Today in History for July 14:
On this date:
In 1430, Joan of Arc, taken prisoner by the Burgundians in May, was handed over to Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais.
In 1789, a Paris mob stormed the notorious Bastille prison and released seven political prisoners during the French Revolution. Bastille Day is now a national holiday in France.
In 1865, a team led by British mountain climber Edward Whymper became the first to reach the summit of the Matterhorn, on the Swiss-Italian border. Four members of the team fell to their deaths during the descent when a rope broke.
In 1867, Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England.
In 1881, American outlaw gunfighter William Bonney -- better known as "Billy the Kid" -- was shot to death by Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
In 1915, Sir Robert Borden became the first Canadian prime minister to attend a British cabinet meeting.
In 1924, former U.S. president Gerald Ford was born. He died Dec. 26, 2006.
In 1933, Robert Bourassa was born in Montreal. He served as Quebec's premier from 1970-76 and again from 1985-94. He died of cancer in 1996.
In 1933, "Popeye the Sailor Man" appeared in his first cartoon.
In 1933, the National Socialist -- or Nazi -- party was declared the only legal political group in Germany. The proclamation paved the way for the establishment of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship, which ruled until 1945. Hitler enforced the party's policies of extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism through brown-shirted storm troopers, his elite SS Guard and the Gestapo, the secret police.
In 1960, British researcher Jane Goodall arrived at the Gombe Stream Reserve in the Tanganyika Territory (in present-day Tanzania) to begin her famous study of chimpanzees in the wild.
In 1965, "Mariner 4" circled Mars, taking the first close-up photographs of the red planet.
In 1966, eight student nurses were murdered in Chicago by Richard Speck. Sentenced to eight consecutive life prison terms, Speck died in 1991.
In 1968, a 24-day strike by St. Lawrence Seaway workers ended. The 1,200 members of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Transport and General Workers ratified an agreement calling for a 19 per cent wage increase over three years.
In 1970, the freighter Eastcliffe Hall sank in the St. Lawrence River off Chrysler's Park and Marina, with the loss of nine lives. An inquiry later blamed the accident on the drunken captain and the first mate.
In 1972, Donald Macdonald, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, was elected the first non-European president of the 91-country International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
In 1976, the House of Commons passed a bill to abolish the death penalty. After debating the issue for more than two months, the bill was approved by a 130-124 vote. At the time, there were 11 men on death row awaiting the noose, although the last hangings had occurred in 1962.
In 1978, Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky was convicted of treasonous espionage and anti-Soviet agitation, and was sentenced to 13 years at hard labour. He was released in 1986.
In 1978, the Inuit agreed to take 95,000 square kilometres of the western Arctic and $45 million in return for renouncing all claims to about 500,000 square kilometres, including the resource-rich Mackenzie River Delta.
In 1980, 23 patients died when fire swept through a nursing home in Mississauga, Ont.
In 1995, the Red Cross began recalling plasma products possibly contaminated with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It was Canada's largest-ever recall of blood products.
In 1996, American driver Jeff Krosnoff and Calgary race marshal Gary Avrin were killed when Krosnoff's car crashed during the 11th running of the Molson Indy in Toronto. Another marshal was injured.
In 1996, Hilda Watson, the first woman to lead a political party in Canada -- Yukon's Progressive Conservative party in 1978 -- died in Haines Junction, Yukon at age 74.
In 1999, Major league umpires voted to resign Sept. 2 and not work the final month of the season. The strategy collapsed, with baseball owners accepting the resignations of 22 umpires.
In 2000, a tornado hit a campground at Pine Lake near Red Deer, Alta., where nearly 1,000 people from across Canada and around the world were holidaying. Eleven people died, including a two-year-old child from Brampton, Ont. A 12th person died in hospital a month later.
In 2000, a Miami jury ruled five big U.S. tobacco companies must pay US$145 billion in punitive damages to a sick smoker in Florida. A circuit court judge upheld the award on Nov. 6.
In 2014, the Church of England overwhelmingly voted to allow women to become bishops, marking a 20-year process since ordination of the first female priests.
In 2015, after long, fractious negotiations, world powers and Iran struck an historic deal to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions. The agreement was aimed at averting the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and another U.S. military intervention in the Middle East. (In May 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the accord and abruptly restored harsh sanctions.)
In 2016, a large truck plowed through revellers gathered for Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 85 people and injuring 300 others as it bore down for nearly two kilometres along the famed waterfront Promenade des Anglais. The carnage ended when the terrorist, a 31-year-old Tunisian-born Nice resident, died in a shootout with police.
In 2018, Angelique Kerber claimed her first Wimbledon women's singles title with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over seven-time champion Serena Williams, leaving Kerber just the French Open title to complete a career Grand Slam.
In 2018, English Premier League star Wayne Rooney made his Major League Soccer debut as a second-half substitute and assisted on the third goal in D.C. United's 3-1 victory over the visiting Vancouver Whitecaps in the first game played at Audi Field.
In 2019, Simon Pagenaud (see-MOHN' PAH'-jeh-noh) won the Honda Indy for the first time in his career. Pagenaud topped the field on the 2.89-kilometre, 11-turn street course that winds around Exhibition Place on Toronto's lakefront. It was a near-perfect weekend for the Frenchman, who started from the pole.
In 2019, Novak Djokovic (NOH'-vak JOH'-kuh-vich) has become the first man in 71 years to win Wimbledon after facing match points in the final, coming back to beat Roger Federer in an unprecedented fifth-set tiebreaker. The top-seeded Serb outlasted Federer 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 13-12 (3) in a match that lasted nearly five hours to win his fifth championship at the All England Club and second in a row. The triumph earned Djokovic his 16th Grand Slam trophy, moving him closer to the only men ahead of him in tennis history: Federer with 20, and Rafael Nadal with 18. This was the first year Wimbledon has used deciding-set tiebreakers.
In 2020, one of the co-hosts of the popular Discovery channel show "Mythbusters'' died. Grant Imahara died suddenly of a brain aneurysm at the age of 49.
In 2021, researchers from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto said alcohol was linked to thousands of cancer cases in Canada last year. Those findings were part of a modelling study from the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer.
In 2021, Chiefs in Manitoba re-elected Arlen Dumas as the head of the organization representing First Nations in the province. The Cree leader beat out Sheila North, a former grand chief of the large First Nations group MKO. Dumas was first elected as grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs in 2017.
In 2022, Hockey Canada said it was reopening a third-party investigation into an alleged sexual assault involving members of the country's 2018 world junior team. The organization said participation in the investigation by the players in question was mandatory. The alleged assault occurred at a Hockey Canada function in 2018.
In 2022, Health Canada approved a COVID-19 vaccine for infants and preschoolers. It said Moderna's two-dose vaccine was safe for children between the ages of six months and five years. The doses were one-quarter the size of adult doses.
In 2023, Hydro-Quebec crews worked to restore power to about 170,000 customers after severe thunderstorms, and at least one tornado, hit the province the day before. An entire month's worth of rain fell in just two hours, flooding underpasses and more than 130 homes, while winds gusting to almost 100 kilometres an hour knocked down trees and power lines.
In 2024, "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Charmed" television star Shannen Doherty died at age 53. A statement from the actors publicist said she died after years with breast cancer. In December 2016, Doherty posted a photo of her first day of radiation, calling the treatment "frightening'' for her. Later in February 2020 she revealed that the cancer had returned and she was at stage four. As a child star, Doherty worked steadily in TV series' such as "Little House on the Prairie,'' in which she played Jenny Wilder.
In 2024, former NFL receiver Jacoby Jones died at the age of 40. Jones's 108-yard kickoff return in 2013 remains the longest touchdown in Super Bowl history. The NFL Players Association and his family say he died at his home in New Orleans. A cause of death was not given. Jones played from 2007-15 for the Texans, Baltimore Ravens, San Diego Chargers and Pittsburgh Steelers, while also playing a critical role in several huge plays for the Ravens during their most recent Super Bowl title season.
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The Canadian Press