25 YEARS AGO
The Globe and Mail reported that Soviet state television showed a frail-looking President Konstantin Chernenko casting his vote in elections for deputies to the parliament of the Russian Republic. It was a surprise appearance for the 73-year-old Soviet leader, who had missed a key election speech only two days earlier because of illness. He murmured only a few words during the less than two minutes of film shown on afternoon and evening news programs. Environmentalists were watching British Columbia's beaches, fearing a repeat of the events of 1984 when migrating grey whales washed up dead in unusually large numbers.
50 YEARS AGO
The Globe and Mail reported that the West German Defence Ministry was going ahead with plans to establish military supply bases in Spain despite mounting opposition to the idea throughout Western Europe. Women of the Elliot Lake area in Ontario were planning to go to Ottawa to find out what the government planned to do to help the community keep going when uranium mining was cut back. Marlon Brando was signed to play the title role in Sam Spiegel's production of Lawrence of Arabia. Incoming National Football League commissioner Pete Rozelle said he had found a strong sentiment in the league for eventual expansion to 16 teams. There was strong sentiment for new franchises, in addition to teams already planned for Dallas (1961) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (1962). While there was no serious discussion of the other cities to be added, Montreal and Toronto had been suggested as possibilities.
100 YEARS AGO
The Globe reported that alarmist news of Wilfrid Laurier's health was absurd. The Prime Minister had to lie up with a cold and bilious attack. The regulation regarding the muzzling of dogs in Toronto went into effect. The concert of the Schubert Choir of Toronto in Rochester, N.Y., was a great success. Some 50 people lost their lives in a panic that followed a fire in a theatre in Trujilo, northern Peru. A party of daring motorists lost their way on the ice on Lake Erie near Toledo, Ohio, and narrowly escaped death. U.S. President William Howard Taft, speaking in Newark, N.J., said the actual cost for engineering and construction of the Panama Canal would be $297-million.