Today in History for April 16:
In 556, Roman-born Pope Pelagius I became the 60th successor of St. Peter. He built the Church of the Twelve Apostles.
In 1189, St. Drogo, also called Druon, a Flemish saint who became a hermit in Sebourg, France, died. Today, he's known as the patron saint of shepherds.
In 1825, Thomas Cochrane was appointed the first resident Governor of Newfoundland. He served until 1827.
In 1862, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia.
In 1867, American aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright was born.
In 1874, Provencher MP Louis Riel was expelled from the Commons as a fugitive. The Metis leader was wanted in Ontario for the 1870 execution of Orangeman Thomas Scott during the ``Red River Uprising.''
In 1879, St. Bernadette Soubirous died at age 35 in Nevers, France. She was the humble visionary at Lourdes to whom Mary, the mother of Jesus, confirmed ``I am the Immaculate Conception.''
In 1887, a rebuilt and enlarged Welland Canal opened for navigation between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
In 1889, actor-director Charlie Chaplin, the man behind film classics such as ``The Tramp'' and ``Modern Times,'' was born in London. He died in 1977.
In 1895, the city of Chatham, Ont., was incorporated.
In 1907, Joseph-Armand Bombardier was born in Valcourt, Que. He invented the snowmobile in 1937, launching the Canadian manufacturing giant that bears his name.
In 1907, the McGill University medical building in Montreal was destroyed by fire.
In 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel. She used a Bleriot monoplane to travel from Dover, England to Hardelot, France.
In 1917, Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia after years of exile following the overthrow of Czar Nicholas II.
In 1947, the French ship ``Grandcamp,'' carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, blew up at the harbour in Texas City, Texas. Another ship, the ``High Flyer,'' exploded the following day. The blasts and resulting fires killed nearly 600 people.
In 1949, Hall of Fame thoroughbred jockey Sandy Hawley was born in Oshawa, Ont. He rode in 31,456 races, winning 6,450 of them and more than $88 million in purse earnings.
In 1962, Walter Cronkite made his debut as anchor of ``The CBS Evening News,'' succeeding Douglas Edwards. Cronkite lasted 19 years at the anchor desk before Dan Rather succeeded him in 1981.
In 1976, a plan aimed at ending civil war in Lebanon was announced in Damascus following a meeting between Syrian President Hafez Assad and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat.
In 1992, David Milgaard was released from a Manitoba prison after serving nearly 23 years for the 1969 murder of Saskatoon nursing aide Gail Miller. The Saskatchewan government declined to retry Milgaard after the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new trial. DNA evidence cleared Milgaard in 1997, and he later received $7 million in compensation from the federal and Saskatchewan governments.
In 1995, a deal was reached to end a turbot fishing dispute between Canada and the European Union. The agreement gave Spain a higher turbot quota in the North Atlantic in return for tougher quota enforcement measures.
In 1999, Wayne Gretzky announced that he was retiring from pro hockey after 20 phenomenal NHL seasons. The announcement, at a packed news conference at Madison Square Garden in New York, came less than a day after an emotional farewell game on Canadian soil at the Corel Centre in Kanata, Ont.
In 2002, Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok and his cabinet resigned en masse over a report condemning the government's actions during the 1995 Bosnian War.
In 2003, Jack Donohue, the former Canadian national basketball coach who led teams to Olympic and world championships, died at age 71.
In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a mentally-disturbed student, killed two people in a dormitory at Virginia Tech University and then two hours later, opened fire in a classroom building on campus before taking his own life. In all, 32 people were killed in the worst school shooting rampage in U.S. history. Montreal-born Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a teacher, was among the victims.
In 2011, Allan Blakeney, a former Saskatchewan premier who was instrumental in the creation of Canada's publicly funded health care system and the patriation of the Constitution, died following short battle with cancer. He was 85.
In 2014, more than 300 passengers, mostly teenagers on a school trip, were killed in the sinking of a ferry off South Korea, causing nationwide grief and fury. Officials blamed crew members' negligence, untimely rescue efforts and corruption by the ship's owners for the tragedy. (In November, the captain was sentenced to 36 years in prison for negligence and abandoning passengers, but acquitted of homicide. The ship's chief engineer was sentenced to 30 years in prison and 13 other crew members to up to 20 years in prison.)
In 2016, a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Ecuador, killing more than 650 people, including four Canadians, and injuring thousands.
In 2018, Canadian figure skater Patrick Chan announced his retirement after more than a decade on the world stage. He won Olympic gold as part of the team event at Pyeongchang, a pair of silver medals at the Sochi Games, three world titles and was the national champion a record 10 times.
In 2018, Harry Anderson, the actor best known for playing an off-the-wall judge working the night shift of a Manhattan court room in the TV comedy series ``Night Court,'' was found dead in his North Carolina. He was 65.
In 2019, Premier Rachel Notley and her NDP government was knocked from the saddle by Jason Kenney whose United Conservatives won a majority in the Alberta election. The UCP, formed two years earlier by a merger of the Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose parties, claimed the lion's share of rural seats and captured many seats in Calgary. Notley's NDP held on to its traditional base in Edmonton, which it swept in 2015, but was pushed out in many of the surrounding municipalities, rural ridings and Calgary constituencies it captured four years earlier. Kenney is a former federal Conservative cabinet minister under Stephen Harper. He successfully leveraged voter angst over Alberta's sluggish economy with a jobs, jobs, jobs message and a promise to wage war on all who oppose its oil and gas industry.
In 2020, the PGA Tour cancelled the 2020 RBC Canadian Open due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The four-day tournament was set to begin June 11 in Toronto.
In 2020, even though he was still 17 when he shot and killed four people and injured seven others, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled lower courts were right in sentencing Randan Dakota Fontaine as an adult. The high court decided it would not hear an appeal from the young man who devastated the Dene community of La Loche, Sask., four years ago. The teen pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, second-degree murder and attempted murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.
In 2020, actor Brian Dennehy died at 81. Known for his burly frame, booming voice and ability to portray both good guys and bad guys, Dennehy won two Tony Awards and a Golden Globe and was nominated for six Emmys.
In 2020, Canada's COVID-19 caseload pushed past the 30,000 mark. Canada's chief public health officer said more than 90 per cent of those victims were over the age of 60, and half of them lived in long-term care homes.
In 2023, the federal government announced that Hockey Canada will be reinstated for funding. Canadian Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge told reporters she set three conditions for the organization to meet if they wanted government funding and they've met those conditions. Hockey Canada saw its funding shut off by the federal government after it was revealed a woman alleged she was sexually assaulted by eight players in 2018.
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The Canadian Press