Today in History for Oct. 31:
Today is Halloween. The word "Halloween," comes from a contraction of "All Hallows Eve," the night before a Catholic holiday in honour of saints. One Celtic story says that on Oct. 31st, disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess. Naturally, the still-living didn't want to be possessed. So on the night of Oct. 31st, Celtic villagers extinguished the fires in their homes to make them cold and undesirable. Then they dressed up in ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighbourhood, being as destructive as possible, in order to frighten away spirits.
Also on this date:
In 1517, Martin Luther, Christian reformer and Bible translator, nailed his 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg Palace Church. It marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany. Luther's manifesto criticized the prevalent papal practice of remission of sins in exchange for money.
In 1795, English poet John Keats was born in London.
In 1864, Nevada became the 36th U.S. state.
In 1869, the first issue of the "Canadian Illustrated News" was published in Montreal. It was the first periodical to reproduce a photograph.
In 1872, Oliver Mowat assumed office as premier of Ontario and leader of the Ontario Liberal party.
In 1873, an international railway bridge was completed across the Niagara River at Buffalo.
In 1902, the first Pacific telegraph line from Canada to Australia was completed. It connected Vancouver with Brisbane, Australia.
In 1918, Turkey surrendered and signed an armistice in the First World War, which ended 12 days later.
In 1926, magician Harry Houdini died in Detroit at age 52 of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured spleen. He had been punched in the stomach during a demonstration at a performance in Montreal 10 days earlier.
In 1938, the day after his "War of the Worlds" broadcast had panicked radio listeners, Orson Welles expressed "deep regret" but also bewilderment that anyone had thought the simulated Martian invasion was real.
In 1941, the Navy destroyer "USS Reuben James" was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland with the loss of some 100 lives, even though the United States had not yet entered the Second World War.
In 1943, a Moscow conference of foreign ministers concluded with a declaration calling for the establishment of a general international organization to maintain peace and security. The United Nations was established in 1945.
In 1950, the 1,770-km oil pipeline from Edmonton to the Great Lakes was completed.
In 1955, Princess Margaret announced that she would not marry Capt. Peter Townsend.
In 1956, American Rear Admiral G.J. Dufek became the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole.
In 1959, a former U.S. Marine showed up at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to declare he was renouncing his American citizenship so he could live in the Soviet Union. His name: Lee Harvey Oswald.
In 1967, Lt.-Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu took the oath of office as first president of South Vietnam's second republic.
In 1968, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered a halt to all bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hoped his action would lead to fruitful peace talks.
In 1973, the United States ended its worldwide military alert called during hostilities in the Middle East.
In 1977, the James Bay Land Claims Agreement, Canada's first modern treaty with natives, became law. The agreement transferred aboriginal rights from the native people of Quebec in return for $225 million, hunting and fishing rights and substantial self-government. The treaty paved the way for the James Bay Hydroelectric Project, which diverted rivers, created the world's largest underground powerhouse and built dams and dikes.
In 1979, seventy-two of the 89 passengers aboard a U.S. jet were killed as the airliner, bound from Los Angeles, crashed on its landing at fog-shrouded Mexico City airport.
In 1982, Pope John Paul II canonized Marguerite Bourgeois. The Quebec nun, who died in 1700 at age 79, was Canada's first woman saint. She arrived in Montreal in 1657 and opened her first school for girls a year later.
In 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Gandhi was killed by two of her Sikh bodyguards as she left her home in New Delhi. The attack was apparently in revenge for a raid on the Sikh's Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Indian army.
In 1986, the federal government awarded a $1.4-billion contract to Canadair Ltd. to maintain Canada's CF-18 fighters.
In 1994, a Chicago-bound American Eagle ATR-72 crashed in northern Indiana, killing all 68 people aboard.
In 1995, Jacques Parizeau announced his resignation as premier of Quebec, a day after the "No" side won the sovereignty referendum by one percentage point.
In 1996, a Brazilian jetliner crashed shortly after takeoff into a residential neighborhood of Sao Paulo, killing all 96 people on board and eight on the ground.
In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada, in a landmark ruling, said a "woman and her unborn child are one" and nobody has the legal right to interfere with a pregnant woman whose behaviour threatens her fetus.
In 1997, Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner made history when they called their first NBA game. They were the first female referees in the all-male professional league.
In 1999, Greg Moore, of Maple Ridge, B.C., a boyish racing prodigy who made a career out of winning young, died after crashing into a wall at 350 km/h during the final CART race of the year at California Speedway. He was 24.
In 1999, Charles Peters, former publisher of the "Montreal Gazette" and president of The Canadian Press from 1958-59, died at 92.
In 1999, an EgyptAir jetliner bound for Cairo crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Nantucket Island, Mass., 33 minutes after taking off from New York's JFK Airport, killing all 217 on board, including 21 Canadians.
In 1999, the final curtain was lowered on the Toronto production of "The Phantom of the Opera" after 4,226 performances over 10 years,
In 1999, a Colombian man -- Luis Alfredo Garavito -- thought to be one of the worst serial killers of all time, confessed to killing at least 140 children.
In 2000, the Queen Mother became only the fifth non-Canadian to be awarded the Order of Canada at a London ceremony with Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.
In 2000, a Singapore Airlines jumbo jet crashed while trying to take off on the wrong runway in Taipei, killing 81 of the 179 people on board.
In 2000, the UN Security Council passed a resolution urging all parties to take special measures to protect girls and women from sexual abuse in war zones and refugee camps.
In 2000, American astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts rocketed into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket on a quest to become the first residents of the International Space Station.
In 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 5-4 to grant penitentiary inmates the right to vote in federal elections.
In 2002, a strong earthquake collapsed a school during a Halloween party in the southern Italian village of San Giuliano di Puglia, killing 26 children and three adults.
In 2003, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was sworn in as Malaysian prime minister, ending Mahathir Mohamad's 22-year reign.
In 2004, the last passenger flight took off from Mirabel International Airport just outside Montreal as it shut down after 30 years. Millions of passengers had been expected to pass through Mirabel's modern terminal after it opened in 1975, but it didn't live up to its promise. The airport authority was looking for developers to offer ideas for the facility.
In 2005, Barrick Gold Corp. bid $9.2-billion for Vancouver-based Placer Dome in deal to create the world's largest gold miner.
In 2006, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced a new tax on income trusts, which he said were costing too much in lost tax revenue. The move sparked outrage because the Conservatives had promised during the previous election campaign they would not tax the trusts.
In 2006, former South African apartheid-era leader P.W. Botha died at age 90. Botha led the country through its worst racial violence and deepest international isolation. He resisted pressure to release South Africa's most famous political prisoner, Nelson Mandela, who was freed by Botha's successor, F.W. de Klerk in 1990.
In 2007, three lead defendants in the 2004 Madrid train bombings were found guilty of mass murder and other charges, but four other top suspects were convicted on lesser charges and an accused ringleader was acquitted in the attacks that killed 191 people.
In 2010, a military jury decided Canadian war-criminal Omar Khadr deserved to serve 40 more years behind bars for war crimes, but their decision was overruled by a pre-trial agreement that capped his sentence at eight years. The agreement in exchange for a guilty plea, would see Khadr serve one more year in U.S. custody, where he had been for the past eight years. The U.S. government would then support his bid to apply to serve the rest of his sentence in a Canadian prison. (He was returned to Canada on Sept. 29, 2012, to serve out the remainder of his sentence. In 2015, he was granted bail pending his appeal of the convictions in the U.S.)
In 2010, undone by poor strategy and changing tastes, General Motors ended the Pontiac brand after 84 years.
In 2010, Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla who was tortured and imprisoned during Brazil's long dictatorship, was elected as president of Latin America's biggest nation. When she took office on Jan. 1, 2011 she became Brazil's first female leader. (In August 2016, she was impeached and removed from office for the rest of her term.)
In 2010, golfer Lee Westwood overtook Tiger Woods as No. 1 in the world rankings, ending his record run of 281 weeks.
In 2011, NATO ended its seven-month air campaign over Libya and military action to protect civilians. It actually stopped its bombing missions soon after dictator Moammar Gadhafi's capture and death on Oct. 20, but had kept up regular air patrols. Canadian warplanes flew hundreds of bombing missions over the North African country in the spring and summer, while Canadian frigates patrolled offshore.
In 2011, the UN Population Fund reported the world's population reached seven billion people.
In 2011, UNESCO, the UN cultural body, admitted Palestine as a full member. Canada and the U.S., both staunch allies of Israel, were among the 14 countries opposed. The U.S. promptly cut its funding to the organization.
In 2013, the drug scandal involving Toronto Mayor Rob Ford exploded around the world when police indicated they had found an alleged video that appeared to show him smoking crack cocaine.
In 2014, Justin Bourque, who fatally shot three Mounties and wounded two others in a June 4 shooting rampage in Moncton, N.B., was sentenced to 75 years in prison, the harshest penalty since the last state-sanctioned executions in 1962.
In 2014, Independent MP Dean Del Mastro was found guilty on all counts of exceeding spending limits during the federal campaign in 2008. The former Conservative member resigned his seat in the House of Commons less than a week later. (In June 2015, he was sentenced to one month in jail and 18 months probation.)
In 2014, the Virgin Galactic space tourism rocket, known as SpaceShipTwo, exploded after taking off on a test flight in Southern California's Mojave Desert, killing the pilot and seriously injuring the co-pilot.
In 2015, a Russian passenger plane crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula just 20 minutes after taking off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh en route to St. Petersburg, killing all 224 people on board. ISIL claimed it shot down the plane but American and British officials said it was most likely a bomb.
In 2015, Triple Crown champion American Pharoah completed the first-ever Grand Slam with a 6 1/2 lengths victory at the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic in his final race before retirement.
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(The Canadian Press)
The Canadian Press
