Today in History for Dec. 16:
In 1653, Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.
In 1770, German composer Ludvig Van Beethoven, universally recognized as one of the greatest composers in history, was born in Bonn.
In 1773, the event known as the Boston Tea Party occurred. To protest a British tax on tea, angry colonists disguised themselves as Indians, boarded three ships and dumped 340 chests filled with tea into Boston harbour.
In 1775, British novelist Jane Austen was born. Her works include "Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility."
In 1895, the Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps was organized.
In 1900, the first North American credit union was founded in Levis, Que., by Alphonse Desjardins. "La Caisse Populaire de Levis" opened for business the following Jan. 23.
In 1901, Dawson City, Yukon, was incorporated.
In 1916, the monk who wielded powerful influence over the Russian imperial court, Gregori Rasputin, was murdered by a group of young nobles.
In 1944, the "Battle of the Bulge" began during the Second World War. German forces launched a surprise attack against Allied forces in Belgium (the Allies were eventually able to beat the Germans back).
In 1949, an amendment to the British North America Act, giving the Canadian Parliament power to amend the Constitution on federal matters, was passed by the British Parliament. The amendment did not apply to areas of the Constitution under provincial jurisdiction.
In 1953, royal assent was given to a bill to establish the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources.
In 1954, the first synthetic diamond was produced at General Electric Research in the United States.
In 1960, two passenger planes, one belonging to United Airlines and the other to TWA, collided over New York City killing all 134 people aboard both aircraft.
In 1964, British-American poet-dramatist T.S. Eliot died at age 76.
In 1976, the federal and provincial governments halted vaccination programs against swine flu following reports of paralysis apparently linked to the vaccine. The move followed an announcement the same day from the United States that similar vaccinations were stopped because of possible links with a paralytic condition known as Guillain-Barre syndrome.
In 1980, Kentucky Fried Chicken king Colonel Harland Sanders died at age 90. He was probably the world's best-known human trademark.
In 1986, the New Democrats got their first Member of Parliament from Quebec when independent MP Robert Toupin joined their ranks.
In 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president by a landslide in the first successful free election held in Haiti since its independence from France 186 years earlier. He was overthrown in a military coup in September 1991 but international pressure forced the country's leaders to allow him to return to power several years later. Aristide was again ousted from power and fled Haiti in February 2003.
In 1991, the Canadian government agreed to create a third territory in the North called Nunavut. (It officially became a territory on April 1, 1999.)
In 1991, Kazakhstan declared its independence from Russia.
In 1991, the UN General Assembly rescinded a resolution equating Zionism with racism. The Arab-sponsored resolution of Nov. 10, 1975, had declared "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination."
In 1994, Via Rail's Atlantic train rolled into Saint John, N.B., for the last time as service to inland cities in southern Quebec and New Brunswick was cut.
In 1996, Prime Minister Jean Chretien apologized for an election promise to scrap the GST.
In 1997, the Canadian Senate voted to strip Senator Andrew Thompson, who had attended only three per cent of the chamber's sittings since 1990, of his office, secretary, telephone and most travel privileges. He resigned from the upper chamber in March, 1998.
In 2000, U.S. President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first African-American secretary of state.
In 2002, Prime Minister Jean Chretien formally signed the Kyoto ratification document. It made Canada the 98th country to ratify the Kyoto accord, which commits countries to reduce their output of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming.
In 2003, Robert Stanfield, former Nova Scotia premier and federal Progressive Conservative leader, died at age 89.
In 2004, the Supreme Court in the Northwest Territories awarded $10 million in damages to the families of nine miners killed in the 1992 bombing at the Giant Mine outside Yellowknife during a strike.
In 2006, Archbishop Thomas Collins was appointed the new spiritual leader of the Archdiocese of Toronto, replacing the retiring Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic. (In 2012, Collins was elevated to the position of Cardinal.)
In 2008, the U.S. Federal Reserve cut its target rate for overnight loans between banks to a range of zero to 0.25 per cent and pledged to use "all available tools" to heal the American economy.
In 2008, the N.L. government seized the hydro assets and resources of AbitibiBowater Inc., less than two weeks after the company announced the closure of its money-losing Grand Falls-Windsor newsprint mill.
In 2010, Larry King pulled the curtain down on his CNN talk show after 25 years. He had conducted some 50,000 interviews in a broadcasting career where he worked for decades in radio before joining CNN in 1985. He recorded more than 6,000 shows for CNN. British talk-show host and "America's Got Talent" judge Piers Morgan took over in January, but that lasted only three years due to lacklustre ratings.
In 2011, the Senate passed legislation to redistribute federal ridings from 308 to 338 to reflect population growth. Ontario received 15 more, Alberta and B.C. six, and Quebec three. The new ridings were in place for the 2015 federal election.
In 2011, a long-awaited report found thousands of children suffered sexual abuse in Dutch Catholic institutions over the past 65 years, and church officials knew about the abuse but failed to stop it or help victims because they feared sparking scandals.
In 2012, a 23-year-old woman was gang-raped and severely beaten on a moving bus in New Delhi. She died two weeks later in a Singapore hospital after being sent there for medical treatment. Six men were arrested and charges were upgraded to include murder. Her horrific ordeal set off protests and sparked a national debate about the treatment of women across India. (One adult suspect was found dead in his jail cell in March 2013 in an apparent suicide. In August, a juvenile suspect was convicted and sentenced to the maximum three years in a reform home. The next month, the four remaining adult suspects were convicted and sentenced to hang. The Supreme Court of India stayed their executions pending appeal.)
In 2014, seven Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar and killed 141 people - 132 of them students in Grades 1-10. Another 121 students and three staff members were wounded. All militants died, either detonating their suicide vests or killed by Army commandos.
In 2015, Shaw Communications reached a deal to acquire Wind Mobile in a transaction valued at $1.6 billion. (The deal closed in March 2016).
In 2017, a Toronto jury found Dellen Millard and Mark Smich guilty of first-degree murder in the 2012 killing of 23-year-old Laura Babcock whose body was never found. It's believed they burned her body in an animal incinerator that was found on Millard's farm in 2013 as part of the Tim Bosma murder investigation where both were convicted of first-degree murder.
In 2017, the Ottawa Senators defeated the Montreal Canadiens 3-0 in the NHL 100 Classic outdoor game at TD Place in Ottawa, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the league's first games played on Dec. 19, 1917.
In 2018, Canada's trailblazing move to legalize cannabis for recreational use, which sparked an entirely new industry and had wide-ranging implications for nearly every facet of society, was voted The Canadian Press Business News Story of the Year.
In 2018, another World Cup victory for Mikael Kingsbury. Kingsbury won his third gold medal in as many starts in the moguls World Cup season, coming in first in the dual mogul event in China. The product of Deux-Montagnes, Que., won the single mogul competition - despite battling a stomach bug - the day before.
In 2018, Rachel Homan picked up her ninth Grand Slam of Curling title with back-to-back victories on the circuit after beating Kerri Einarson in the final at the National in Conception Bay South, N.L. The Ottawa skip edged the Winnipeg team 4-1.
In 2019, disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein said he feels like the forgotten man. Weinstein told The New York Post that he was a pioneer in advancing the careers of women in the film industry, but that his work has been forgotten because of allegations of sexual misconduct. Weinstein was charged with rape and sexual assault.
In 2019, new figures showed the federal government's projected deficit had ballooned to $26.6 billion from earlier projections of $19.8 billion. The Finance Department said the increased deficit is largely due to changes to how employee pensions and benefits are calculated, but it also accounted for a tax break that takes effect on New Year's Day.
In 2019, Alberta's challenge of the federal carbon tax began in the province's court of appeal. Alberta argued the federal tax oversteps into provincial jurisdiction. The federal government said greenhouse gas emissions are a matter of national concern, and a tax is necessary in the fight against global warming.
In 2020, prison sentences ranging from four years to life were handed down in the terrorism trial of 14 people linked to the January 2015 attacks in Paris against the satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket. All three attackers died in police raids, and the widow of one of the gunman and two men who spirited her out of France to Syria were tried in absentia. Seventeen people were killed in the attacks.
In 2020, Canada announced it would join the U.S. on the first crewed trip to the moon since the Apollo missions. Industry Minister Navdeep Bains unveiled the new Gateway Treaty between Ottawa and Washington, which formalizes Canada's involvement in the effort to build a new international space station known as the Lunar Gateway. The treaty includes a commitment to having a Canadian on board a manned fly-by of the moon in 2023 and for Canada to contribute a new robotic arm to help with construction of the station.
In 2021, Canada surpassed 30,000 lives lost to COVID-19. Nine more deaths in Ontario pushed the country passed the grim milestone.
In 2021, the remaining members of a U.S.-based missionary group who were kidnapped two months prior in Haiti were freed. That included one Canadian. The missionaries were kidnapped in October by the 400 Mawozo gang, which demanded $1-million ransom each for the 16 captives.
In 2021, the Senate gave quick approval to a new round of pandemic aid. It came after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland made a pre-Christmas plea to rubber-stamp the help and promised that benefits would flow quickly to businesses and workers in need.
In 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping complained to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about media reporting on their communications. The two had a discussion at the G20 summit in Indonesia, and Xi complained about apparent leaks to media. Xi said their conversation a day earlier was mischaracterized. Trudeau responded that Canada and China have frank dialogue about things they disagree on, but can work constructively on other issues. Trudeau's office said he'd raised concerns with Xi about Chinese interference in Canada.
In 2023, RCMP in Ottawa said a youth had been arrested and charged with terrorism-related offences that allegedly targeted Jewish people.
In 2023, police confirmed that an 11-year-old boy died earlier in the week after getting a puck to the neck during a junior hockey league practice. They said the boy was wearing all the required protective equipment at the time.
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The Canadian Press
