Today in History for Aug. 18:
On this date:
In 1227, Mongol emperor Genghis Khan died. He became one of the most significant and successful military leaders in history. He united the Mongol tribes and founded the Mongol Empire (1206-1368), the largest contiguous empire in world history. He was reputed to have killed 20 million people.
In 1587, in Roanoke, N.C., Virginia Dare became the first child born of European parents in the New World.
In 1670, Jean Talon arrived at Quebec for his second term as France's Intendant of Justice, Police and Finance in the new colony. Talon conducted the first census in Canada, in the winter of 1665-66. During his tenure he instituted the "filles du roi" program, bringing single women to Canada to marry the single men here. Along with increasing the population, he diversified the colony’s economy, established factories, a shipyard, a brewery and a lumber trade.
In 1688, Puritan clergyman John Bunyan preached his last sermon before dying 13 days later. In 1678 he had authored "Pilgrim’s Progress," an allegory describing the difficulties encountered in the Christian life while journeying through this world.
In 1850, French novelist Honore de Balzac died.
In 1869, William Hamilton was granted the first Canadian patent. It was for a fluid meter that measured gasses and liquids.
In 1914, a Peruvian destroyer became the first warship to pass through the newly opened Panama Canal.
In 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed American neutrality in the First World War - the same day Germany declared war on Russia.
In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed the right of all American women to vote, was ratified as Tennessee became the 36th state to approve it.
In 1932, Scottish aviator Jim Mollison made the first westbound trans-Atlantic solo flight, from Portmarnock, Ireland to Pennfield, N.B.
In 1938, Prime Minister Mackenzie King and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt formally opened the Thousand Islands International Bridge. It spans the St. Lawrence River between Collins Landing, N.Y., and Ivy Lea, Ont.
In 1942, General Bernard Montgomery was named commander of the British Eighth Army in Egypt. Under Montgomery, the Allied armies started a massive offensive from El Alamein, which pushed the Germans out of North Africa during the Second World War.
In 1944, a three-day battle began in which Major David Currie of the South Alberta Reconnaissance Regiment won the Victoria Cross. The Saskatchewan native led a successful effort to stop German troops from breaking through Canadian lines at St-Lambert-sur-Dives, France. Currie later served for 17 years as the House of Commons' sergeant at arms. He died in 1986.
In 1954, Canada and the United States agreed to jointly build the St. Lawrence Seaway.
In 1956, the Alexander Graham Bell Museum was dedicated at Baddeck, N.S.
In 1960, the first commercially-produced oral contraceptive, "Enovid 10," was launched.
In 1964, South Africa was banned from the Olympic Games because of its apartheid policies. It returned to competition in 1992.
In 1968, more than 100 women and children were killed when a landslide swept two sightseeing buses into a river on Japan's Honshu Island.
In 1970, the top architectural award at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, was given to the Canadian pavilion, designed by Arthur Erickson of Vancouver.
In 1981, the Kent royal commission on Canada's newspaper industry recommended that action be taken to curb concentrated ownership of Canadian newspapers. The commission said media giants should be forced to divest themselves of holdings in some regions. The Trudeau government rejected the suggestion.
In 1991, hardline Soviet communists launched a coup aimed at toppling President Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev and members of his family were effectively imprisoned until the coup collapsed three days later in the face of a popular uprising led by Boris Yeltsin. The coup attempt led to the end of the Soviet Union four months later.
In 1992, director John Sturges died of emphysema at age 82. He specialized in making action films such as "The Magnificent Seven," "The Great Escape," and "Bad Day at Black Rock."
In 1997, war criminal Konrad Kalejs was deported from Canada to Australia after an immigration adjudicator ruled he had committed crimes against humanity during the Second World War.
In 1998, Winnipeg businessman Izzy Asper announced a $950-million deal to buy 11 television stations owned by WIC Western International Communications Ltd., making his CanWest Global Communications Canada's biggest private broadcaster by revenue.
In 2003, the death toll from a heat wave in France reached 10,000. (Nearly 15,000 eventually perished.)
In 2006, the Quebec government was ordered to give more than $13 million to nearly 45,000 women who had to pay for abortions. Justice Nicole Benard of Quebec Superior Court said the government misinterpreted its own medicare law by paying only a portion of the cost of abortions performed in certain women's health centres and private clinics.
In 2008, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf resigned nine years after seizing power in a coup, amid impeachment charges based on claims he violated the constitution.
In 2008, Oak Bay, a Victoria, B.C. suburb, became the first municipality in Canada to legalize low-speed electric cars.
In 2009, former president Kim Dae-jung, South Korea’s most fervent champion of peace and democracy, died in Seoul at age 85. He won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to foster reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula.
In 2010, Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan issued a government apology to Inuit families who were uprooted from their homeland in northern Quebec and moved to desolate spots in the High Arctic during the 1950s.
In 2011, the Canadian air wing in Kandahar ended formal operations after 32 months in theatre. It had continued to operate following the departure of battle group soldiers in July.
In 2016, Jamaica's Usain Bolt won a record third consecutive gold medal in the 200-metre sprint. Canada's Andre De Grasse won the silver medal, becoming the first Canadian to win two individual track medals in the same Olympics since Alex Wilson in 1932.
In 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump accepted Steve Bannon's resignation, ending a turbulent seven months for his chief strategist. The former leader of conservative Breitbart News was the man behind many of Trump's most controversial efforts, including the travel ban on mainly Muslim countries and the decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.
In 2018, the career of one of Quebec's most famous professional wrestling families came to an end when Jacques Rougeau, 58, wrestled with his three sons for the first and last time at Stade IGA in Montreal. The Rougeau family was involved in wrestling dating back to the 1940s but Rougeau said his sons didn't want to carry on with the family business.
In 2018, former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan died at the age of 80 after a short illness. The Ghanian diplomat was remembered by Canadian politicians as a friend of Canada and tireless advocate for peace around the world. Annan and the UN were co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.
In 2018, former cricket star and longtime politician Imran Khan was sworn in as Pakistan's prime minister despite protests by opposition parties, which accused the security services of intervening on his behalf in July's elections.
In 2020, everyone in attendance wore a mask and the chairs were spaced well apart in Rideau Hall as Chrystia Freeland was sworn in as Canada's first female finance minister. Freeland removed her mask as she took the oath, then replaced it before bumping elbows with the prime minister and the governor general. The special precautions were put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
In 2020, Dale Hawerchuk, who became the face of the Winnipeg Jets en route to the Hockey Hall of Fame, died at the age of 57.
In 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the COVID-19 pandemic called for a reset of the government's agenda, and he asked Governor General Julie Payette to prorogue Parliament until late September.
In 2020, Joe Gosnell, a renowned treaty negotiator, politician and leader of B.C.'s Nisga'a Nation, died at the age of 85 following a long battle with cancer. A hereditary Nisga'a chieftain of the Eagle Clan, Gosnell was president of the nation when the landmark Nisga'a Final Agreement was completed in 2000. The treaty gave the Nisga'a control over their land, including forestry and fishing rights, and was the first modern-day treaty signed in B.C. since the 1800s.
In 2020, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced his resignation on state television. It came hours after he was detained by mutinous soldiers firing shots outside his home. Soldiers seized weapons in the garrison town of Kati and advanced on the capital. Mali had seen more than two months of regular demonstrations in which anti-government protesters demanded that Keita step down.
In 2020, the Democratic Party formally made Joe Biden its presidential nominee. Delegates from each state took a roll call vote during the second night of the virtual Democratic National Convention.
In 2021, Nova Scotia's Progressive Conservatives scored an upset victory in the provincial election. Liberal Leader Iain Rankin expressed disappointment at the outcome, saying he didn't expect it. Rankin said in the end, voters believed in the Tory line that they can fix health care. Premier-designate Tim Houston said the Tories' big win shows the province is ready for change. He credited his party's plan to tackle the province's struggling health-care system for the win.
In 2021, the military officer who led Canada's COVID-19 vaccine distribution campaign was charged with one count of sexual assault. Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin presented himself to police in Gatineau, Que., after a warrant for his arrest was issued earlier in the week. Fortin's lawyers said the only information they received was that the charge related to an alleged incident that happened in 1988. Fortin was abruptly removed from his post at the Public Health Agency of Canada in May.
In 2023, British Columbia Premier David Eby declared a provincewide state of emergency in response to "unprecedented'' wildfires that forced the evacuation of thousands of people in the Interior.
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The Canadian Press