February 21, 2015

770 years ago
1245

Scandal
Pope Innocent IV accepted the resignation of Thomas, the first known bishop of Finland, after he confessed to torture and forgery.

575 years ago
1440

Politics and government
The Prussian Confederation was formed by a group of 53 nobles and clergy and 19 cities in Prussia, to oppose the arbitrariness of the Teutonic Knights.

130 years ago
1885

Americana
The Washington Monument was dedicated in a Masonic ceremony in Washington, D.C.

120 years ago
1895

Born on this date
Henrik Dam. Danish biochemist and physiologist. Dr. Dam shared the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Edward Doisy "for his discovery of vitamin K." He died on April 17, 1976 at the age of 81.

100 years ago
1915

Born on this date
Ann Sheridan. U.S. actress. Miss Sheridan was known for her starring roles in movies for the Warner Brothers studio in the late 1930s and 1940s, including Angels with Dirty Faces (1938); They Drive by Night (1940); The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942); Kings Row (1942); Nora Prentiss (1947); and I was a Male War Bride (1949). She died of throat and liver cancer on January 21, 1967 at the age of 51.

90 years ago
1925

Journalism
The New Yorker published its first issue.

80 years ago
1935

Politics and government
British author John Buchan, Baron Tweedsmuir, was appointed Governor General of Canada.

Boxing
Joe Louis (15-0) scored a technical knockout of Lee Ramage (40-10-5) at 2:11 of the 2nd round of a heavyweight bout at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles.

75 years ago
1940

War
The Chilean Foreign Office reaffirmed the country's observance of strict neutrality in the European war.

Economics and finance
Canadian Finance Minister J.L. Ralston announced a $125-million increase to $500 million in war expenditures for fiscal 1941.

Politics and government
The New York Times reported that Democratic Party Senators and Representatives said that Franklin D. Roosevelt could have the party's nomination in the November 1940 election for a third term as President of the United States if he so desired. U.S. Senator Gerald Nye (Republican--North Dakota) said that Mr. Roosevelt should follow the precedent established by George Washington and step down after two terms.

Medicine
The Pasteur Institute in Paris announced development of a vaccine that simultaneously immunized against smallpox and yellow fever for one year.

Disasters
An earthquake struck the Turkish province of Kaysori, killing 40 people.

70 years ago
1945

Died on this date
Eric Liddell, 43. U.K. runner and missionary. Mr. Liddell, nicknamed the "Flying Scotsman," was famous for refusing to run heats in the men's 100-metre run in the 1924 Summer Olympic Games in Paris on a Sunday, although that was the event he was favoured to win. He did win the gold medal in the men's 400-metre run. A slightly fictionalized version of the story was told in the movie Chariots of Fire (1981). Mr. Liddell served as a Christian missionary in China from 1925-1943, until he was captured by Japanese forces and interned. He died of an inoperable brain tumour.

War
29 former Greek cabinet ministers went on trial for collaboration with the enemy. The Canadian Army broke through the Siegfried Line and reached Goch. Soviet forces in Germany reached the confluence of the Oder and Neisser Rivers, 45 miles southeast of Berlin. U.S. troops in Italy regained Mount Belvedere on the Bologna front. Japanese Kamikaze planes sank the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea and seriously damaged the USS Saratoga.

Crime
Carl Emil Ludwig Krepper was convicted on two counts of conspiring to "obstruct, interfere with and injure the defense of the United States," as the contact man for Nazi saboteurs who had landed by submarine in the United States.

Diplomacy
The Inter-American Conference to discuss issues of war and peace opened in Mexico City, with Argentina absent.

Business
The Wrigley chewing gum company was forced to discontinue the manufacture of trade brand gums because of ingredient shortages.

Baseball
Major league officials cancelled the 1945 All-Star Game as a travel conservation measure.

Disasters
After pleading nolo contendre to manslaughter charges in connection with the July 6, 1944 fire in Hartford, Connecticut, six key men with Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus received prison terms ranging from six months to seven years.

60 years ago
1955

On television tonight
Sherlock Holmes, starring Ronald Howard and H. Marion Crawford
Tonight's episode: The Case of the Vanished Detective



50 years ago
1965

Died on this date
Malcolm X, 39. U.S. clergyman and civil rights activist. Mr. X, born Malcolm Little, became a member of the Nation of Islam while serving a prison sentence for larceny, and became a Nation of Islam minister in the early 1950s. Beginning in 1957, Mr. X became nationally prominent, and was the Negro civil rights leader most feared by whites, as the Nation of Islam advocated hatred of white people. Mr. X eventually became disillusioned with the Nation of Islam and its leader, Elijah Muhammad, and left the movement in March 1964. He converted to Sunni Islam, and when he made the hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca in April 1964 and saw people of various races being treated as equals, he began to soften his views. While preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, a disturbance was created in the audience that enabled three men to rush the stage and shoot Mr. X to death (see also here). Three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of the shooting, but speculation regarding a wider conspiracy continues.



Space
The U.S.S.R. launched the satellites Cosmos 54, Cosmos 55, and Cosmos 56.

40 years ago
1975

Hit parade
#1 single in New Zealand: I Can Help--Billy Swan (3rd week at #1)

#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Griechischer Wein--Udo Jürgens (3rd week at #1)

#1 single in Switzerland: I Can Help--Billy Swan (4th week at #1)

Diplomacy
The Organization of African Unity concluded its eight-day meeting in the Ethiopian capital of Addas Ababa.

Scandal
Former United States Attorney General John Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced from 2 1/2-8 years in prison for their roles in the June 1972 break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. and the subsequent cover-up. Another Watergate figure, Robert Mardian, was given a sentence of 10 months-3 years.

Society
The film Emmanuelle (1974) was seized from the Uptown Two Theatre in Calgary, and the theatre was charged with corrupting public morals. The film had been seized from the Odeon Theatre in Edmonton on January 20, and Odeon Mid-Western Ltd. had been charged with exposing obscene material to the public. The film, which had been showing six times per day in Calgary, had been approved by the Alberta Motion Picture Censorship Board.

30 years ago
1985

Died on this date
Louis Hayward, 75. South African-born U.S. actor. Mr. Hayward was the first actor to portray the Saint on film, starring in The Saint in New York (1938) and The Saint's Return (1953). His other movies included Anthony Adverse (1936); And Then There were None (1945); and Ruthless (1948). Mr. Hayward died 26 days before his 76th birthday.

Maurice Smith, 75. U.K.-born Canadian journalist. Mr. Smith, a native of London, moved to Winnipeg with his family in 1913. He worked with the Winnipeg Free Press from 1927-1976, serving as sports editor for the last 32 years of his career with the paper. Mr. Smith was known for his coverage of curling, hockey, and football, and helped to establish the Canadian High School Curling Championships in 1951. His honours included induction into the Football Reporters of Canada section of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1982. Mr. Smith died of heart failure while on vacation in Hawaii.

25 years ago
1990

Hit parade
#1 single in Sweden (Topplistan): Nothing Compares 2 U--Sinéad O'Connor

At the movies
Films dating from the 1910s and 1920s that had been discovered buried in the ground at Dawson City, Yukon Territory in 1978, were shown at the Provincial Museum of Alberta in Edmonton. The Arctic permafrost had acted as a preservative, preventing the films from disintegrating. The films shown included a newsreel about the trial of the "Ohio Gang" members of the U.S. administration of President Warren G. Harding, and part of a feature film starring Douglas Fairbanks that had been thought to be lost. The latter film--possibly The Half-Breed (1916)--was set in the Canadian north, but showed a gorilla in the wild (!).

Diplomacy
Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel was enthusiastically received by the United States Congress as he addressed the body in Washington. Mr. Havel said he saw the rise of democracy in the Soviet bloc as a "historically irreversible process," and he foresaw "an era in which all of us, large and small, former slaves and former masters, will be able to create what your great President Lincoln called the ‘family of man.’"

20 years ago
1995

Adventure
Steve Fossett, a Chicago stockbroker, landed at Leader, Saskatchewan, becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

Economics and finance
The United States and Mexico reached an agreement on terms relating to a $20-billion U.S. loan package--intended to bolster the peso and prevent Mexico from defaulting on its debt--that U.S. President Bill Clinton had unveiled in January. To receive the loan, Mexico agreed to reduce government spending and restrain growth of the money supply. The U.S. assistance was part of an overall package of international support valued at $50 billion.

10 years ago
2005

Died on this date
Gene Scott, 75. U.S. clergyman and broadcaster. Dr. Scott was an Assemblies of God pastor who then left the denomination and established his own church in Los Angeles. He established the Faith Broadcasting Network, which, in 1983, became the first television network to broadcast, by satellite, "Christian" programming 24 hours per day. Dr. Scott's messages were also carried around the clock on shortwave radio.