Today in History for Dec. 26:
In 1776, the British suffered a major defeat in the "Battle of Trenton" during the Revolutionary War.
In 1791, British legislation creating Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) came into effect. Known as "The Canada Act," it established elected assemblies in the new provinces. Executive and financial power remained with the governor and an executive council appointed by the Crown.
In 1791, John Reeves was appointed the first chief justice of Newfoundland.
In 1823, a chamber of commerce was established at St. John's, Nfld.
In 1830, William Caven, Scottish-born Canadian Presbyterian leader, was born. He taught at Knox College, in Toronto for the last 39 years of his life. Though staunchly conservative, Caven was genuinely interested in social issues and thoroughly committed to missions. The Caven Library at the University of Toronto is named after him.
In 1852, the sailing ship "Marco Polo," built in Saint John, N.B., was declared the fastest ship in the world. The ship had gone from Liverpool, England, to Melbourne, Australia, and back in 140 days. The trip usually took about 240 days. The "Marco Polo" was caught in a gale and grounded off Cavendish, P.E.I., in 1883.
In 1865, a patent for a coffee percolator was granted to James Nelson.
In 1893, Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese soldier and statesman who led his country's communist revolution and leader of the Chinese Communist party, was born in Hunan province. He died in 1976.
In 1898, French physicists Pierre and Marie Curie announced the discovery of radium. It took them four more years to isolate the element in its pure form.
In 1908, American Jack Johnson became the first black to win the world heavyweight boxing championship. He defeated Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia, when police stopped the fight in the 14th round.
In 1917, the mercury dropped to a record -57.2 degrees in the Northwest Territories.
In 1932, a massive earthquake in Gansu, China, killed 70,000 people.
In 1941, Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.
In 1947, heavy snow blanketed the Northeast, burying New York City under 60 cm of snow in 16 hours; the severe weather was blamed for some 80 deaths.
In 1959, a 16-member Soviet expedition reached the South Pole in three tractor sleds after a three-month trip from Russia.
In 1972, Harry S. Truman, the 33rd U.S. president, died in Kansas City, Mo. He was 88.
In 1976, 21 people died in a nursing home fire in St. John's, Nfld.
In 1982, "Time" magazine announced its 1982 Man of the Year was a computer.
In 1985, American naturalist Dian Fossey, who had studied gorillas in the wild, was found hacked to death at a research station in Rwanda. She was 53.
In 1989, Maryon Pearson, widow of former prime minister Lester B. Pearson, died at age 88.
In 1989, Romanian television broadcast a videotape showing ousted president Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife at their secret trial, as well as footage of their bodies following their execution. On the same day, Ion Iliescu was named chairman of Romania's caretaker government.
In 1990, Nancy Curzon, whose case led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the right to die, died peacefully 12 days after feeding tubes were removed.
In 1996, six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colo. The slaying remains unsolved.
In 1999, Wally Distelmeyer, the Canadian figure skater who won bronze in the pairs at the 1948 Olympics and also invented the version of death spiral seen in skating today, died at age 74.
In 2003, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake levelled the ancient city of Bam in southeastern Iran, killing 28,000 people.
In 2004, tsunamis triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean killed an estimated 228,000 people in 11 countries. Indonesia was hit hardest -- because it was closest to the epicentre of the underwater earthquake.
In 2005, teen Jane Creba was killed and six people wounded when they were caught in the crossfire of a gun battle between rival gangs on a downtown Toronto street packed with Boxing Day shoppers.
In 2006, the 38th U.S. president, Gerald Ford, died in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at the age of 93. He was the only unelected president in U.S. history, taking office in August 1974 after the resignation of Richard Nixon. Ford left office after losing the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter.
In 2006, at least 260 people died after a gasoline pipeline exploded in Lagos, Nigeria.
In 2008, Pte. Michael Freeman, 28, who served with November Company, 3rd Battalion, the Royal Canadian Regiment from CFB Petawawa, Ont., was killed in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
In 2008, Chantal Petitclerc, 39, who won five gold medals and set three world records at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing, was voted The Canadian Press female athlete of the year. She became the first Paralympian to receive the award since it was created in 1933.
In 2009, Yves Rocher, the French founder of a global chain of beauty products and a pioneering advocate of the use of plants and other natural elements in cosmetics, died in Paris at age 79.
In 2012, Canadian cyclist Ryder Hesjedal won the Lionel Conacher Award as The Canadian Press male athlete of the year.
In 2016, sprinter Andre De Grasse was voted the winner of the Lionel Conacher Award as The Canadian Press male athlete of 2016. He won silver in the 200 metres in Rio and bronze in both the 100 and 4x100-metre relay.
In 2017, Johnny Bower, 93, two-time Vezina Trophy winner who helped the Toronto Maple Leafs win their last Stanley Cup championship in 1967, died.
In 2018, Brooke Henderson was named The Canadian Press female athlete of the year, the second consecutive year the golfer has won the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award. Henderson became the first Canadian in 45 years to win the CP Women's Open in August. She won twice on the LPGA Tour last season and finished ninth in the world rankings.
In 2020, Ontario confirmed the two first Canadian cases of a more contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain. The province's associate chief medical officer of health said the cases were a couple from Durham Region, just east of Toronto. The two had no known travel history, exposure or high-risk contacts.
In 2021, Desmond Tutu, South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist for racial justice, died at the age of 90. The retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town was best known as an uncompromising foe of apartheid, South Africa's brutal regime of oppression against the Black majority..
In 2021, it was announced that Oscar-nominated Quebecois director and producer Jean-Marc Vallee died at age 58. A cause of death was not released, but his representative says Vallee died suddenly in his cabin outside Quebec City. Born in Montreal, Vallee won an Emmy for directing the hit HBO series ``Big Little Lies,'' and was nominated for ``Sharp Objects,'' also on HBO. He also directed ``Dallas Buyers Club,'' which earned six Academy Awards nominations.
In 2021, Canada officially logged more than two million reported cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
In 2023, RCMP said an Alberta family of three reported missing on Christmas has been found dead. Mounties said an underwater recovery team found the bodies of Kelly and Laura Pelsma and their eight-year-old son, Dylan. They hadn't been heard from since Dec. 23 and were last seen in a community approximately 45 minutes northwest of Edmonton on a side-by-side vehicle.
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The Canadian Press
