Today in history: November 21 | |
| 1783: The first untethered human flight takes off when scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d’Arlandes, float over Paris in a hot air balloon. They rose to a height of about 1,000 metres and drifted over the city for 25 minutes. 1902: Hockey broadcaster Foster Hewitt is born in Toronto. Hewitt did the play-by-play for Hockey Night in Canada, and coined the phrase "He shoots, he scores." 1959: Alan Freed, at the time the top disc jockey in the U.S., is fired by New York station WABC after he refused to sign an affidavit that he had taken money or gifts for playing records on air. Freed was the prime target in the payola investigations launched by the U.S. Congress. 1981: Tens of thousands of people gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to protest high interest rates. The demonstration, initiated by Canadian Labour Congress president Dennis McDermott, was in reaction to mortgage rates that were running at 18 per cent at time. | |
(With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press, The Associated Press and Reuters) | |
