Today in History for March 27:
On this date:
In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sighted present-day Florida.
In 1613, Newfoundland's first English child was born.
In 1625, King James I died. In 1604, at the Hampton Court Conference, he authorized the translation project that produced the 1611 King James Version of the Bible. Charles I acceded to the English throne.
In 1667, English poet John Milton published ``Paradise Lost,'' his epic of humankind's creation and fall.
In 1834, William Lyon Mackenzie was elected the first mayor of Toronto, the capital of Upper Canada.
In 1836, the first Mormon temple was built in Kirtland, Ohio.
In 1845, German researcher Wilhelm Roentgen, who discovered the x-ray, was born. He won the first Nobel prize for physics in 1901.
In 1848, the city of Fredericton was incorporated.
In 1855, Halifax inventor Abraham Gesner received a U.S. patent for distilling kerosene.
In 1883, Pile-O'-Bones, later renamed Regina, was made capital of the Northwest Territories, which then included Alberta, Saskatchewan and what became the Northwest Territories.
In 1885, the U.S. Congress approved spending $30,000 to buy camels for use by the American army in Texas.
In 1913, the French-language daily ``Le Droit'' began publication in Ottawa.
In 1918, Lt. Alan McLeod of the Royal Flying Corps won a Victoria Cross during the First World War. He safely landed his burning bomber in France and dragged his crewmate to safety. But the 18-year-old from Stonewall, Man., died of influenza seven months later in a Winnipeg hospital.
In 1933, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations.
In 1935, novelist John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, was appointed governor general. He instituted the Governor General's literary awards in 1937.
In 1953, Canada's External Affairs minister Lester B. Pearson formally presented the United Nations with seven main doors for its headquarters in New York. The doors, which cost $75,000, were a gift from the people of Canada. The nickel-silver doors had actually been installed the previous October when the UN headquarters was completed.
In 1958, Nikita Khrushchev became Soviet premier, in addition to head of the Communist Party.
In 1964, the most violent earthquake known to have struck North America hit southern Alaska. The magnitude-8.3 quake affected over 500,000 square kilometres and killed 131 people.
In 1966, an instrument package was launched from Churchill, Man., to study the aurora borealis. It was the first all-Canadian space project.
In 1968, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, died when his plane crashed during a training flight. Gagarin, who travelled in space in 1961, was 34.
In 1973, Marlon Brando turned down the best actor Oscar for ``The Godfather'' to protest Hollywood's treatment of natives.
In 1977, in the world's worst airplane disaster, 582 people died when two jumbo jets collided and burned on a runway at Tenerife in the Canary Islands. (The worst single-plane disaster was the 1985 crash of a Japan Air Lines jet, which killed 520.)
In 1980, 123 workers died when a North Sea floating oil field platform, the Alexander Kielland, capsized during a storm.
In 1992, New York state walked away from a $17 billion contract with Quebec Hydro in a dispute over price. The utility said the move would not affect plans to build the contentious $12.6 billion Great Whale project in northern Quebec. But the project was shelved in November 1994.
In 1998, Canada's health ministers announced a $1.1-billion compensation package for people who contracted hepatitis C through tainted blood. But the aid was limited to those infected between 1986 and mid-1990, when screening was available but not used. On Nov. 22, 2004, the Liberal government under Prime Minister Paul Martin announced it was willing to talk about compensating everyone who contracted hepatitis C through tainted blood, regardless of when they might have been infected.
In 1998, U.S. regulators approved a new drug to treat impotence. Viagra became an instant success. It was approved in Canada a year later.
In 2000, the Canadian Alliance became the official Opposition party in the House of Commons.
In 2002, comedian Milton Berle died after a battle with colon cancer. He was 93.
In 2003, the final report on the crash of Swissair Flight 111 off Nova Scotia in 1998 said the wiring that fed a controversial onboard entertainment system likely contributed to a fire that brought the plane down.
In 2004, Kevin Taft was elected leader of Alberta's Liberal Party.
In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced an extra 4,000 U.S. soldiers would be deployed to Afghanistan, on top of the 17,000 already committed, to train that country's military and police forces.
In 2011, Cpl. Yannick Scherrer of Montreal was killed by an I.E.D. blast while on foot patrol near Nakhonay, southwest of Kandahar city. It brought to 155 the total number of Canadian military members who died as part of the Afghan mission since it began in 2002.
In 2012, former Mountie Janet Merlo launched a class-action lawsuit against the RCMP, alleging widespread sexual harassment.
In 2013, Richard Kachkar, who hit and killed Toronto police officer Sgt. Ryan Russell with a snowplow in January 2011, was found not criminally responsible because he was mentally ill. He was sent to a mental health facility in Whitby, Ont., and released in April 2017.
In 2015, the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision gave Ottawa the right to order the destruction of Quebec's data in the now defunct federal long-gun registry. Quebec said it would proceed with its own gun registry.
In 2015, Italy's highest court overturned the murder conviction against Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend over the 2007 slaying of Knox's university roommate Meredith Kercher, bringing a definitive end to the high-profile case that captivated trial-watchers on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 2016, a breakaway Pakistani faction of the militant Taliban group claimed responsibility for a massive suicide bombing targeting Christians celebrating Easter at a park in Lahore, Pakistan, killing 70 - mostly women and children - and wounding over 300.
In 2019, the owner of the transport truck involved in the deadly Humboldt Broncos bus crash admitted he did not follow provincial and federal safety rules. A lawyer for Sukhmander Singh of Adesh Deol Trucking pleaded guilty on his behalf in a Calgary court to five charges. They included failing to maintain time logs for drivers, neglecting to ensure his drivers complied with safety regulations, and having more than one daily log for any day. He also pleaded guilty to not having or following a written safety program.
In 2020, the Bank of Canada made an unscheduled rate cut to its key interest target in a bid to provide support for the Canadian financial system and the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The 55-year-old was tested for COVID-19 after showing mild symptoms including a fever and persistent cough.
In 2020, as part of a package of measures aimed at helping small businesses survive the financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government said it would cover up to 75 per cent of salaries to prevent layoffs.
In 2021, Canadian Blood Services reassured the public that COVID-19 cannot be transmitted through blood. It said since COVID-19 is a respiratory virus, there's no danger in receiving blood from someone who has been infected with the coronavirus. It also said it's safe to get blood from someone who has received a COVID-19 vaccine.
In 2021, the Newfoundland and Labrador Liberals under leader Andrew Furey were re-elected with a slim majority after a campaign that dragged on for 10 weeks because of the pandemic.
In 2022, Canada's soccer team qualified for the men's World Cup for the first time since 1985. The score was a lopsided 4-0. The match took place in Toronto before a loud and proud sellout crowd of 29,122 on a chilly day at BMO Field. A Jamaican own goal in the 89th minute padded the score.
In 2022, the Academy Awards show offered up a major drama of its own. Will Smith marched onstage and slapped presenter Chris Rock after the comic made a joke about the shaved head of Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. The crowd at L.A.'s Dolby Theatre hushed as Smith twice shouted at Rock to “keep my wife's name out of your (expletive) mouth.'' Pinkett Smith revealed in 2018 that she was diagnosed with hair loss. A tearful Smith returned to the stage later to collect his first best-actor Oscar for “King Richard'' and apologized to the Academy and fellow nominees -- but not to Rock.
In 2023, at least 10 people were seriously injured after an explosion destroyed a home in northeastern Calgary. Fire officials said the force of the explosion created a large debris field and caused several fires.
In 2023, Sgt. Maureen Breau, a veteran Quebec provincial police officer, was stabbed to death while trying to arrest a man for uttering threats. Breau and another officer went to a home in Louiseville, about 100 kilometres northeast of Montreal. A 35-year-old man grabbed a knife and stabbed her. He was later shot and killed by other officers who arrived at the house.
In 2024, about 230 Canada Revenue Agency employees were fired for falsely claiming a federal income benefit during the COVID-19 pandemic. The C-R-A said the workers who inappropriately applied for and received the benefit known as CERB were terminated and must repay the funds they received.
In 2024, ten-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont., set a world record for most aluminum pop can tabs collected for recycling in one year. Guinness World Records said Jace collected more than six million pop tabs. He and his family delivered them to the March of Dimes and donated the nearly $2,600 he received back to the organization that helps people living with disabilities.
In 2024, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme said the force created a strategy that represented a concrete demonstration of its commitment to change. The report presented on this day came almost a full year after the Mass Casualty Commission released 130 recommendations from its investigation into the police response to the 2020 shooting in Nova Scotia that killed 22 people.
In 2024, a report by Statistics Canada showed the country had its highest growth rate the previous year since 1957. The report said the population grew by 3.2 per cent in 2023, the highest rate since a growth rate of 3.3 per cent seen in 1957. The chief of StatCan's Centre for Demography Patrick Charbonneau said about 98 per cent of the country's population growth was explained by international migration, noting it's mostly the temporary immigration component that is a driving factor.
In 2024, four of Ontario's largest school boards began suing the parent companies of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok for more than $4 billion for disrupting student learning and the education system. The suit alleged the platforms are negligently designed for compulsive use and have rewired the way children think, behave and learn. The school boards in Toronto, Peel Region and Ottawa said the compulsive use of social media is causing massive strains on their resources, including additional needs for in-school mental-health programming and personnel and increased IT costs.
In 2024, crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted last November of fraud and conspiracy linked to the collapse of FTX – once one of the world’s most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency. Prosecutors said Bankman-Fried had cost customers, investors and lenders more than $10 billion by misappropriating billions of dollars to fuel his quest for dominance in the new industry. They said he illegally used money from FTX depositors to cover his own expenses.
In 2024, Louis Gossett Junior died at age 87 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar, for his role as Sgt. Emil Foley in "An Officer and a Gentleman." He won an Emmy for his role in the seminal T.V. miniseries "Roots."
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The Canadian Press
