Today in History for Jan. 2:
In 1492, King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile ended Muslim rule in Spain by conquering Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in the country.
In 1727, James Wolfe, commander of the British expedition that captured Quebec in 1759, was born at Westerham, England. Wolfe saw action in many famous battles during his career, including Culloden in Scotland. He died of his wounds during the battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec.
In 1788, Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1826, the Supreme Court of Newfoundland was established.
In 1872, Canada and the U.S. exchanged telegraphic weather reports for the first time.
In 1881, Group of Seven artist Frederick Varley was born in Sheffield, England.
In 1884, a railway collision at the Humber River, just west of Toronto, took 31 lives.
In 1908, the Royal Canadian Mint opened on Sussex Drive in Ottawa as a division of Britain's Royal Mint. The first coin struck was a 50-cent piece. In its early years, it produced gold sovereigns, Canadian coins, refined gold and even gun parts for Britain during the First World War. It was renamed the Royal Canadian Mint in 1931.
In 1929, bush pilots Wilfrid Reid (Wop) May and Vic Horner left Edmonton to fly diphtheria vaccines to Fort Vermilion, Alta, 1,600 kilometres north. It had taken a 12-day journey by dogsled to bring news of the emergency to the nearest telegraph. The flyers made the journey in an open aircraft, with oil burners to keep the vaccine from freezing. They were met by 10,000 people when they returned to Edmonton.
In 1929, Canada and the United States reached an agreement of joint action to preserve Niagara Falls. The deal limited the daytime diversion of water through hydro-electric stations to keep the spectacle for tourists.
In 1935, Bruno Richard Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, N.J., for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. He was convicted the following month and executed in April 1936.
In 1935, at the height of the Depression, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett began a series of live radio speeches outlining a "New Deal" for Canada.
In 1942, a declaration of the United Nations was signed by Canada and 27 other nations at war with the Axis powers. They pledged not to make a separate armistice or peace.
In 1942, the Philippine capital of Manila was captured by Japanese forces during the Second World War.
In 1951, federal Trade Minister C.D. Howe announced that a $30-million atomic facility would be built at Chalk River, Ont.
In 1959, the Soviet Union launched its space probe "Luna 1," the first man-made object to fly past the moon, its apparent intended target.
In 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In 1971, in one of the worst sports disasters in Britain's history, 66 soccer fans, including two Canadians, were killed in a stampede at the end of a soccer game at Ibrox Park stadium in Glasgow, Scotland. Another 200 were injured. The steel crowd-channelling barriers collapsed under the weight of fans pressing to leave the match.
In 1974, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mp/h. Federal speed limits were abolished in 1995.
In 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement.
In 1989, a ferry overloaded with New Year's travellers sank off Guatemala's east coast after running out of fuel, leaving 67 dead and 14 missing.
In 1995, Fernando Henrique Cardoso was sworn in as Brazil's 38th President.
In 1996, AT&T announced it would cut 40,000 jobs, more than 24,000 of which would be management positions, as it prepared for a three-way split.
In 1997, former Western Hockey League coach Graham James was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for sexually assaulting two former players. In the wake of the scandal, the Canadian Hockey Association said it would screen all new coaches for records of pedophilia. (In December 2011, he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two other former players. Charges related to a third complainant were stayed.)
In 1998, Mel Lastman was inaugurated as the first mayor of the amalgamated city of Toronto.
In 2006, a skating rink roof caved in after a heavy snowfall in Germany, killing 15 people, including seven children.
In 2006, a methane gas explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia claimed the lives of 12 miners, but one miner, Randal McCloy, Jr., was eventually rescued.
In 2007, Ontario's highest court ruled that an Ontario boy can legally have two mothers (in a same-sex relationship) and one father.
In 2007, a state funeral was held in Washington's National Cathedral for former U.S. President Gerald Ford, who died Dec. 26, 2006, at age 93.
In 2009, Canadian soldier Capt. Robert Semrau was charged with second-degree murder in the death of an unarmed Taliban insurgent on Oct. 19 in Helmund province, where he was serving as a mentor and role model for his Afghan counterparts. (He was convicted by a court martial of disgraceful conduct but acquitted of second-degree murder. He was reduced to the rank of second-lieutenant and dismissed from the Canadian Forces.)
In 2019, Syncrude pleaded guilty and was fined more than $2.7 million in the deaths of 31 great blue herons at one of its oilsands mines north of Fort McMurray in 2015. An agreed statement of facts said Syncrude admitted that an abandoned sump pond in which the birds were found didn't have deterrents to keep waterfowl from landing on it, even though the pond met criteria for being high risk.
In 2019, the New Brunswick Police Commission asked for an outside review of how it conducts investigations, after criticism of its probe into a senior officer's conduct following the murder of multi-millionaire businessman Richard Oland in 2011. The commission asked the public safety minister to appoint an independent third party to review allegations by the province's police association that the oversight body was being run in an "abusive authoritarian fashion."
In 2019, a shuttered call centre in Cape Breton came back to life, just weeks after its previous owner abruptly closed the facility and tossed hundreds of people out of work just before the holiday season. Workers showing up for their 9:30 a.m. shifts filed into the newly minted Sydney Call Centre Inc., the site of the former ServiCom centre that closed without notice on Dec. 6.
In 2019, for the first time in the history of the world junior hockey championship, Canada would not medal on home ice. The Canadians were eliminated after a dramatic 2-1 overtime loss to Finland in Vancouver.
In 2020, the U-S Pentagon announced a military air strike at Baghdad's International Airport killed a top-ranking member of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. It happened at the direction of President Donald Trump, who tweeted an image of the American flag as the news broke. The U.S. Defence Department said Iranian General Qassem Soleimani "was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.'' Iran's Supreme Leader vowed there would be harsh retaliation. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Soleimani "the international face of resistance,'' and declared three days of public mourning. The next day, Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the safety of Canadians in the Middle East was the government's "paramount concern."
In 2021, two more members of Alberta's United Conservative government travelled abroad over the holidays despite widespread recommendations to stay home in order to curb the spread of COVID-19. M-L-A Jeremy Nixon was ordered to cut short his trip to Hawaii and return home, while M-L-A Tanya Fir apologized for travelling to the U-S to visit her sister. Premier Jason Kenney issued an order yesterday forbidding all of his caucus members and senior staff from traveling outside Canada unless it's for government business. That order came after it emerged that Kenney's municipal affairs minister spent the holidays in Hawaii.
In 2024, Ottawa announced that Canada was set to accept 1,000 applications from people looking to get out of Gaza who have Canadian relatives, but advocates said the number of available applications is too low. The National Council of Canadian Muslims said there should be no cap on the number of applications for people trying to get out of Gaza who have Canadian relatives.
In 2024, Environment Canada announced that December 2022 was warm enough to set new temperature records in parts of British Columbia. Meteorologist Brian Proctor says Vancouver's mean temperature for the month was 7 C, tying 1939 as the city's warmest December on record.
In 2024, Czechia scored with just 11.7 seconds left in the third period to break a tie and knock Canada out of the World Junior Hockey Championship in Sweden. Czechia was down 2-0 before scoring three goals in the come-from-behind win to advance to the semifinals at the under-20 tournament.
In 2024, Hamas said an explosion in Beirut killed one of its top officials. Saleh Arouri was one of the founders of Hamas's military wing, and had headed the group in the West Bank. A report by Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the blast was the work of an Israeli drone.
In 2024, it took about six hours to put out the flames after a Japan Airlines flight with 379 people aboard collided with a Japanese coast guard aircraft on a runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. Five of the six people aboard the coast guard plane died. It was preparing to take off to deliver aid to survivors of the previous day's earthquake when it collided with the Airbus A-350 that was landing.
In 2024, the death toll from a series of powerful earthquakes Jan. 1 in western Japan rose to at least 55 people (that number would later climb to more than180). Japanese media reported tens of thousands of homes were destroyed.
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The Canadian Press
