Schitt's Creek sweeps the Emmys: Today in history

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On this date, Sept. 20, in history:

In 1378, the Great Schism in the Roman Catholic Church began. It was touched off when Pope Gregory XI died, shortly after returning the papal seat from Avignon, in France, to Rome. Continuing for nearly 40 years, until 1417, the schism at one point produced three concurrent popes.

In 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan began his voyage to circumnavigate the globe. Magellan was killed en route, but one of his ships eventually circled the world.

In 1697, the Treaty of Ryswick was signed. France returned Hudson Bay and Newfoundland to Britain, in return for Acadia.

In 1816, stage coach service started between Toronto and Niagara.

In 1842, chemist and physicist James Dewar was born in Scotland. In 1892, he invented a double-walled glass vessel to keep gases and chemicals cold. One of his ex-students, Reinhold Burger, patented and began making the “Thermos” vacuum flask for domestic use in 1904.

In 1857, Delhi, India, fell to the British after a long siege.

In 1867, the first general election in Canada, won by the Conservatives under Sir John A. Macdonald, was completed. Confederation, achieved earlier in the year, had set out the mandate for the formation of a federal government to unite the four provinces in the Dominion at the time. Macdonald formed a coalition cabinet almost equally split between Liberal and Conservative ministers and representing different regions, religions and cultures.

In 1870, Italian troops took control of the Papal States, leading to the unification of Italy.

In 1873, the New York Stock Exchange was forced to close for the first time because of a banking crisis.

In 1917, the Wartime Elections Act was passed, giving the vote to some Canadian women and disenfranchising many citizens born in enemy countries. The act gave wives, mothers and sisters of men in the armed service the right to vote. In May 1918, all women gained the vote.

In 1917, the Income Tax War Act was enacted as a temporary measure to raise funds for Canada’s troops during the First World War. The tax rate for individuals was four per cent, with an additional two per cent on incomes between $6,000 and $10,000. Corporations also paid a four-per-cent rate on incomes over $3,000.

In 1931, sterling was taken off the gold standard index.

In 1932, Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi began a fast to dramatize his campaign for an end to discrimination against the lowest social class in India, known as the untouchables. Gandhi’s fast ended six days later when the “Pact of Poona” was passed, allowing the untouchables entrance to all temples and schools and the use of all Indian roads.

In 1935, New Brunswick premier A.A. Dysart announced old-age pensions in the province.

In 1958, civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was seriously wounded during a book signing at a New York City department store when a black woman, Izola Curry, stabbed him in the chest. (Curry was later found mentally incompetent.)

In 1962, a mine was opened at the world’s largest known potash reserves at Esterhazy, Sask.

In 1972, letter bombs intended for the Israeli Embassy in Ottawa and the Israeli Consulate in Montreal were discovered. In Montreal, a police bomb squad defused a letter bomb in a city park after removing it from the consulate. In Ottawa, police found explosives in one of six envelopes arriving from Amsterdam. The Arab guerrilla group Black September was believed responsible for the bombs mailed to more than 20 cities around the world. An Israeli official in London, England, was killed Sept. 19 after opening a booby-trapped letter.

In 1973, in their so-called Battle of the Sexes, tennis player Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets (6-4, 6-3, 6-3) at the Houston Astrodome.

In 1977, Canada and the United States agreed to construct a pipeline to carry natural gas from Alaska through Canada to the United States. Parliament approved legislation for construction in April 1978 but the pipeline was never built.

In 1981, the British colony of Belize in Central America became independent.

In 1982, the National Football League Players’ Association called a strike which wiped out most of the season.

In 1984, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was attacked by a suicide bomber who drove into the compound with a truckload of explosives and set them off, killing 40 people.

In 1987, Pope John Paul visited Fort Simpson, N.W.T. — fulfilling a promise he made three years earlier when heavy fog prevented his plane from landing.

In 1989, a bomb exploded aboard a French airliner, killing all 170 people aboard as it flew over the Sahara Desert.

In 1989, F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as president of South Africa.

In 1995, AT&T Corp. announced plans to split itself into three separate companies and said it would quit the personal computer business.

In 1999, Sears Canada announced it would buy the outstanding common shares of the insolvent Eaton’s in a move that provided up to $50 million for creditors and saved about 1,000 jobs. Sears also took over Eaton’s name and trademarks along with eight stores plus options on five other locations.

In 2004, ex-general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won an overwhelming victory against incumbent Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia’s first direct presidential election.

In 2004, Quebec’s Liberal government lost three out of four byelections in Montreal. The PQ won Laurier-Dorion, held by Liberals for more than 23 years and easily won the Montreal PQ stronghold of Gouin. The ADQ won Vanier while Liberals won handily in Nelligan, where its candidate Yolande James, 26, became the first black woman elected into the National Assembly.

In 2004, nearly 3,000 people died in Haiti after tropical storm Jeanne turned into a hurricane.

In 2005, Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal died in Vienna at age 96.

In 2005, David Radler, Conrad Black’s newspaper holding company’s ex-chief operating officer, agreed to a jail term and a US$250,000 fine in a deal with the U.S. Attorney for pleading guilty to one count of mail fraud in a scheme to pilfer more than US$32 million from Hollinger International Inc.

In 2006, the House of Commons unanimously apologized to Maher Arar for Canada’s involvement in his deportation from the United States to Syria, where he was tortured for a year before he was released.

In 2006, Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari arrived at the International Space Station by Soyuz spacecraft ‚ becoming the first female space tourist. Ansari paid a reported US$20 million for the trip.

In 2007, Tour de France champion Floyd Landis lost his expensive and explosive case when two of three arbitrators upheld the results of a test that showed he had used synthetic testosterone to fuel his spectacular comeback victory. Landis forfeited his Tour title and was subject to a two-year ban, retroactive to Jan. 30, 2007.

In 2007, boosted by high commodity prices and a weakening U.S. dollar, the loonie reached parity with the greenback for the first time in nearly 31 years.

In 2008, Doug Flutie, Mike “Pinball” Clemons, Mike Pringle, John Bonk and Tom Shepherd were inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

In 2008, a powerful truck bomb blast just outside the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad killed 53 people and wounded 270 more. Among those killed was the Czech ambassador to Pakistan and two U.S. Department of Defence officials.

In 2011, sweeping changes to Canada’s criminal-justice regime were tabled in the House of Commons as part of an 110-page omnibus Conservative crime bill, including nine bills incorporating changes to drug laws, youth sentencing, detention of refugees, parole and house arrest and anti-terrorism measures. Critics said new minimum-sentence provisions would boost the need for costly new prisons and would not deter crime. The Safe Streets and Communities Act passed in the Commons on Dec. 5 by a vote of 157 to 127.

In 2011, after years of debate and months of final preparations, the repeal of the U.S. military’s 18-year ban on gays serving openly in uniform took effect.

In 2011, an insurgent with a bomb wrapped in his turban assassinated former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading a government effort to broker peace with the Taliban.

In 2013, smartphone maker BlackBerry announced a 40 per cent cut in its workforce, or 4,500 jobs, as phone sales faltered and the company projecting nearly a billion-dollar quarterly loss.

In 2018, the House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion to recognize the crimes committed against Rohingya by the Myanmar military as a genocide.

In 2018, the World Anti-Doping Agency reinstated Russia, ending a nearly three-year suspension of the country’s drug-testing program because of a state-sponsored doping scheme. WADA said the reinstatement was subject to strict conditions but the head of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport said the agency was effectively thumbing its nose at clean athletes.

In 2018, the Canadian Armed Forces said it was re-opening nearly two-dozen cases of alleged sexual assault after reviewing dozens of files previously dismissed by military police as “unfounded.” The move came nearly 18 months after authorities revealed that nearly one in every three sexual assault complaints logged with military police between 2010 and 2016 was deemed unfounded.

In 2020, the Toronto International Film Festival named the winner of this year’s People’s Choice award. The honour went to Nomadland, a recession-era road trip drama starring Frances McDormand that tells the story of a woman travelling the American West alone in her van. Filmmaker Michelle Latimer had a double win for her documentary Inconvenient Indian. The adaptation of Thomas King’s non-fiction book picked up the People’s Choice Documentary Award, as well an Amplify Voices Award. Latimer said she planned to divide the $10,000 cash prize between five emerging Indigenous artists.

In 2020, a woman suspected of sending an envelope containing ricin, addressed to White House, was arrested at a Canadian border crossing with New York state. Officials said the woman was taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In 2020, Schitt’s Creek — the Canadian sitcom about a rich family left with nothing but a small town — swept the comedy categories at the Emmy Awards, winning seven trophies for its sixth and final season. Eugene Levy won best actor, Catherine O’Hara won best actress, Annie Murphy won best supporting actress, and Levy’s son, Dan Levy, claimed three awards: for best supporting actor, writing and directing.

In 2021, Canada’s next Parliament would feature another Liberal minority government headed up by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. No party reached the 170 seats needed to declare a majority.

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