Today in History for July 8:
On this date:
In 1629, Spain's King Philip III sent England's King Charles the First an elephant and five camels. Included were instructions that the elephant be given a gallon of wine each day.
In 1654, Jacob Barsimon became the first known Jew to settle in North America when he made his home in New York.
In 1792, John Graves Simcoe was sworn in as the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, now Ontario.
In 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the leading English romantic poets, drowned off Leghorn while sailing.
In 1867, "Le Moniteur Acadien," the Maritimes' first French-language newspaper, was published for the first time.
In 1883, workers laid a record 9.6-kilometres of Canadian Pacific Railway track in one day.
In 1889, John L. Sullivan beat Jake Kilgrain in the 75th round of a heavyweight boxing title fight in Richburg, Miss. It was the last championship bout fought without gloves.
In 1889, the Wall Street Journal was first published.
In 1892, a fire in St. John’s, Nfld., left 10,000 people homeless.
In 1896, Liberal Leader Sir Wilfrid Laurier became the first French-Canadian prime minister. During his 15 years in office, Laurier led the country through a period of prosperity aided by an aggressive immigration policy. He was knighted at the Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria in June, 1896.
In 1906, Winnipeg started offering Sunday streetcar service despite church opposition.
In 1907, Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first "Follies," on the roof of the New York Theater.
In 1912, American Jim Thorpe replied, "Thanks, King," when told by Swedish King Gustav at the Olympic Games in Stockholm that he was the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe won both the pentathlon and decathlon at the Games. But he was stripped of his medals the next year after it was learned he had played pro baseball.
In 1913, Louis Hemon, author of the classic novel "Maria Chapdelaine," was struck and killed by a train at Chapleau, Ont. He was 33. "Maria Chapdelaine," which sold more than one million copies, was about the struggle people faced with the inhospitable soil and climate of the Lac-St-Jean region in Quebec. It became a model for Canadian regional fiction.
In 1917, artist Tom Thomson drowned during a canoe trip in Ontario's Algonquin Park. Born in 1877, Thomson was one of the most brilliant painters in Canadian history. His oils and scenes of desolate northern landscape are among the country's best-known works. Thomson worked closely with most of the future Group of Seven members including A.Y. Jackson, Fred Varley and Arthur Lismer.
In 1943, the burned and beaten body of Canadian gold millionaire Harry Oakes was found in his villa in the Bahamas. The murder was never solved.
In 1947, demolition began in New York to make way for the permanent headquarters of the United Nations.
In 1950, American General Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea.
In 1965, a bomb sent a Canadian Pacific Airlines plane crashing into B.C.'s Gustafsen Lake, killing 52 people.
In 1965, the Heeney Report recommended that collective bargaining, conciliation and arbitration for the federal civil service be placed in the hands of an independent staff relations board.
In 1974, the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau won 141 of 264 seats in a federal election. The vote also saw Nova Scotia's Andy Hogan become the first Roman Catholic priest elected to the Commons.
In 1981, citing Ottawa's inability to reach an oil-pricing agreement with Alberta, Imperial Oil suspended its $12 billion oilsands project at Cold Lake.
In 1982, five hostages including Martin Overduin, a missionary pilot from Komoka, Ont., were freed unharmed after Sudanese troops attacked a rebel camp in southern Sudan.
In 1985, 17-year-old Boris Becker became the youngest player and the first German to win the Wimbledon men's singles title.
In 1986, former UN secretary-general Kurt Waldheim was sworn in as president of Austria despite controversy over his alleged ties to Nazi war crimes.
In 1987, Statistics Canada released figures showing more than half of Canada's population was over 30.
In 1989, Carlos Menem became Argentina's president in the country's first transfer of power from one democratically elected civilian leader to another in six decades.
In 1994, the world's longest-ruling Communist leader, Kim Il Sung of North Korea, died at age 82. He was the only leader the country had known since its was founded in 1948.
In 1995, the Las Vegas Posse hosted the Sacramento Gold Miners in the first CFL game between two U.S.-based teams.
In 1997, NATO leaders voted to formally invite three former Soviet allies -- Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic -- to join the West's defence alliance.
In 1999, former astronaut Charles (Pete) Conrad, the third man to walk on the moon in 1969, died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 69.
In 2000, Venus Williams won the women's singles title at Wimbledon, becoming the first black woman to win the tournament since 1958.
In 2000, Stockwell Day, an Alberta politician and Tory cabinet minister, won the leadership of the Canadian Alliance Party, defeating Reform Leader Preston Manning.
In 2003, Tom Graff and Anthony Porcino of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»became the first gay couple to wed in the province, minutes after the B.C. Court of Appeal removed the last barrier to same sex marriages.
In 2004, former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was charged with securities fraud related to the energy company's collapse two and a half years earlier. He pleaded not guilty on 11 counts. In May 2006, he was found guilty on 10 charges. He died on July 5, just months before his sentencing hearing.
In 2005, Canada became the first non-European signatory of an international protocol to fight racism on the Web after Justice Minister Irwin Cotler signed the protocol in Strasbourg, France.
In 2005, former First Nations leader David Ahenakew was convicted and fined for promoting hatred against Jews. Days later he was stripped of his Order of Canada. In February 2009, the judge at his second trial found him not guilty of wilfully promoting hatred against Jews but chided him for the controversial comments. He died March 12, 2010, after a long battle with cancer.
In 2010, free agent LeBron James, the NBA's reigning two-time MVP, ended months of speculation and suspense by announcing on the hour-long ESPN-televised special called "The Decision" that he was leaving Cleveland to play for the Miami Heat, joining other superstar free agents Chris Bosh (lured from Toronto) and Dwayne Wade (re-signed).
In 2011, Atlantis blasted off on NASA's last space shuttle launch, 30 years and three months after the very first shuttle flight.
In 2012, Ernest Borgnine, known for his role in the TV comedy "McHale's Navy," died at age 95. He was also known for playing blustery, often villainous roles in film, but won the best-actor Oscar for playing against type as a lovesick butcher in "Marty" in 1955.
In 2013, parts of Toronto received a single-day rainfall record of 126 millimetres, causing flash flooding and widespread power outages. Large parts of the subway and rail services were shut down and the marine unit rescued nearly 1,400 passengers from a flooded GO Transit train. Damage to flooded homes was later estimated to be at least $850 million.
In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada laid out new framework for ensuring the right to a timely criminal trial - from charge to conclusion - not exceed 18 months in provincial court, or 30 months in a superior court.
In 2019, lawyers said a settlement was reached in a class action lawsuit filed by women subjected to gender or sexual harassment while they worked or volunteered for the RCMP. They said the settlement would provide a total of an estimated 100-million dollars to municipal employees, contractors, students or others who were victims. Lawyer Angela Bespflug (BES'-flug) estimated about 15-hundred women could be compensated depending on the severity of the gender or sexual harassment they endured.
In 2019, environmental groups said heavily-blacked out documents released by the BC Civil Liberties Association showed Canada's spy service overstepped its legal authority by monitoring groups opposed to Enbridge's now-abandoned Northern Gateway pipeline.The BCCLA got a court order forcing the CSIS watchdog to disclose the documents in connection with a complaint it filed in 2014 alleging C-SIS spied on peaceful protesters and shared the information with petroleum industry companies.The Security Intelligence Review Committee cleared C-SIS of any wrongdoing but BCCLA lawyer Meghan McDermott said people could now look at what were dubbed "the Protest Papers" and decide for themselves.
In 2019, billionaire American financier Jeffrey Epstein made his first court appearance in New York City on sex-trafficking charges involving allegations dating to the early 2000s. The court case came 11 years after Epstein was let off lightly in Florida with a once-secret plea deal in an underage prostitution case.
In 2019, the Saudi budget airline flyadeal ordered 30 jets from Airbus in a deal that replaced a $6 billion agreement it had with Boeing, the American airplane manufacturer for 737 Max jets. The Boeing planes were grounded following two crashes that killed 346 people.
In 2019, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said the country had started enriching uranium to 4.5 per cent. That broke the limit set by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The decision to ramp up uranium enrichment came less than a week after Iran acknowledged breaking the 300-kg limit on its low-enriched uranium stockpile. Tehran said its move to violate the 2015 agreement comes in response to the U.S. decision to withdrawal from the deal.
In 2020, Via Rail announced the temporary layoffs of 1,000 unionized employees amid reduced demand for travel due to COVID-19.
In 2021, the Assembly of First Nations got its first female national chief. RoseAnne Archibald of Ontario secured victory after her rival, Reginald Bellerose of Saskatchewan, conceded. The election had gone to a fifth round of voting after neither Archibald nor Bellerose received 60 per cent of the vote.
In 2021, Independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould announced she would not seek re-election. She said that Parliament had become "toxic and ineffective." Wilson-Raybould said she's not leaving to spend more time with family or other challenges. Instead, she said she's going because of what she calls the "disgraceful emphasis on partisan politics over real action.''
In 2021, Canada's chief public health officer said the latest variant of concern in the COVID-19 pandemic had popped up in Canada. The Lambda variant was first identified in Peru and had been spreading in South America.
In 2022, former prime minister Shinzo Abe, one of Japan's most powerful politicians, died after being shot during a campaign speech. Police said a suspected gunman was taken into custody at the scene of the attack, which shocked people in a country known as one of the world's safest. The 67-year-old Abe was Japan's longest-serving leader before stepping down for health reasons in 2020. Police arrested 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami on suspicion of murder, and confiscated similar weapons and his personal computer when they raided his nearby one-room apartment.
In 2022, the man best known for playing Tony Soprano's enforcer Paulie Walnuts on "The Sopranos'' died at an assisted living facility in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Tony Sirico was 79. In addition to his role on "The Sopranos,'' Sirico also appeared in "Goodfellas,'' "Bullets over Broadway'' and "Miami Vice.''
In 2023, the City of Winnipeg ordered protesters blocking access to a landfill in support of a search for the remains of two Indigenous women to leave. The city issued an order to vacate in accordance with the Emergency Management Bylaw, demanding the protesters restore full access to the Brady Road landfill.
In 2024, the European climate service Copernicus reported the global temperature in June hit a record high for the 13th straight month. And it was the 12th straight month the world was 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times, which is the warming limit nearly every country in the world agreed to in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. June 2024 was also the 15th straight month that the world's oceans, which make up more than two-thirds of Earth's surface, broke heat records.
In 2024, two former Quebec junior hockey players were sentenced to jail for the sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl at a hotel in 2021. Twenty-one-year olds Nicolas Daigle and Massimo Siciliano pleaded guilty the previous October to sexually assaulting the girl after celebrating a championship trophy win.
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The Canadian Press