Today in history: Calgary-based Canadian Airlines swallowed up by Air Canada

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On this date, Dec. 4, in history:

In 1619, a group of settlers from Bristol, England, arrived at Berkeley Hundred in present-day Charles City County, Va., where they held a service thanking God for their safe arrival. (Some suggest this was the true first Thanksgiving in America, ahead of the Pilgrims’ arrival in Massachusetts.)

In 1791, Britain’s Observer newspaper was first published. It’s the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper.

In 1800, explorer and geographer David Thompson crossed the Rockies.

In 1835, Sir Richard Cartwright, finance minister of Canada from 1873-78, and minister of trade and commerce from 1896 to 1911, was born in Kingston, Ont.

In 1856, bonding arrangements were made so American goods could pass through Canada.

In 1866, delegates from Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia began talks with British officials in London. They finalized details of the British North America Act, which created Canada the following year.

In 1909, the first Grey Cup game was held at Rosedale Field in Toronto. The University of Toronto defeated Toronto Parkdale 26-6 in front of 3,800 fans. The trophy was donated that year by Governor General Earl Grey for the rugby football championship of Canada. The Varsity Blues also won the Cup in 1910 and 1911.

In 1926, British novelist Agatha Christie mysteriously dropped out of sight for 11 days. She later said she had no idea what happened.

In 1942, U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time in the Second World War.

In 1968, New Brunswick Premier Louis Robichaud tabled a white paper outlining government policy on bilingualism. Robichaud, the first Acadian to lead the province, led a reforming government and was a supporter of bilingualism. A bill giving anglophones and francophones equal status, rights and privileges was passed in April, 1969.

In 1973, the House of Commons passed a bill prohibiting wiretapping and other forms of electronic surveillance except by police forces.

In 1977, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, ruler of the Central African Empire, crowned himself emperor in a ceremony believed to have cost more than $100 million. Bokassa was deposed in 1979.

In 1977, a hijacked Malaysian Airlines jet crashed near a village in Malaysia killing all 100 people on board.

In 1978, three firefighters were killed while fighting a fire at the Kimberly-Clark paper warehouse in Toronto.

In 1985, Madame Justice Beverly McLachlin was appointed to the B.C. Court of Appeal, the first woman to sit on the province’s highest court. Fifteen years later, on Jan. 7, 2000, she was the first woman appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. When Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson was hospitalized in July 2005, McLachlin performed the duties of Clarkson’s office, including giving royal assent to the Civil Marriage Act, which legalized same-sex marriage in Canada.

In 1986, 14 people, including the former prime minister of Grenada, Bernard Coard, and his wife, were convicted and sentenced to hang for the Oct. 19, 1983, slaying of Grenada Prime Minister Maurice Bishop in a coup that prompted the United States to invade Grenada.

In 1987, the Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled that the Ontario Hockey Association, the Metropolitan Toronto Hockey League and the Etobicoke Canucks violated the Ontario Human Rights Code by discriminating against hockey player Justine Blainey, because of her sex. It ruled that she could play hockey on a boys’ team.

In 1987, Mario Taddeo, an organizer for the federal Progressive Conservative party and who was a central figure in an RCMP investigation in a land sale in Mirabel, Que., was shot dead at an isolated quarry near Mirabel International Airport outside Montreal.

In 1988, a cyclone and tidal wave swept over islands off the coast of Bangladesh three days earlier, was said to have killed at least 1,600 people.

In 1991, Terry Anderson, the last U.S. hostage in Lebanon, was set free by Islamic radicals. He was the head of the Associated Press Beirut office from 1983 until he was kidnapped on March 16, 1985.

In 1996, Central America’s last and longest civil war ended. A truce signed in Oslo, Norway, stopped Guatemala’s 36-year conflict that killed 140,000 people.

In 1996, the Mars Pathfinder lifted off from Cape Canaveral and began speeding toward Mars on a 498 million-kilometre odyssey. (It arrived on Mars in July 1997.)

In 1998, APEC inquiry chairman Gerald Morin resigned — alleging interference from the RCMP Public Complaints Commission and mysterious security breaches at the inquiry.

In 1998, space shuttle Endeavour blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., with the mission to begin assembling the International Space Station.

In 1999, Canadian Airlines accepted Air Canada’s $92 million buyout offer, on the table since Oct. 19, ending one of the most heated corporate takeovers in Canada. Canadian Airlines, based in Calgary, was the second biggest airline in the country at the time, with almost 12 million passengers a year flying to more than 160 destinations in 17 countries. It was officially acquired by Air Canada in 2000 and on Jan. 1, 2001, the merger was complete.

In 2008, Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean granted an unprecedented request from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to suspend Parliament until late January, a move that avoided a non-confidence vote set for Dec. 8, that would have brought down the minority Conservative government.

In 2008, Montreal-based paper giant AbitibiBowater Inc. cut 1,100 jobs as it closed its troubled newsprint mill in Grand Falls, N.L., and a plant in Tennessee to cope with falling demand in the North American market.

In 2009, Benoit Corbeil, a former Liberal Party director and a prominent player in Quebec’s sponsorship scandal, was sentenced to 15 months in jail for his role in producing fake invoices while working for the federal party. He was also fined $20,000 and ordered to repay $117,000 he took from the party.

In 2009, NATO members and some countries outside the alliance agreed to send another 7,000 soldiers to Afghanistan in 2010 to join the 30,000 being sent by the United States.

In 2009, Mike Cammalleri scored three times as the Montreal Canadiens celebrated their 100th anniversary with a 5-1 victory over the Boston Bruins. Founded on Dec. 4, 1909, eight years before the NHL was formed, the Canadiens marked the occasion with a nostalgic 75-minute pre-game ceremony in which the jerseys of 1940s greats Elmer Lach and Butch Bouchard were retired.

In 2009, an Italian court found American Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, guilty in the 2007 murder of Knox’s British university roommate Merdith Kercher. (In 2011, the verdict was overturned on appeal and the pair were freed from prison and Knox returned to the U.S. The Italian Supreme Court vacated that decision and ordered a new appeals trial, where the murder conviction was upheld. In March 2015, Italy’s Supreme Court overturned the conviction, bringing an end to the high-profile case.)

In 2012, two Australian DJs impersonated Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles in a prank call to a London hospital and learned private details on the condition of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, who was being treated for acute morning sickness. The nurse who was duped into transferring them to the nurse caring for the duchess was found dead on Dec. 7 in an apparent suicide.

In 2012, a military jury found Canadian reservist Maj. Darryl Watts guilty of unlawfully causing bodily harm and negligent performance of military duty, but not guilty of manslaughter in a 2010 Afghanistan training accident that killed Cpl. Josh Baker and injured four others. (He avoided jail time but was demoted to lieutenant and received a severe reprimand.)

In 2016, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady won his 201st career game (including playoffs), surpassing Peyton Manning as the winningest pivot in NFL history.

In 2018, the NHL’s board of governors unanimously approved a franchise for Seattle. The league’s 32nd team was to hit the ice in the 2021-22 season and play in the Pacific Division. The ownership group was led by billionaire David Bonderman and several others, including Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

In 2018, residents of Churchill cheered the arrival of the first passenger train in the community since the spring of 2017. The only land link to the northern Manitoba community had been suspended since flooding damaged the tracks. Repairs were made after a consortium including several northern communities purchased the Hudson Bay Railway from its American owners with support from the federal government. VIA Rail trains were to leave from Winnipeg to Churchill twice a week.

In 2018, the government of French President Emmanuel Macron announced it would suspend the gasoline tax increase that had set off three weeks of increasingly violent protests in Paris and around France by the so-called Yellow Vest movement.

In 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went into damage-control mode after candid comments he made about U-S President Donald Trump were captured on video and quickly broadcast around the world. It happened at a Buckingham Palace reception on the sidelines of the NATO Summit near London. Trudeau was recorded with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands and Princess Anne talking candidly about Trump’s lengthy news conferences during bilateral meetings. The video was transmitted by the summit’s broadcast operation. Trump subsequently called Trudeau “two-faced,” but otherwise appeared to take the comments in stride, and followed up by calling Trudeau “a nice guy.”

In 2020, the first COVID-19 vaccine doses arrived in Britain. Business Secretary Alok Sharma said the first shots of the Pfizer vaccine would be rolled out the following week.

In 2020, Bahrain said it would grant emergency-use authorization for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, becoming the second country to do so.

In 2020, Canada recorded more than 400,000 cases of COVID-19, just 18 days after it hit the 300,000-mark. It took six months for the country to record its first 100-thousand cases of COVID-19, four months to reach 200-thousand and less than a month to hit 300-thousand.

In 2021, CNN fired anchor Chris Cuomo. It came after details emerged about how he assisted his brother, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, as the politician faced sexual harassment allegations earlier this year.

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