August 3, 2012

520 years ago
1492

Exploration
Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain, hoping to discover the East Indies by sailing westward with three ships: Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.

60 years ago
1952

Football
WIFU
Pre-season
Edmonton Eskimos intrasquad game
Gold 18 Green 6

Mike King, Doug Swail, and Joe Aguirre scored Gold touchdowns, all converted by Dick Steere. Vic Mayson scored the Green touchdown, converted by head coach Frank Filchock. The game was played at Clarke Stadium.

40 years ago
1972

World events
Jaroslav Sabata, who had led the Brno Communist party during the regime of Czechoslovakian Premier Alexander Dubcek in 1968, was charged with subversion for trying to disrupt the “social system,” becoming the eighth supporter of the ousted Premier to go on trial in two weeks.

Defense
The United States Senate voted 88-2 to ratify the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) limiting the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. to two antiballistic missile sites each.

Diplomacy
United Nations mediator Gunnar Jarring started a two-week round of Middle East peace talks in a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim in New York in an attempt to get talks between Arabs and Israelis, as well as the U.N. Security Council, back on track after a deadlock of almost 1½ years.

Labour
With 500 ships idled and stocks of food in Britain seriously dwindling after a six-day strike by 42,000 longshoremen, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed a state of emergency to allow troops so take over the nation’s docks.

Football
CFL
Montreal (1-0) 19 @ Toronto (0-1) 8

Toronto head coach Leo Cahill started Joe Theismann at quarterback, but he broke his leg early in the game, and when Greg Barton went in to relieve him, he failed to get the job done for the Argonauts. Players for whom this was their first CFL game included Wally Buono, Junior Ah You, Dickie Harris, Larry Smith, Glen Weir, and Ike Brown of the Alouettes; and Eric Allen, Noah Jackson, Ron Mikolajczyk, and Elmars Sprogis of the Argonauts. The usual capacity crowd of 33,135 was in attendance at CNE Stadium.

30 years ago
1982

Hit parade
#1 single in Sweden (Topplistan): I Love Rock 'N' Roll--Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

25 years ago
1987

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Australian Music Report): He's Gonna Step on You Again--The Party Boys (2nd week at #1)

Scandal
U.S. Congressional hearings into Iran-Contra--the sale of arms to Iran with the proceeds given to the anti-Sandanista Contras in Nacaragua--concluded.

20 years ago
1992

Music
The Beach Boys' album Summer in Paradise was released in the United States on Brother Records and in Canada on Attic Records. It sold so few copies that it reportedly caused Navarre, the independent company that distributed the album in the U.S.A., to go bankrupt.