Today in History for Nov. 23:
In 1621, poet John Donne was elected dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
In 1765, Frederick County, Maryland, became the first colonial entity to repudiate the British Stamp Act.
In 1809, following the first piracy trial in Canada, Edward Jordan was hanged for piracy and murder in Halifax.
In 1815, Canada's first street lamps, fuelled by whale oil, were installed in Montreal.
In 1877, Canada was awarded $5.5 million from the United States for fishing rights and free navigation on the St. Lawrence River.
In 1910, the first criminal brought to justice by the use of radio was hanged at London's Pentonville Prison. Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American-born physician, murdered his wife after falling in love with his receptionist. The pair sailed to Canada, with the mistress disguised as a young man. But the vessel's captain became suspicious and radioed for detectives to intercept the ship. Crippen was arrested in Montreal.
In 1921, U.S. President Warren Harding signed a law prohibiting the consumption of beer.
In 1936, "Life," the photojournalism magazine created by Henry R. Luce, was first published.
In 1943, during the Second World War, U.S. forces seized control of the Tarawa and Makin atolls from the Japanese.
In 1947, E. L. Sukenik of Jerusalem's Hebrew University first received word of the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The documents, dating between 200 BC and AD 70, had been accidentally discovered the previous winter by two Bedouin shepherds in the vicinity of Qumran.
In 1951, British automobile producers Austin and Morris announced a merger.
In 1960, George Chuvalo regained the Canadian heavyweight title by defeating Bob Cleroux.
In 1963, Ron Lippert of Kitchener, Ont., a self-confessed CIA agent, was sentenced to 30 years in a Havana jail for flying into Cuba with concealed explosives. He was released in 1973.
In 1963, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Nov. 25th a day of national mourning following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In 1964, Latin was used as the official liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church for the last time.
In 1971, China took a seat as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
In 1975, the Grey Cup Game was played on the Prairies for the first time. The Edmonton Eskimos edged the Montreal Alouettes 9-8 on a bitterly cold day at Calgary's McMahon Stadium.
In 1976, Andre Malraux, French novelist, art critic and public official, died.
In 1980, a massive earthquake in southern Italy killed nearly 3,000 people -- mostly in Naples, Salerno, Avellino and Potenza.
In 1986, Marjorie Wilkins Campbell, writer, author of "The Northwest Company," "The Saskatchewan," "The Silent Song of Mary Eleanor" and other books of history, winner of Governor General's Award in 1950 and 1954, died in Toronto at the age of 85.
In 1987, the United Nations opened its archives on Nazis and Japanese war crimes, exposing facts and allegations about 36,000 people including Kurt Waldheim.
In 1995, Louis Malle, the French director of such landmark American films as "Pretty Baby," "Atlantic City" and "My Dinner with Andre," and husband of actress Candice Bergen, died at the age of 63.
In 1995, the CBC announced that it would drop all American-produced television programs from its prime-time schedule.
In 1996, the Edmonton Eskimos set a CFL record for points in a playoff game, routing the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers 68-7 in the West Division semifinal.
In 1996, a hijacked Ethiopian jetliner crash-landed in the Pacific Ocean before breaking apart, killing 125 of the 175 people on board, including all three hijackers.
In 1998, Andy Scott resigned as Canada's Solicitor-General, following weeks of Opposition allegations that he compromised the 1997 APEC inquiry during an in-flight conversation and then lied about it.
In 1998, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal overturned Robert Latimer's sentence (two years less a day) in the killing of his disabled daughter and sentenced him to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. In 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the decision. He starting serving day parole in March 2008 and was granted full parole on Dec. 6, 2010.
In 2001, a UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague charged former Yugloslav president Slobodan Milosevic with genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
In 2002, organizers of the Miss World beauty contest decided to relocate the pageant finale from Nigeria to London, England, after Muslim-Christian riots over the event killed more than 200 people over a week. The immediate spark for the riots was the publication of a newspaper article with the comment that the Prophet Muhammad would probably have chosen a wife from among the contestants.
In 2002, astronaut John Herrington made history as the first American Indian to fly in space. Herrington, a member of Oklahoma's Chickasaw Nation, was one of seven crew aboard space shuttle "Endeavour" when it took off from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
In 2003, International and U.S. teams shared the President's Cup for the first time in the history of the golf tournament.
In 2003, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze was forced to resign, sending thousands of cheering people into the street. Georgians had blamed him for endemic poverty and corruption.
In 2004, Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko declared himself the winner of the presidential election as about 200,000 supporters gathered in Kyiv to protest election fraud.
In 2005, the federal government signed a $2.5 million deal to compensate Chinese-Canadians for a head tax once imposed on Chinese immigrants.
In 2007, the Canadian cruise ship "The Explorer" sank in the Antarctic after hitting an iceberg. All 154 passengers and crew were rescued by a passing ship.
In 2011, police in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa shut down Occupy protest camps deemed illegal and ordered removed. All protests ended largely without incident.
In 2011, Yemen's authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed an agreement to resign after a fierce uprising to oust him from 33 years in power, in a deal that gave him immunity from prosecution. He became the fourth Arab leader toppled in the wave of Arab Spring uprisings since January.
In 2015, Premier Bob McLeod easily recaptured his Yellowknife South seat in the Northwest Territories general election. (The 19 MLAs met shortly after the election and re-elected McLeod as premier.)
In 2018, Nicolas Roeg, the British director of provocative and otherworldly films who gave Mick Jagger and David Bowie enduring screen roles, died at age 90. His films included "Don't Look Now", "Walkabout" and "The Witches." He also cast Jagger in the thriller "Performance" and Bowie as an alien looking to save his planet in "The Man Who Fell to Earth."
In 2020, British pharma company AstraZeneca and Oxford University said their COVID-19 vaccine showed positive results. Late-stage trials indicated the coronavirus vaccine was up to 90 per cent effective, giving public health officials hope they would soon have access to a vaccine that is cheaper and easier to distribute than some of its rivals.
In 2020, after weeks of delay, the U.S. government finally acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden was the "apparent winner'' of the Nov. 3 election, clearing the way for co-operation on a transition of power.
In 2021, Canadian diver Jennifer Abel announced her retirement at 30 years old. The Laval, Que., native is an Olympic silver and bronze medallist. Most recently, Abel and Melissa Citrini-Beaulieu won synchronized springboard silver at the Tokyo Olympics in August.
In 2021, the Writers' Trust of Canada named University of Toronto professor Dan Breznitz the inaugural winner of the $60,000 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy. The new annual award, backed by former BlackBerry chief executive Jim Balsillie, recognizes a non-fiction book shaping Canadian discourse about public policy. The runners-up, who each received $5,000, included former MP Jody Wilson-Raybould for "'Indian' in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power.''
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The Canadian Press
