Today in History for March 29:
On this date:
In 1139, Pope Innocent II made the Templars an independent unit within the Catholic Church. The order of knights had been created to protect pilgrims from bandits in the Holy Land.
In 1461, the bloodiest battle of England's ``War of the Roses'' was fought in Yorkshire. It ended with 28,000 dead and a victory for the House of York over the House of Lancaster.
In 1632, France recovered Canada from England through the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye.
In 1778, British explorer Sir James Cook landed at Nootka, now Vancouver, becoming the first European on the island.
In 1792, Sweden's King Gustav III died, nearly two weeks after being wounded during a masquerade party.
In 1848, Niagara Falls stopped flowing for the only time in recorded history. The flow was blocked for 30 hours by an ice jam at the Lake Erie entrance to the Niagara River.
In 1867, royal assent was given to the British North America Act, creating the Dominion of Canada. It took effect July 1. Exactly 115 years later -- on March 29, 1982 -- the bill patriating Canada's constitution also received royal assent.
In 1886, Atlanta chemist John Pemberton brewed up the first batch of a ``brain tonic'' over a backyard fire. He called it Coca-Cola, after its main ingredient -- coca leaves.
In 1918, Sam Walton, who founded the Arkansas-based Walmart department store chain, was born.
In 1922, fire destroyed the great basilica of Ste-Anne-de-Beaupre, Que. The shrine was built in 1658 by sailors who were saved from shipwreck.
In 1927, government control of liquor sales replaced Prohibition in Ontario.
In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of espionage charges in the U.S. They were executed in June 1953.
In 1965, the House of Commons approved the Canada Pension Plan. It was compulsory throughout the country, except in Quebec, where a comparable pension plan was established. It has been amended several times since it came into force on Jan. 1, 1966. Revisions include indexing the plan to the cost of living; making benefits payable as early as age 60; and extending benefits to same-sex and common-law partners.
In 1966, Muhammad Ali won a decision over Canadian heavyweight boxing champ George Chuvalo in a 15-round world title bout in Toronto.
In 1971, Yugoslav President Tito met with Pope Paul VI, becoming the first Communist head of state to visit the Vatican.
In 1971, U.S. Lt. William Calley was convicted of premeditated murder for ordering the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Calley spent a few days in prison before U.S. President Richard Nixon had him transferred to house arrest. He received full parole in 1974.
In 1974, the CBC announced the gradual withdrawal of commercials on its AM radio outlets. Not accepting advertising didn't mean a huge revenue loss for Canada's national public broadcaster, as commercial program sponsors had largely fled radio for television.
In 1976, comedian George Burns became the oldest actor, at the time, to win an Academy Award. At 80, he picked up the best supporting actor Oscar for ``The Sunshine Boys.'' Jessica Tandy was 80 when she won best actress honours for 1989's ``Driving Miss Daisy.'' (In 2012, Canadian Christopher Plummer won for best supporting actor at age 82.)
In 1976, Budge Crawley of Ottawa-based Crawley Films won the best feature-length documentary Oscar for ``The Man Who Skied Down Everest.'' It was the first Canadian feature film to win an Oscar.
In 1984, Lynn Williams of Toronto became the first Canadian president of the United Steel Workers of America.
In 1989, the Calgary Flames signed forward Sergei Priakin, the first Soviet player allowed to play in North America by his country's hockey federation.
In 1991, B.C. Social Credit Premier Bill Vander Zalm announced he would resign due to conflict-of-interest allegations. He was replaced by Rita Johnston, who became Canada's first woman premier. But she lost the subsequent provincial election to Mike Harcourt's NDP.
In 1993, Catherine Callbeck became Canada's first elected woman premier. Callbeck and her Prince Edward Island Liberals won 31 of 32 seats in a provincial election. The lone opposition seat went to another woman, Tory leader Pat Mella. Callbeck resigned in 1996.
In 1999, the Dow Jones industrial average closed over 10,000 for the first time.
In 2004, seven Eastern European countries, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Slovakia, formally joined NATO -- bringing the number of NATO members to 26.
In 2005, 56-year-old Brian Slobogian, president of Eron Mortgage Corp., which was behind what has been called the biggest fraud in B.C. history, was sentenced to six years in prison in connection with five failed Eron development projects.
In 2005, flamboyant U.S. lawyer Johnnie Cochran, who helped win an acquittal in O.J. Simpson's sensational 1995 murder trial, died at age 67.
In 2006, Private Robert Costall was killed and three other Canadian soldiers wounded in a day-long battle with Taliban forces at a military outpost in the Sangin district of Helmand province, 110 kilometres from Kandahar City.
In 2008, the Book Room, Canada's oldest bookstore, located in Halifax, closed its doors after 169 years because of economic difficulties.
In 2009, a gunman killed seven residents and a nurse at a nursing home in Carthage, N.C.
In 2010, Canadian Armed Forces closed their mission in Bosnia after 18 years of active participation in peace establishment and peacekeeping tasks. Since September 1991, more than 40,000 Canadian soldiers served in the Balkans in a variety of missions and roles.
In 2013, Ralph Klein, the popular, outspoken, Everyman premier who slew Alberta's debt dragon, died at the age of 70 after a battle with dementia and lung disease.
In 2014, same sex marriage became legal in England and Wales.
In 2015, an Air Canada plane attempting to land at the Halifax airport in the midst of snowstorm clipped an antenna array, losing its main landing gear. It slammed hard onto the ground some 300 metres short of the runway and bounced onto to it before skidding on its belly for another 335 metres until coming to a stop. Twenty-five of the 133 people on board were hospitalized but none of the injuries were life-threatening.
In 2016, former federal Liberal cabinet minister Jean Lapierre, his wife, two brothers and a sister were among seven killed in a plane crash in a field near the airport in Havre-aux-Maisons in the Iles-de-la-Madeleine as they headed to eastern Quebec to attend his father's funeral.
In 2016, nine members of one family, including three children under five, died in a house fire on Pikangikum First Nation, a remote northern community near the Manitoba-Ontario border.
In 2018, an Alberta Mountie was wounded and a fleeing suspect was fatally wounded in an exchange of gunfire near Evansburg, a small community about 100 kilometres west of Edmonton.
In 2018, Houston Astros George Springer became the first major leaguer to hit a leadoff homer in the season opener for the second year in a row.
In 2018, Japanese two-way player Shohei Ohtani singled in his first major league at bat and went 1-for-5 as the Los Angeles Angels' designated hitter. (He won his pitching debut on April 1.)
In 2019, Jody Wilson-Raybould said she took the ``extraordinary and otherwise inappropriate step'' of secretly recording a phone call with the country's top public servant just before Christmas because she feared the conversation would cross ethical lines and she wanted an exact account of what transpired. An audio recording and transcript of the call with Michael Wernick, then-clerk of the Privy Council, were released publicly in a package of material Wilson-Raybould submitted to the House of Commons justice committee, which was studying whether there was any political interference in a prosecution of Montreal engineering firm SNC-Lavalin.
In 2020, for the first time since the Second World War, Britain placed all parts of the country on an emergency footing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick called it ``an unprecedented step in peace time.''
In 2021, tugboats blared their horns in jubilation as they guided the newly freed container ship Ever Given' through the Suez Canal. The ship spent almost a week wedged sideways in the waterway, halting billions of dollars a day in maritime commerce.
In 2021, federal immunization experts changed their recommendations for the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization said the vaccine should not be used on people under the age of 55. It was approved the previous month for everyone over 18. But at the time, the committee said there weren't enough seniors included in clinical trials to be confident about how the vaccine would perform on people over the age of 65.
In 2024, nine people were detained in Tajikistan in connection with a deadly shooting at a Moscow concert hall. Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported the nine people were detained due to contact with the four suspects who allegedly opened fire at the Crocus City Hall music venue on March 22, killing 144 people. It further said the detainees were also suspected of having connections with the Islamic State group.
In 2024, new statistics showed Canadian exports of thermal coal increased another seven per cent the previous year to their highest level in almost a decade. The statistics from the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert show 19.5 million tonnes of thermal coal were exported through their terminals last year, up from more than 18 million tonnes in 2022. The boom came as Canada led a charge to end the use of coal as a source of power worldwide.
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The Canadian Press