Today in History for Nov. 16:
On this date:
In 1686, Britain and France signed the Treaty of Neutrality governing possession in North America in the event of war in Europe.
In 1776, British troops captured Fort Washington in New York during the American Revolution.
In 1837, authorities in Lower Canada (Quebec) ordered the arrest of politician and skilled orator Louis Papineau, leader of the nationalist movement or Patriot Party, after a rebellion broke out over demands for democratic reforms. He fled to the United States and later to France.
In 1838, a cross was erected in Oxford, England to commemorate the memory of three major figures in the English Reformation. Bishop Nicholas Ridley, Bishop Hugh Latimer and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who were all executed for their faith during the reign of Catholic Queen Mary.
In 1857, Able Seaman William Hall of Handsport, N.S., won the Victoria Cross while serving with the British army in Lucknow, India. Hall was the first Canadian sailor, and the first black, to win Britain's highest award for valour.
In 1885, Metis leader Louis Riel was hanged in Regina for his involvement in the Northwest Rebellions. Riel's lawyer proposed to defend him on grounds of insanity, but Riel repudiated this and he was found guilty of treason. The execution was postponed several times and pleas for clemency came from many parts of the world.
In 1901, three automobile racers in the New York borough of Brooklyn became the first people to exceed the speed of one mile a minute in a car.
In 1907, Oklahoma became the 46th U.S. state.
In 1933, the United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations.
In 1941, troops from the Quebec-based Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers arrived in Hong Kong to beef up the colony's British garrison. Japanese troops invaded the island of Hong Kong on Dec. 18 and the garrison surrendered a week later. Of the 1,975 Canadians sent to Hong Kong, 557 died in action or in Japanese prison camps.
In 1950, the Law Society of Upper Canada announced the establishment of legal aid clinics to provide legal service and assistance for needy persons in Ontario.
In 1950, Canadian troops for the Korean War arrived at Fort Lewis, Wash., for training.
In 1960, B.C. fishermen ended a labour dispute that had shut down the herring fishery for 12 months.
In 1965, the Soviet satellite "Venus 3" became the first man-made object to land on Venus.
In 1966, during a 20-minute period, 2,300 meteors a minute streaked over Arizona. It was the greatest meteor shower ever recorded.
In 1973, "Skylab 4," carrying a crew of three astronauts, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on an 84-day mission.
In 1982, the Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee headed by Louis Applebaum and Jacques Hebert, released its report. Its major recommendations included that government introduce powerful legislation to guarantee autonomy of cultural agencies; boost its grants to Canada Council; force the CBC and private broadcasters to carry more domestic programming; increase the role of the Canadian Film Development Corp. to assist new film and television production. It proposed that the government put more money into the arts, not to build theatres, concert halls and radio and television networks, but to help the people who created and performed and especially to assist new Canadian works.
In 1982, a 57-day strike by NFL players ended. The strike cost the league an estimated $450 million in lost revenue.
In 1983, Margaret Trudeau filed for divorce from Pierre Trudeau on the grounds of long-term separation. The couple had wed in 1971 and, after several well-publicized differences, separated in 1977, with Pierre retaining custody of their three sons.
In 1985, Larry Grossman was elected leader of the Ontario Conservative Party.
In 1989, in a unanimous judgment, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that there is no fetal right to life contained in Quebec's charter of rights nor under the province's Civil Code or the common law that prevails throughout the rest of Canada.
In 1990, Northern Dancer, the first Canadian-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby, died at age 29, euthanized at a Maryland breeding farm after a severe attack of colic. He won both the Derby and the Queen's Plate in 1964, then became the greatest stud horse in history.
In 1993, a U.S. Court of Appeal struck down as unconstitutional the Defence Department's previous long-standing ban on gays in the armed forces.
In 1994, Jean Chretien became the first Canadian prime minister to visit Vietnam.
In 1994, Robert Latimer, a Saskatchewan farmer who killed his severely disabled 12-year-old daughter in 1993, was found guilty of second-degree murder. The conviction was overturned and a new trial was ordered. On Nov. 5, 1997, a second jury returned the same verdict. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2001 that Latimer must serve the minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. He started serving day parole in March 2008 and was granted full parole on Dec. 6, 2010.
In 1994, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops voted overwhelmingly to make way for women to move up to the top ranks of church theologians, administrators and canon lawyers.
In 1997, Robert Thompson, former national leader of the Social Credit Party, died in Vancouver at age 83.
In 1997, China freed its most famous political prisoner Wei Jingsheng, a four-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, who was in the 19th year of captivity.
In 1999, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson failed a drug test for the third time.
In 2000, Bill Clinton arrived in Hanoi for a historic visit to Vietnam -- the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam since Richard Nixon visited American troops in 1969.
In 2001, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," the first movie instalment of the best-selling series, opened in North America. It brought in a record $90 million its first weekend and eventually grossed $976 million worldwide.
In 2004, about 30.6 cm of snow fell in Gander, Nfld., breaking a one-day record set in 1992. In St. John's, 64.3 mm of rain was recorded, breaking the one-day record established in 1911.
In 2005, Toronto writer David Gilmour won the Governor General's Award for fiction for his novel "A Perfect Night to Go to China."
In 2007, Poland's new prime minister, Donald Tusk, formally took office along with a team of former anti-communist dissidents.
In 2008, seven people died and one miraculously survived after a charter airplane carrying a team of workers bound for a hydro-electric project in northern B.C.’s Toba Inlet, crashed on a small island near the Sunshine Coast.
In 2010, Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton. (They were married on April 29, 2011, in Westminster Abbey.)
In 2011, veteran Mountie Bob Paulson was named the next commissioner of the RCMP, replacing William Elliott after an often stormy four-year tenure.
In 2012, Michael Applebaum won a vote at city council to become Montreal's first non-francophone mayor since just before the First World War - a stunning victory inside a city hall that was shaken by a corruption scandal. (In June 2013, he was arrested on 14 charges including fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust, and corruption in municipal affairs. In 2016, he was convicted on eight charges and later sentenced to a year in jail.)
In 2018, a U.S. federal judge granted a temporary order for the Trump administration to reinstate CNN reporter Jim Acosta's White House press pass, which had been revoked after he clashed with U.S. President Donald Trump at a news conference. It would only be in effect during CNN's lawsuit challenging the revocation but Judge Timothy Kelly said he believed the network would succeed in its claim that Acosta's constitutional right to due process had been violated.
In 2018, Academy Award winning screenwriter and author William Goldman died in Manhattan at age 87. Goldman won Oscars for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "All the President's Men." He also wrote numerous novels, including "The Princess Bride" and "Marathon Man" which were also adapted into screenplays.
In 2019, Ron MacLean addressed Don Cherry's dismissal with a lengthy monologue during the first period intermission of the "Hockey Night in Canada" broadcast, saying "Coach's Corner is no more." Sportsnet fired Cherry two days after his on-air comments from the previous Coach's Corner, which many felt were critical of immigrants for not wearing Remembrance Day poppies. Cherry later denied he was singling out visible minorities. MacLean also talked at length about his close relationship with Cherry but said he had to choose "principle over friendship."
In 2020, hackers targeted the City of Saint John, N.B., with a cyberattack. Officials said the "significant'' intrusion into the city's computer system forced an emergency shut-down.
In 2020, Canada's COVID-19 case count topped 300,000 — less than a month after it crossed the 200,000 threshold.
In 2020, former federal finance minister Bill Morneau was appointed a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. He will also teach a graduate course on global economic policymaking in the spring semester.
In 2021, the leader of the federal Conservatives dropped the hammer on Sen. Denise Batters, removing her from the Tory caucus. Erin O'Toole's move came one day after Batters launched a petition aimed at forcing an early confidence vote on his leadership.
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, the man accused of killing four members of a Muslim family in London, Ont., was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. Jurors in the trial of Nathaniel Veltman reached a verdict in less than 24 hours. The trial heard that Veltman hit the Afzaal family with his truck while they were out for a walk on June 6, 2021.
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The Canadian Press
