling the product directly to the public because they could not control tampering. The tragedy led to the development of tamper-resistant packaging.
In 1988, the 15th Winter Olympics opened in Calgary. More than 1,800 athletes from 57 countries participated.
In 1989, former Quebec Conservative MP Michel Gravel was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $50,000. He was the first MP in 25 years to be jailed for corruption.
In 1991, U.S. bombers destroyed an air raid shelter in Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War, reportedly killing about 500 civilians. Iraq said the concrete bunker was part of a network of civilian defence shelters. The United States said it was used for military command and control.
In 1992, the report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing urged limits on advertising, seats for aboriginal people and inducements for parties to recruit women. The report also advocated laws to make sure parties -- which it called essential to the democratic process in Canada -- promote democratic values and practices themselves.
In 1992, Nancy B. of Quebec City, a quadriplegic who became well-known for her legal fight to discontinue medical treatment and to turn off the respirator that kept her alive, died at age 25.
In 1998, delegates to a historic constitutional conference in Canberra, Australia, voted 89-52 with 11 abstentions, to sever ties with the British monarchy and become a republic.
In 1999, the Toronto Maple Leafs played their last game at Maple Leaf Gardens, ending 68 years of tradition. They lost to the Chicago Blackhawks, the first team they played in the Gardens when it opened. The Leafs moved to their new downtown home, the Air Canada Centre. (The building was later renamed Scotiabank Arena.)
In 2001, Canadian Pacific Ltd. announced its plans to break up the conglomerate by spinning off its railway, shipping and energy holdings into separately traded companies while retaining its hotel interests.
In 2004, San Francisco became the first jurisdiction in the United States to issue marriage licences to gay couples.
In 2007, North Korea agreed to nuclear disarmament in exchange for US$400 million in fuel oil, economic aid and humanitarian assistance in a tentative agreement reached with the U.S. and four regional powers.
In 2010, Jennifer Heil won Canada's first medal of the Vancouver Olympics -- a silver in women's moguls.
In 2011, Milos Raonic became the first Canadian to win an ATP Tour singles title since Greg Rusedski in 1995. He beat defending-champion Fernando Verdasco 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5) in the final of the SAP Open.
In 2015, a gunmen fired on a Copenhagen cafe hosting a free speech event, killing a Danish filmmaker and wounding three police officers. The event was organized by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has faced numerous threats for caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad. The next day, the gunman killed a Jewish security guard outside a synagogue and was shot to death by a police SWAT team hours later.
In 2015, the fledgling right-wing Sun News Network, dubbed by critics as "Fox News North," went off the air without fanfare after almost four years of struggling in the ratings. Negotiations to sell the troubled television channel were unsuccessful.
In 2018, Canada's John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes won the first-ever Olympic gold in mixed doubles curling, downing defending world champs Jenny Perret and Martin Rios of Switzerland 10-3 at the Pyeongchang Games; Alex Gough won Canada's first-ever Olympic luge medal, grabbing bronze in the women's singles race; short-track speedskater Kim Boutin was bumped up to bronze in the women's 500-metre race after South Korea's Minjeong Choi was disqualified for interfering with her.
In 2018, longtime Toronto Blue Jays radio broadcaster Jerry Howarth announced his retirement after 36 years of calling Blue Jays games. The 71-year-old said he made the decision due to health issues that affected his voice in recent years.
In 2020, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Iraq agreed to allow it to resume military training activities, clearing the way for Canadian soldiers to leave Kuwait and re-start their mission. The Canadian-led training mission was suspended after a U.S. drone strike killed Iran's top general at Baghdad's airport.
In 2020, anti-pipeline blockades forced CN Rail to shut down its entire network in Eastern Canada. Via Rail also cancelled passenger service across the country.
In 2021, all in-person voting in the Newfoundland and Labrador provincial election was cancelled. The province's chief electoral officer made the stunning announcement less than 12 hours before polls were set to open in much of the province. It came after health officials announced they'd confirmed a virus variant first detected in the United Kingdom was behind the COVID-19 outbreak in the St. John's region.
In 2021, the U.S. Senate acquitted former president Donald Trump at his impeachment trial. The vote was 57-to-43, with seven Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in voting to convict, but still well shy of the two-third majority needed.
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(The Canadian Press)
The Canadian Press
