Today in History for Oct. 8:
On this date:
In 1354, Italian revoluntionary Cola di Rienzi was murdered.
In 1642, Jeanne Mance established the first hospital in Montreal, the Hotel-Dieu.
In 1871, a huge fire destroyed the heart of Chicago. According to legend, the fire started in Mrs. O'Leary's barn after a cow kicked over a lantern. Some 250 people were killed and 98,500 left homeless.
In 1877, Wilfrid Laurier became minister of inland revenue in Alexander Mackenzie's cabinet.
In 1881, a typhoon and tidal wave killed 300,000 people in China and Indo-China.
In 1903, the United States and China signed a commercial treaty.
In 1904, the cities of Edmonton, Alta., and Prince Albert, Sask., were incorporated.
In 1906, German-born hair stylist Karl Nessler introduced permanent waving at his London salon.
In 1912, the Balkan Alliance, comprising Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece, declared war on Turkey.
In 1913, the first commercial inter-city flight in Canada was made by W. Robinson from Montreal to Ottawa.
In 1925, Eileen Joel became the first female jockey to win a horse race when she won England's Newmarket Town Plate.
In 1934, Bruno Hauptmann was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey for murder in the death of the son of Charles A. Lindbergh. He was later convicted and executed.
In 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman announced the United States would retain the secret of the atomic bomb and that only Britain and Canada would share the knowledge.
In 1951, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip arrived in Montreal to start a cross-Canada tour.
In 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series to date as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0. New York ended up winning the series in seven games. Exactly one year later, the Dodgers announced they were moving to Los Angeles.
In 1958, a Swedish heart patient received the world's first implanted pacemaker. Arne Larsson was out of the Stockholm hospital within two weeks. He received 26 more pacemakers until his death at age 86 on Dec. 28, 2001.
In 1970, Soviet author Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.
In 1971, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that native women could no longer lose their rights for marrying non-natives.
In 1982, the Polish parliament overwhelmingly approved a law abolishing all existing labour organizations, including the independent trade union Solidarity.
In 1984, Ontario Premier William Davis announced his retirement.
In 1989, 12 people died and 45 were injured after a tractor-trailer loaded with logs toppled into a hay wagon carrying people celebrating a family reunion in Cormier Village, N.B. A 13th victim died later.
In 1992, Willy Brandt, 78, chancellor of West Germany from 1969-74, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to overcome the Cold War division of Europe, died.
In 1996, Gen. Jean Boyle resigned as chief of defence staff. He had been under pressure to resign after giving testimony before the Somalia inquiry where he admitted breaking the spirit of Access to Information Act.
In 1998, Canada and the Netherlands were voted into the UN Security Council.
In 2001, Pope John Paul beatified Montreal nun Emilie Tavernier Gamelin at a ceremony at the Vatican. She founded Montreal's Sisters of Providence religious community in 1843.
In 2001, Canada announced it would contribute six ships, six aircraft and more than 2,000 service personnel to the American-led coalition against terrorism.
In 2002, in a landmark ruling, the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board awarded worker's compensation to cancer sufferer Heather Crowe. The former waitress developed lung cancer after being exposed to second-hand smoke at bars and restaurants where she worked for 40 years. She died May 22, 2006, at age 61.
In 2004, Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work as leader of the Green Belt Movement, which has sought to empower women, improve the environment and fight corruption in Africa for almost 30 years. Maathai was the first African woman to win the prize, first awarded in 1901.
In 2004, Elizabeth Weir stepped down as leader of the New Brunswick NDP after 16 years. She was the only New Democrat in the 55-seat legislature and had been the sole sitting member of her party since she was first elected in 1991.
In 2005, an earthquake killed an estimated 86,000 people in northern Pakistan and the Indian territory of Kashmir.
In 2008, Japan's Osamu Shimomura and Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien won the 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discovery of a green fluorescent protein that has revolutionized the ability to study disease and normal development in living organisms.
In 2009, Zakaria Amara pleaded guilty to charges related to the Toronto 18 terrorist plot to set off fertilizer bombs in Toronto. He was the fourth adult to admit guilt in the affair.
In 2010, imprisoned Chinese democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize -- an award that drew furious condemnation from the authoritarian government and calls from world leaders including Stephen Harper for Liu's quick release. Liu, 54, was sentenced in 2009 to 11 years in prison for subversion. The Nobel committee said he was the first to be honoured while still in prison.
In 2013, voters in Nova Scotia dumped the one-term NDP and gave Stephen McNeil's Liberals a majority government with 33 seats in the 51-seat legislature. The NDP government was the first in 131 years to be denied a second term in Nova Scotia.
In 2013, Power Corp. founder Paul Desmarais, one of Canada's most influential business tycoons and a staunch federalist, died at the age of 86.
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(The Canadian Press)
The Canadian Press
