Today in History for July 11:
On this date:
In 1533, Pope Clement VII excommunicated England's King Henry VIII.
In 1656, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher became the first Quakers to arrive in America and were promptly arrested. Five weeks later, they were deported back to England.
In 1814, a British naval force from Nova Scotia under John Sherbrooke captured Eastport in Passamaquoddy Bay, Maine.
In 1859, "Big Ben" the great bell inside the famous London clock tower, chimed for the first time. (The clock itself had been keeping time since May 31.)
In 1884, Louis Riel arrived in Saskatchewan to organize the Metis for what became the following year's North-West Rebellion.
In 1896, Wilfrid Laurier was sworn in as prime minister -- a post he held until Oct. 6, 1911.
In 1906, Sunday became an official day of rest in Canada. The Senate passed the "Lord's Day Act" which was approved in the House of Commons by Sir Wilfrid Laurier's government and supported by Protestant and Roman Catholic churches and labour groups. The act restricted business, prohibited entertainment, sport and almost all commerce on Sunday. The law remained on the books until the Supreme Court of Canada struck it down in 1985.
In 1911, the Canadian Professional Golfers Association was formed.
In 1911, a fierce forest fire broke out near Timmins, Ont. High winds fanned several fires into a single front 40 kilometres wide. It raged for more than a week -- burning 2,200 square kilometres and destroying the mining communities of South Porcupine, Cochrane and Goldlands. More than 200 people died, more than 3,000 were left homeless and property damage totalled $3 million.
In 1957, Bob Panasik of Windsor, Ont., became the youngest golfer to make the 36-hole cut in a PGA Tour event. At age 15 years and eight months, he qualified for the final two rounds of the Canadian Open in Kitchener, Ont. He finished tied for 66th place.
In 1960, a Northwest Territories council meeting was held at Resolute Bay, the most northerly point for any legislative meeting.
In 1960, Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" was first published.
In 1962, the first trans-Atlantic television transmission was sent from Andover, Maine, to Pleumeur Bodou, France, via the "Telstar 1" satellite.
In 1966, George Ignatieff was appointed Canadian ambassador to the United Nations.
In 1975, archaeologists working near the ancient Chinese city of Xian uncovered a huge collection of 6,000 terracotta warriors. They were built to guard the tomb of an ancient emperor.
In 1978, the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association signed a 17-year-old centre from Sault Ste. Marie of the Ontario Hockey League. His name was Wayne Gretzky.
In 1978, 216 people were immediately killed when a tanker truck overfilled with propylene gas exploded on a coastal highway south of Tarragona, Spain.
In 1979, after six years of orbiting the Earth, the U.S. space "Skylab" broke up and scattered debris over the South Atlantic, Indian Ocean and western Australia.
In 1980, L'Anse aux Meadows, on the northern tip of Newfoundland where Vikings formed a settlement more than 1,000 years ago, was declared the first World Heritage Site by a special United Nations committee. Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad found the site in 1960 after searching for the Vikings' trail along Newfoundland's coast for months, relying on 16th-century maps and ancient descriptions of Leif Ericsson's transatlantic voyage.
In 1985, Houston's Nolan Ryan struck out Danny Heep of the New York Mets to become the first baseball player to record 4,000 career strikeouts.
In 1989, Vickie Keith of Kingston, Ont., became the first person to swim the English Channel using the butterfly stroke.
In 1989, Sir Laurence Olivier, considered the greatest Shakespearean actor of the 20th century and a winner of the Academy Award for both acting and directing, died at age 82.
In 1990, the siege at Oka, Que., began. Quebec provincial police moved in to remove a barricade Mohawks had set up to block expansion of a golf course on indigenous land. The raid failed, but an officer was shot and killed. Mohawks at Chateauguay set up a sympathy blockade at the Mercier Bridge leading into Montreal, and indigenous groups across the country set up similar blockades. As the standoff dragged on, Premier Robert Bourassa called in the army and there were tense face-to-face confrontations between the indigenous and soldiers all summer. The federal government bought the disputed land for $5.2 million. But it wasn't until Sept. 26 that the Oka warriors surrendered, after the army cut off supplies.
In 1991, the British government asked cigarette manufacturers to put the label "smoking kills" and "smoking causes cancer" on packages.
In 1991, a Nationair DC-8 chartered to a Nigerian company crashed soon after takeoff from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing all 261 people, including the Canadian crew of 14.
In 1991, a solar eclipse cast a blanket of darkness from Hawaii to South America.
In 1996, Justice Archie Campbell's independent report on the Paul Bernardo sex-killings investigation accused police of bungling and gross incompetence. It said the investigation into the schoolgirl slayings was hampered by police rivalries, poor co-ordination between forces, failure to analyze DNA and other matters.
In 2000, Halifax became the first Canadian city to ban pesticides on lawns -- a measure to be phased in over four years.
In 2003, Iranian-born Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, died in custody in a Tehran hospital after being detained and reportedly beaten for taking pictures of demonstrations in a Tehran prison. Five days later, the Iranian government confirmed that she died of a brain hemorrhage due to blows sustained after her detention.
In 2004, American Meg Mallon won the BMO Financial Group Canadian Open, becoming the first woman to win the U.S. Open and Canadian Open titles in the same year.
In 2006, in an abrupt reversal, the Bush administration said that all detainees held by American forces at Guantanamo Bay and around the world would be granted protection under the Geneva Convention.
In 2006, eight bombs hit seven trains on the commuter rail network in Mumbai, India, during evening rush hour, killing more than 200 people and wounding some 700 in the terrorist attack.
In 2009, former Canadian boxing champion Arturo Gatti was found dead in his room at a posh seaside tourist resort in Brazil. His wife Amanda Rodrigues was charged with murder. After an autopsy report, Brazilian police announced on July 30 that his death was ruled a suicide and his wife was released.
In 2010, Spain's Andres Iniesta scored in extra time to beat the Netherlands 1-0 and clinch his country's first World Cup. Spain became just the third team to be both world and European champions at the same time.
In 2011, Rev. Raymond-Marie Lavoie, 71, pleaded guilty to all 21 charges against him for committing sexual crimes against 13 young boys at the now defunct St-Alphonse Seminary near Quebec City in the 1970s and 1980s. (He was sentenced to five years in prison.)
In 2015, Serena Williams dispatched Garbine Muguruza 6-4, 6-4 for her sixth Wimbledon title and 21st major overall.
In 2018, the Bank of Canada raised its trend-setting interest rate a quarter point to 1.50 per cent, the fourth raise since mid-2017, and the highest level since 2009.
In 2018, the CRTC fined two companies for the first time under Canada's anti-spam law for allegedly aiding in the installation of malicious computer programs through online ads. Datablocks was fined $100,000 and Sunlight Media $150,000.
In 2019, the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy issued an apology to sailors who fought a deadly fire aboard the submarine HMCS Chicoutimi in 2004, saying a five-year delay in releasing a study on their health was unacceptable. The study found 60 per cent of the 56 sailors aboard the vessel were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress within five years, 21 per cent reported suffering from asthma and 15 per cent were battling depression. Lieutenant Chris Saunders later died from smoke inhalation and two other crew members were badly injured by toxic fumes.
In 2019, The family of Neil Bantleman, a Canadian teacher jailed for years in Indonesia on disputed sexual assault charges, said the man was back in Canada.
In 2019, British Columbia's top court quashed a bylaw prohibiting single-use plastic bags in Victoria, saying the city failed to get the approval of the province's environment minister. The B.C. Court of Appeal said in its written ruling that the bylaw is intended to regulate businesses from providing plastic checkout bags but its aim was to protect the environment, and the effects of the bylaw are felt by businesses.
In 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland distanced the Trudeau government from her former ambassador to China, a day after he said he warned Chinese officials that further punishments against Canada could help the opposition Conservatives win the fall election. Speaking in London, Freeland likened the kind of advice described by John McCallum to foreign election interference.
In 2019, the head of an Ontario committee that helps appoint justices of the peace resigned after reports that he had ties to the premier's former chief of staff. Premier Doug Ford's office said it had been reviewing lawyer Andrew Suboch's appointment as chair of the Justices of the Peace Appointments Advisory Committee and that he had now resigned.
In 2021, adventuring billionaire Richard Branson reached space aboard his own winged rocket ship. Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space tourism company reached an altitude of about 88 kilometres over the New Mexico desert. They experienced three to four minutes of weightlessness and then safely glided back home to a runway landing.
In 2024, admitted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki was found guilty of first-degree murder in the killings of four Indigenous women in Winnipeg. The verdict carried an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. The defence had argued Skibicki should be found not criminally responsible, saying he had been suffering from schizophrenia when he killed the women in 2022. But Crown prosecutors told the judge he had the mental capacity and awareness to commit and cover up the killings, which they characterized as racially motivated.
In 2024, Shelley Duvall, one of the stars in the 1980 horror film "The Shining" died at age 75. Duvall's longtime partner said she died in her sleep at her Texas home due to complications of diabetes. At her peak, Duvall was a regular star in some of the defining movies of the 1970s and 1980s.
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The Canadian Press
