Today in History for Jan. 6:
In A.D. 548, the Jerusalem church observed Christmas on this date for the last time as the Western church moved to celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ on Dec. 25.
In 1412, St. Joan of Arc was born at Domremy in the French countryside.
In 1540, England's King Henry VIII married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. (The marriage lasted about six months.)
In 1643, Paul de Chomedy, Sieur de Maisonneuve, planted a cross on Mount Royal in what is now Montreal. It was his way of offering thanks that the settlement of Ville-Marie was saved from flooding.
In 1786, the first sitting of the New Brunswick legislature took place in Saint John.
In 1832, artist Gustave Dore, known for his drawings and lithographs for the Bible, "Dante's Inferno" and other works, was born in Strasbourg, France.
In 1838, Samuel Morse made the first public demonstration of his telegraph in Morristown, N.J.
In 1877, Canada's first flour mill, MacLean's, began operation in Manitoba.
In 1884, Gregor Mendel, an Augustine monk who pioneered the study of heredity by crossing garden peas, died in Brno in present-day Czech Republic.
In 1898, the first telephone message was sent to land from a submerged submarine.
In 1912, New Mexico was made the 47th U.S. state.
In 1918, while diving to escape German fighters, Canadian pilot Captain J. Hedley was sucked from his seat and out of the plane. When the plane levelled out, the aviator was sitting safely near the tail. The slipstream had pulled him back to the plane.
In 1920, delegates from provincial farm political groups organized the Progressive Party in Winnipeg.
In 1936, Barbara Hanley became Canada's first woman mayor when she was elected in the Northern Ontario town of Webbwood.
In 1938, Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychoanalysis, arrived in London at age 82 with several of his students after fleeing the Nazi persecution of Jews in Vienna.
In 1941, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his "Four Freedoms" speech in which he outlined his goals of freedom of speech and worship, freedom from want and fear.
In 1953, Vancouver's longest wet spell on record began. The city had rain for 29 straight days. (Victoria received rain 33 days in a row in 1986.)
In 1960, 34 people were killed when a National Airlines DC-6 disintegrated en route from New York to Miami, apparently because of a bomb.
In 1966, The Drum, the first newspaper of its kind in the Arctic, began publishing in English, Inuit and Kutchin.
In 1971, Dr. C.H. Li and Dr. Philip R. Lee, both of the University of California, announced the first artificial synthesis of human growth hormone.
In 1974, the Global Television Network (now CanWest-Global), Canada's third English-language television network, began programming in southern Ontario.
In 1978, the Sun Life Assurance Company set off a storm of controversy in Quebec when it announced plans to move its head office from Montreal to Toronto.
In 1982, truck driver William G. Bonin was convicted in Los Angeles of 10 of the "Freeway Killer" slayings of young men and boys. (Bonin was later convicted of four other killings; he was executed in 1996.)
In 1989, Saskatchewan painter Illingworth Kerr died in Calgary at age 83.
In 1992, a Quebec judge ruled that a 25-year-old woman known only as Nancy B. had the right to die. She had a rare neurological disease for which there was no cure and was paralyzed from the neck down. After a 30-day appeal period, she was removed from life support on Feb. 13.
In 1993, celebrated Russian ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev died in Paris of AIDS at age 54. He had electrified audiences for three decades after defecting from the Soviet Union in 1961.
In 1994, American figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the leg by an assailant at Cobo Arena in Detroit. Four men, including Jeff Gillooly, ex-husband of Kerrigan's rival, Tonya Harding, were later sentenced to prison for their roles in the attack. Harding, who denied advance knowledge of the attack, received probation after pleading guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution.
In 1997, the federal government apologized for suggesting Brian Mulroney was involved in criminal activity in what came to be known as the Airbus Affair. The apology was part of an out-of-court settlement of the former Tory prime minister's $50-million libel suit against the government. Mulroney had been named in a document circulated among Swiss government and banking officials. It suggested that while in office, he was involved in an alleged kickback scheme involving Air Canada's 1988 purchase of 34 Airbus jets.
In 1999, it was announced that Prince Edward, 34, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth, would marry Sophie Rhys-Jones. (They were married on June 19.)
In 2004, China killed thousands of civet cats to curb SARS.
In 2005, former premier Louis J. Robichaud, widely regarded as the architect of modern New Brunswick, died at age 79.
In 2007, Charmion King, grande dame of Canadian theatre and wife of actor Gordon Pincent, died at age 81.
In 2008, two Canadian soldiers, Cpl. Eric Labbe and Warrant Officer Hani Massouh, were killed when their armoured vehicle rolled over in wet, rugged terrain southwest of Kandahar city in Afghanistan.
In 2008, Kosovo's parliament elected a former rebel leader, Hashim Thaci, as prime minister to head a coalition government that would steer the province through a declaration of independence from Serbia. Western countries, including Canada, supported Kosovo's statehood.
In 2010, former Montreal Expo Andre Dawson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his ninth try.
In 2012, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed seven new senators, including Betty Unger, the first woman electee to the upper chamber. Unger, who filled a vacancy in Alberta, was the choice of more than 300,000 people for a Senate seat in a 2004 ballot in that province.
In 2012, Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, was among 22 new cardinals named by Pope Benedict XVI. Collins was formally elevated on Feb. 18.
In 2012, seven months after the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver, Ryan Dickinson, 20, became the first person convicted in the rampage. Dickinson pleaded guilty to participating in a riot and was later sentenced to 17 months in jail.
In 2013, the NHL and its players association agreed to a tentative 10-year deal to end the 113-day lockout. It was ratified three days later enabling the league to salvage the season with a truncated 48-game schedule that began on Jan. 19.
In 2016, in his first year of eligibility, Ken Griffey Jr. was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with a record 99.3 per cent of the vote and became the first No. 1 draft pick voted to Cooperstown. Mike Piazza, the top offensive catcher in baseball history, was also elected and became the lowest draft pick (1,390) to make the Hall.
In 2019, Sandra Oh won the Golden Globe for best TV drama actress for her role in "Killing Eve." The Ottawa-born actress thanked her parents, who were in the Beverly Hilton Hotel ballroom to watch Oh win her second Golden Globe Award, and also co-host the ceremony. She won her first Globe in 2006 for "Grey's Anatomy."
In 2019, Bianca Andreescu's (ahn-DREESH'-koo-zz) impressive showing at the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand came to a disappointing end. The 18-year old from Mississauga, Ont., fell to Germany's Julia Goerges (GOR'-jez) in three sets. Andreescu knocked off court titans Caroline Wozniacki and Venus Williams on the way to her first-ever WTA final. She jumped 45 positions to a career-high No. 107 in the world rankings after her surprising run.
In 2020, dozens of new marijuana products became available in retail shops in Ontario, including a variety of vapes, edibles and a tea.
In 2020, a new case was brought against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein on the eve of jury selection for his New York trial. He was charged with raping one woman and sexually assaulting another in separate incidents in Los Angeles in 2013
In 2020, the Montreal Alouettes' ownership saga ended when the CFL announced during a news conference in Montreal that businessmen Sid Spiegel and Gary Stern of Toronto-based Crawford Steel were the new owners of the franchise. The announcement culminated months of speculation regarding the Alouettes' ownership situation. The CFL had owned the Alouettes since May when American businessman Bob Wetenhall sold the club to the league.
In 2021, the European Union's medicines agency gave approval to Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine.
In 2021, renowned French-born chef and restauranteur Albert Roux died at the age of 85. Along with his late brother Michel, Roux had a profound influence on British dining habits. The brothers' restaurant in London, Le Gavroche, was frequented by a loyal clientele that included many of the icons of the Swinging Sixties. Over the years, well-known chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, Marco Pierre White and Marcus Wareing trained at the French restaurant -- the first in Britain to be awarded three Michelin Stars.
In 2021, world leaders condemned the storming of the U-S Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. Leaders expressed shock at the chaos that unfolded in a country they once relied upon for global leadership. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians are deeply disturbed and saddened by what happened. U-S president-elect Joe Biden called the violent protests on the Capitol "an assault on the most sacred of American undertakings: the doing of the people's business.''
In 2021, Democrats won both Georgia Senate seats, securing a U-S Senate majority. Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeated Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. US President Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992.
In 2021, Quebec became the first province in Canada to impose a curfew to slow the spread of COVID-19 cases. The curfew prohibited people from leaving their homes between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. unless they're going to work. Premier Francois Legault said he wanted the measure to serve as "shock therapy" for Quebecers, to understand the dire situation in overburdened hospitals. Protests soon followed in Montreal, with protesters denouncing the measures as needlessly harsh, damaging to mental health, and not rooted in established science about how the virus spreads.
In 2022, Sidney Poitier, the groundbreaking actor who transformed how Black people were portrayed on screen, died. He was 94. Poitier was the son of Bahamian tomato farmers, and became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw. Before Poitier, few Black actors were permitted a break from the stereotypes of servants and entertainers.
In 2024, Hezbollah fired 62 rockets at an Israeli air surveillance base just days after the killing of a top Hamas leader in Beirut. The rocket attack followed comments from Hezbollah's leader saying his group will retaliate for the killing of Saleh Arouri, the deputy political leader of Hamas.
In 2024, U.S. federal officials ordered the immediate grounding of all Boeing 737-9 Max jetliners a day after a mid-air fuselage blow-out on an Alaska Airlines plane shortly after takeoff above Oregon, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing. The required inspections affected about 171 airplanes worldwide.
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The Canadian Press