The world was created (!), Laker Airways went under, and it rained sardines in Australia… Read on for more memories and tantalizing travel-related tidbits.

In 3641 BC, according to the calculations of the Mayans, the world was created.

In 1519, Sir Walter Raleigh left England to explore South America.

In 1685, French explorer La Salle established the first settlement in what would become the state of Texas.

In 1763, Canada passed from French control into the British Empire with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. The treaty, which ended the Seven Years War, stripped France of all her possessions north of what became the United States, except for the islands of St-Pierre and Miquelon. Those islands, just south of Newfoundland, remain under French control.

In 1849, the ship “California” arrived in San Francisco carrying the first of the gold seekers.

In 1858, gold was discovered along British Columbia’s Fraser River, attracting thousands to Canada’s West Coast. Hundreds of ships, jammed with gold-seekers, worked their way across the Strait of Georgia to the Fraser, then made the dangerous trip up the swift-running river.

In 1897, the Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford, Conn., issued the first car insurance policy to Dayton, Ohio, resident Gilbert J. Loomis, a mechanic who built a one-cylinder car. He paid $7.50 for $1,000 of liability on a policy that covered any damage caused to people and property.

In 1916, fire destroyed the centre block of Canada’s Parliament Buildings killing seven people. The Parliamentary Library and its priceless collection of books was saved because someone had closed the metal doors that separated it from the rest of the Centre Block. Many people initially believed that the fire was a deliberate act of sabotage by the Germans, with whom Canada was at war. Reconstruction of the building, which contains the Commons and Senate chambers, was completed in 1920.

In 1919, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure establishing Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

In 1927, the casket of Egypt’s King Tutankhamen was opened.

In 1947, the lowest recorded temperature in Canadian history occurred at Snag, Yukon – 62.8 C.

In 1964, the Toronto International Airport terminal building was opened.

In 1970, Canada claimed jurisdiction over all waters of the Northwest Passage, and between the islands of the Arctic archipelago.

In 1973, construction began on Toronto’s CN Tower. The $52-million, 553.3-m. structure opened in 1976, making it – at the time – the world’s tallest free standing completed structure on land.

In 1974, the unmanned “Mariner 10” spacecraft, on its way to Mercury, sent back the first pictures taken from space of the planet Venus.

In 1974, the Caribbean island nation of Grenada won independence from Britain.

In 1977, Keith Spicer, official languages commissioner, recommended the use of French as the language of work for employees of Air Canada and Canadian National Railways in Quebec.

In 1977, the space shuttle “Enterprise,” sitting atop a Boeing 747, went on its maiden “flight” above California’s Mojave Desert.

In 1978, a Pacific Western Airlines plane crashed while attempting to land in Cranbrook, BC. The crash, which killed 43 people, was blamed on a snowplow left on the runway.

In 1982, Laker Airways, which had provided “no frills” service across the Atlantic, declared bankruptcy.

In 1984, space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless and Robert Stewart took the first untethered space walk, spending 90 minutes in free flight near the space shuttle “Challenger.”

In 1986, it rained sardines in Ipswich, Australia. Scientists speculated that a violent storm caused updrafts, which lifted the fish from shallow waters and took them up into the atmosphere.

In 1988, the 15th Winter Olympics opened in Calgary. More than 1,800 athletes from 57 countries participated.

In 1993, two British explorers became the first to cross the Antarctic on foot without outside support. Sir Ralph Fiennes and Dr. Michael Stroud dragged their supplies on sledges weighing 196 kilograms across more than 2,100 kilometres.

In 2003, The World Health Organization’s Beijing office received an email describing a “strange contagious disease” in Guangdong province that killed dozens within one week. The disease was later identified as SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.

In 2010, Wayne Gretzky lit the outdoor cauldron and officially launched the 21st Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

In 2010, all 64 young students, including 42 Canadian high school and university students, and crew aboard the Nova-Scotia-based tall ship, Concordia, were saved after the ship capsized about
550 km southeast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In 2011, the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax opened its doors as the country’s sixth national museum. From the late 1920s to the early 1970s, Pier 21 was Canada’s front door for more than one million immigrants, refugees, troops, wartime evacuees, war brides and their children.

In 2013, American Airlines and US Airways agreed to merge in an US$11-billion deal that would create the world’s biggest airline. It was approved in December and the combined carrier was named American
Airlines Group Inc.

In 2020, anti-pipeline blockades forced CN Rail to shut down its entire network in Eastern Canada. Via Rail also cancelled passenger service across the country.

In 2020, Saudi Arabia closed off the holiest sites in Islam to foreign pilgrims due to the novel coronavirus. The decision disrupted travel for thousands of Muslims headed to the kingdom and was expected to affect millions more ahead of the fasting month of Ramadan and the hajj pilgrimage. Such a move wasn’t even taken during the 1918 flu epidemic that killed tens of millions of people.