Today in History for Dec. 23:
In 1771, Mother Marie Marguerite D'Youville, the founder of the Grey Nuns or Sisters of Charity, died in Montreal. The Nuns, a Roman Catholic Community which still operates to this day, performed charity work in hospitals, orphanages and schools. She was declared venerable in 1890 and in 1959 she became the first Canadian to be beatified. In 1990, Pope John Paul canonized her as Canada’s first saint.
In 1788, Maryland passed an act to cede an area "not exceeding ten miles square" for the seat of the national government; about two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.
In 1823, the poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas," more commonly known as "The Night Before Christmas," by Clement C. Moore was published anonymously in the Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel.
In 1834, Joseph Hansom patented the Hansom cab.
In 1865, Canadian publisher, Joseph E. Atkinson, was born in Newcastle, Ont.
In 1888, a depressed Vincent Van Gogh sliced off half of his left ear.
In 1900, "One Two Three Four -- is it snowing where you are Mr. Thiessen? If it is, telegraph back to me." Canadian Reginald Fessenden spoke these first words ever transmitted by radio from a site on Cobb Island in the middle of the Potomac River near Washington. A kilometre away, Mr. Thiessen, his assistant, quickly reported by Morse code that it was snowing, and he could hear Fessenden's voice. This was the birth of radio broadcasting. However, it was six years later, after much fine-tuning, that radio's potential was demonstrated. Fessenden presented radio's first program on Christmas Eve 1906, from Boston.
In 1908, portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh was born in Turkey. He came to Canada in 1924. Among his many subjects were Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway and Audrey Hepburn. He died July 13, 2002.
In 1918, Pte. Thomas Ricketts of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment became the youngest soldier ever to be awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in battle. The 17-year-old was decorated for running through enemy fire to get vital ammunition during the Allied advance through Belgium during the recently-ended First World War.
In 1928, the National Broadcasting Co. set up a permanent coast-to-coast radio network in the U.S. NBC had been formed two years earlier by General Electric, Westinghouse and RCA, with David Sarnoff as its chief organizer.
In 1936, Canadian Dr. Norman Bethune began administering blood transfusions to injured people in the Spanish Civil War out of a station wagon, the first mobile blood unit of its kind in medical history.
In 1941, during the Second World War, American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese.
In 1947, Bell Laboratories announced that three of its scientists had invented the transistor.
In 1948, former Japanese dictator Hideki Tojo and six colleagues were hanged for war crimes.
In 1949, Pope Pius XII called on Christians and Jews to unite in a fight against militant atheism.
In 1954, the world's first kidney transplant was performed in Boston. Richard Herrick lived another eight years after receiving a kidney from his identical twin.
In 1963, the establishment of the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Ottawa was approved by the federal government.
In 1966, the Royal Canadian Mint announced that dimes, quarters and 50-cent pieces would be struck from nickel instead of silver.
In 1967, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson held an unprecedented meeting with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican.
In 1968, 82 crew members of the U.S. intelligence ship "Pueblo" were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured.
In 1977, the Royal Canadian Mint postponed introduction of new, smaller pennies because of protests from owners of coin-operated machines.
In 1981, 16-year-old Barbara Stoppel was murdered in the Winnipeg doughnut shop where she worked. Thomas Sophonow was tried three times, and convicted twice, before being cleared of the still-unsolved killing.
In 1981, Consumers Affairs Minister Andre Ouellet announced a $110 million program to help homeowners with urea-formaldehyde foam insulation.
In 1983, Jeanne Sauve, the first female Speaker of the House of Commons, was appointed Canada's first female governor general. The former broadcaster and federal cabinet minister had also been the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons.
In 1986, the first non-stop flight around the world without refuelling was completed as the airplane "Voyager" landed safely in the Mojave Desert after nine days, three minutes and 44 seconds in the air. The pilot was U.S. Air Force Col. Dick Ruton and the co-pilot was Jeana Yeager.
In 1986, Robert Stanfield was appointed chairman of the Commonwealth Foundation established in 1966 to promote co-operation among Commonwealth countries. He was the first Canadian to head the Foundation.
In 1990, the Slovenian republic voted to separate from Yugoslavia.
In 1993, the "Toronto Star" published its "Final Edition" for the last time, completing its transformation to a full morning newspaper.
In 1995, the charred bodies of 16 French and Swiss members of the Order of the Solar Temple were found in a forest near Grenoble, France.
In 1995, over 500 people, mostly women and children, were killed when a fire broke out through a tin-roofed tent at a school party in Dabwali, India.
In 1996, an Ontario woman who shot her unborn baby with a pellet gun was cleared of attempted murder when a judge refused to extend legal rights to a full-term fetus.
In 1997, Terry Nichols was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 in which 168 people were killed. He was later sentenced to life in prison.
In 1999, former prime minister Brian Mulroney was named chairman of Sun Media Corp., Canada's second largest newspaper chain.
In 1999, nearly 70 people died after a passenger ferry carrying 600 people sank off the central island of Cebu in the Philippines.
In 2000, a federal law took effect requiring tobacco manufacturers to dedicate half of the front panels of cigarette packages to grisly photos of diseased organs. They were meant to repulse and deter people from smoking.
In 2000, death claimed comedian Victor Borge in Greenwich, Conn., at age 91, and actor Billy Barty in Glendale, Calif., at age 76.
In 2003, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that possession of marijuana remains a criminal act.
In 2003, at least 233 people were killed after a natural gas well leaked toxic gas in Chongqing, southwest China.
In 2003, a jury in Chesapeake, Va., sentenced Washington-area sniper Lee Boyd Malvo to life in prison, sparing the teenager the death penalty.
In 2008, 2,100 support workers at Canada Post, members of PSAC, accepted a deal ending a more than month-long strike.
In 2009, Lt. Andrew Richard Nuttall, 30, of 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry based in Edmonton, was killed by a roadside bomb in Panjwaii District in Afghanistan.
In 2014, after eight days of deliberations, a jury found Luka Rocco Magnotta guilty of first-degree murder and four other counts in the 2012 killing and dismemberment of Chinese engineering student Jun Lin. Magnotta was also found guilty of criminally harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of Parliament, mailing obscene and indecent material, committing an indignity to a body, and publishing obscene materials. (In February 2015, Magnotta formally withdrew the appeal of his conviction.)
In 2020, Britain's health secretary said another new variant of the novel coronavirus had been identified in two people who had been in contact with recent arrivals from South Africa. Matt Hancock said preliminary evidence suggested the new strain had "mutated further'' than the one that prompted the British government to tighten restrictions across large parts of England.
In 2020, Health Canada approved a second COVID-19 vaccine for use in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said deliveries of the drug developed by U.S. biotech firm Moderna could begin within 48 hours of approval.
In 2020, Royal Canadian Navy commander Vice-Admiral Art McDonald was named as the successor to General Jonathan Vance as chief of the defence staff. McDonald's appointment spoke to a looming challenge for the military and Liberal government — the ongoing effort to build a fleet of new warships for the Navy.
In 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump issued pardons and sentence commutations for 29 people, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, the father of the president's son-in-law.
In 2021, jurors convicted a suburban Minneapolis police officer of first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Black motorist Daunte Wright. Kim Potter, who is white, had said she mistook her handgun for a Taser while she and other officers were trying to arrest the 20-year-old on an outstanding warrant for weapons possession.
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The Canadian Press