Today in History for Dec. 12:
In 1783, New Brunswick's first newspaper, the "Royal Saint John Gazette and Nova Scotian Intelligencer," was published.
In 1787, Pennsylvania became the second U.S. state.
In 1870, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first black lawmaker sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 1894, Canada's fourth prime minister, Sir John Thompson, died in England of a heart attack at age 49. He had just been made a member of the Imperial Privy Council by Queen Victoria. Thompson, a former Nova Scotia premier, was prime minister for only two years.
In 1897, "The Katzenjammer Kids," the pioneering comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks, made its debut in the New York Journal.
In 1899, a patent for the golf tee was granted to George Grant.
In 1901, Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless signal at St. John's, Nfld. The inventor of wireless telegraphy flew a box kite trailing 121 metres of copper wire to a telephone to pick up faint clicking sounds transmitted from 3,200 kilometres across the ocean at the Podhu wireless station in Cornwall, England. Today, the hill on which he stood is called Signal Hill.
In 1925, the first motel -- the Motel Inn -- opened in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
In 1936, Bishop Clemens Count von Galen of Munster gave a blistering sermon condemning the Nazi extermination of handicapped adults for being "unfit." He called the Nazis "ungodly" and distanced the Christian community from them. The sermon was later credited to be a catalyst for an underground resistance movement.
In 1937, Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. gunboat Panay on China's Yangtze River. (Japan apologized and paid $2.2 million in reparations.)
In 1949, Nancy Hodges was named Speaker of the British Columbia legislature, becoming the first woman speaker of the Commonwealth.
In 1951, the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority was established.
In 1952, Ontario's Chalk River nuclear reactor experienced a major nuclear accident.
In 1955, British inventor Sir Christopher Cockerell received a patent for the hovercraft.
In 1963, Kenya became independent from Britain.
In 1970, Roy Spencer, father of Toronto Maple Leafs forward Brian Spencer, was shot and killed by the RCMP outside a TV station in Prince George, B.C. Spencer had forced the station off the air at gunpoint because it was not carrying a game between Toronto and the Chicago Blackhawks. Brian, who was in his rookie season, was to be interviewed that night. (Brian Spencer was shot and killed in June 1988, in Florida under mysterious circumstances.)
In 1973, the first commemorative coins to help finance the 1976 Olympics at Montreal went on sale.
In 1975, 10 people died and 19 were seriously injured when a GO commuter train hit a crowded Toronto Transit Commission bus stalled on a level crossing.
In 1980, Jean Lesage, the Liberal premier of Quebec from 1960-66 and the father of the Quiet Revolution, died of cancer at age 68.
In 1984, the Ontario government ended "happy hours" in Ontario bars serving cut-rate drinks.
In 1985, a U.S. DC-8 crashed and exploded on a hillside shortly after taking off from Gander, Nfld. The disaster claimed the lives of 250 U.S. military personnel and eight crew members, the worst air crash on Canadian soil.
In 1985, Robert Bourassa was sworn in as premier of Quebec.
In 1989, the presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua signed a peace agreement for Central America.
In 1989, folklorist Helen Creighton, who was awarded the Order of Canada for her life-long work documenting the oral and musical culture of the Maritimes, died in Halifax, at age 90.
In 1996, the federal government decided to take over control of Radio Canada International, reversing CBC president Perrin Beatty's earlier decision to close it down.
In 1998, pitcher Kevin Brown became the first baseball player to sign a contract worth more than $100 million. He inked a seven-year, $105-million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn a court-ordered recount of Florida's ballots in the previous month's presidential election. The decision caused Vice-President Al Gore to concede the following day to Texas Governor George W. Bush.
In 2000, GM announced it was eliminating its Oldsmobile brand of cars and cutting 13,000 jobs, or 10 per cent of its salaried work force, and closing a plant in Britain.
In 2001, Stockwell Day resigned as leader of the Canadian Alliance. Day later entered the ensuing leadership contest but was defeated by ex-Reform MP Stephen Harper in the March 20, 2002, vote.
In 2003, Keiko, the killer whale made famous by the "Free Willy" movies, died in the Norwegian fjord that he'd made his home.
In 2003, Paul Martin was sworn in as Canada's 21st prime minister.
In 2007, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal sentenced former Bosnian Serb general Dragomir Milosevic to 33 years in prison for the shelling and sniping of civilians in Sarajevo in the mid-1990's.
In 2008, Manitoba couple Samantha Kematch and Karl Wesley McKay were sentenced to life in prison for the first-degree murder of Kematch's five-year-old daughter Phoenix Sinclair. They buried the body in a shallow grave near the Fisher River Indian Reserve.
In 2008, the federal and Ontario governments reached agreement on a $3.4 billion package for Canadian subsidiaries of the Detroit auto makers, conditional upon a U.S. industry bailout.
In 2011, multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced new Canadians would have to remove any face-coverings, such as the Islamic niqab or burka, while taking the oath of citizenship.
In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI began tweeting in eight languages from his personal Twitter account (at)Pontifex to over one million followers. The inaugural tweet read: "Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart."
In 2012, North Koreans celebrated the country's first satellite in space, sent aboard a three-stage, long-range rocket. Canada, the U.S., South Korea and Japan quickly condemned the launch as a cover for testing banned ballistic missile technology.
In 2015, Canada was among 193 countries to ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change, with the goal of creating a carbon-neutral economy sometime after 2050 but before 2100 and an obligation to keep the rise in global temperatures "well below" 2 C compared to pre-industrial times.
In 2016, former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres was sworn in as Secretary-General of the United Nations, becoming the ninth UN chief in the body's 71-year history. (He took office on Jan 1.)
In 2017, San Francisco-based ride-hailing service Lyft launched in Toronto, its first expansion outside the United States.
In 2017, Ottawa announced it will buy 18 used F-18 fighters from Australia as a stop-gap as it launches a full competition with a national "economic interest" requirement to replace its aging CF-18s with 88 new fighters by as early as 2025. The government had ditched plans to buy 18 Super Hornet jet fighters from Boeing after the U.S. aerospace giant filed a trade complaint against Canadian plane maker Bombardier.
In 2018, Quebec prosecutors charged Just For Laughs founder Gilbert Rozon with rape and indecent assault, stemming from a complaint dating back to 1979. Quebec's director of criminal and penal prosecutions says the charges stem from allegations by a single complainant and that 13 other files of criminal complaints against Rozon will not result in charges. Rozon, who stepped down from JFL a year earlier, is also facing a 10-million-dollar class-action lawsuit, alleging that he abused at least 20 women between 1982 and 2016.
In 2018, a police watchdog's two-year review concluded relations between First Nations and police in Thunder Bay, Ontario were in a crisis state. The report said the police department is beset with racist attitudes toward Indigenous people, something the Office of the Independent Police Review Director calls deeply troubling. Director Gerry McNeilly made 44 recommendations, including reinvestigating the deaths of nine Indigenous people.
In 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump's former lawyer was sentenced to three years in prison. Michael Cohen's lawyers argued that he should be spared jail time because he co-operated in multiple federal investigations involving the president. But the Federal Court judge said Cohen deserved a harsh punishment for crimes including evading $1.4-million in taxes, lying to Congress about his talks with Russians and arranging illicit payments to silence women who posed a risk to Trump's presidential campaign.
In 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May won a confidence vote by Conservative Party lawmakers that could have brought her leadership to an abrupt end. In a secret ballot, 200 lawmakers backed May and 117 voted against her. The result meant May would keep her positions as party leader and prime minister while continuing an uphill battle to win parliamentary approval for her Brexit plan.
In 2019, Andrew Scheer announced he was stepping down as Conservative leader as soon as a successor could be chosen. Scheer said leading his party had been the honour of his life but that he could not commit to giving the Conservatives 100 per cent any longer. The decision came less than two months after a disappointing election result and after weeks of Conservative infighting about whether Scheer should stay on.
In 2019, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservatives secured a majority of 80 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons. Johnson called the December 12th election in hopes of getting a majority to push through Britain's departure from the E-U by the scheduled departure date of January 31st, but few expected one quite so big. Conservatives claimed 365 seats, compared to 203 for Labour and 48 for the Scottish National Party. Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Johnson pledged to end the acrimony over Brexit and urged the country to 鈥渓et the healing begin.鈥�
In 2019, Danny Aiello, the blue-collar character actor whose long career playing tough guys included roles in "Fort Apache, the Bronx" "The Godfather, Part II," 鈥淥nce Upon a Time in America鈥� and his Oscar-nominated performance as a pizza man in Spike Lee鈥檚 "Do the Right Thing," died at 86. Recognizable, if not famous, for his burly build and husky voice, he was an ex-union president who broke into acting in his 30s and remained a dependable player for decades, whether vicious or cuddly or some of each.
In 2019, Scott Milanovich was named head coach of the Edmonton Eskimos (since renamed the Edmonton Elks). The 46-year-old Milanovich was head coach of the Toronto Argonauts from 2012 to 2016. He led the Argonauts to a Grey Cup title and was named CFL coach of the year in his first year with the team. Milanovich was previously with the Montreal Alouettes organization from 2007-11, starting as quarterbacks coach before adding offensive co-ordinator and assistant head coach to his duties. He helped Montreal win Grey Cup titles in 2009 and 2010.
In 2020, a trio of private citizens with a keen sense for puzzles said they had cracked the code and revealed a half-century-long mystery linked to the "Zodiac'' killer. An American software developer, a Belgian programmer and an Australian mathematician brought their findings to the FBI. Although the chilling 340-character coded message doesn't reveal the killer's identity, it contains a secret taunt targeting police: "I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner.'' The Zodiac terrorized northern California communities, killing at least five people in 1968 and 69.
In 2021, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers won the 108th Grey Cup in Hamilton. Winnipeg beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 33-25 in overtime.
In 2023, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to demand a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. Canada voted in favour of the non-binding resolution.
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The Canadian Press
