TODAY IN HISTORY: Americans smuggled out of Iran

In 814, Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, died.

In 1547, Henry VIII, who split the church of England from Rome and presided over the founding of the Anglican church, died. He was succeeded by his nine-year-old son, Edward VI.

In 1807, London's Pall Mall became the first street in the world to be lit by gas.

In 1870, the ship “City of Boston” sailed from Halifax and disappeared with 191 passengers.

In 1878, the first commercial telephone switchboard went into operation in New Haven, Conn. There were 21 subscribers.

In 1914, suffragette leader Nellie McClung staged a mock parliament in which men had to ask women for the right to vote. Two years later, Manitoba became the first province to give women the right to vote.

In 1915, the United States Coast Guard was created as U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill merging the Life-Saving Service and Revenue Cutter Service.

In 1918, Col. John McCrae, the Canadian doctor and poet who wrote "In Flanders Fields" while serving in Belgium during the First World War, died of pneumonia in Boulogne, France at age 45.

In 1928, the first cellulose self-adhesive tape went on sale. Scotch tape, as it came to be known, was developed by 3M as a masking tape for the spray-paint workshops of auto-manufacturing plants.

In 1962, Transport Minister Leon Balcer announced that the transport department’s 241ship fleet henceforth would be known as the Canadian Coast Guard.

In 1973, a final ceasefire officially went into effect in the Vietnam War.

In 1980, Canadian diplomats smuggled six American diplomats out of Tehran. The Americans hid at the Canadians’ homes for more than two months after the U.S. embassy was seized by Iranian students. The six escaped Iran using Canadian passports. Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor left a few hours later, after closing the embassy. Taylor received the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honour.

In 1983, Progressive Conservative Party convention delegates voted 66.9 per cent against a review of Joe Clark’s leadership. But Clark said the mandate was not clear enough and called a leadership convention. He lost the ensuing contest to Brian Mulroney.

In 1986, the space shuttle "Challenger" exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Fla., killing all seven crew members. U.S. president Ronald Reagan suspended shuttle flights and appointed a panel to investigate. On June 10, the commission said the explosion was caused by an escape of gases from a joint on a solid booster rocket.

In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 5-2 that Canada’s abortion law violated a pregnant woman’s right to “security of the person’ under the Charter of Rights. The majority decision called the law “manifestly unfair.”

In 1998, hockey great Wayne Gretzky finally picked up his Order of Canada medal at a Rideau Hall ceremony. He’d been awarded the medal 14 years earlier.

In 2005, shareholders of Molson Inc., one of the oldest companies in Canada, voted to approve a merger with U.S.-based Adolph Coors Co., setting the stage to create the fifth largest brewer in the world. Adolph Coors Co. shareholders overwhelmingly approved the merger on Feb. 1.