Today-History-July29

--- Today in History for July 29: On this date: In 1588, the Spanish Armada was defeated in the English Channel by the British, led by Sir Francis Drake.

--- Today in History for July 29: On this date: In 1588, the Spanish Armada was defeated in the English Channel by the British, led by Sir Francis Drake. Although Spain sent other fleets against England in the 1590s, none repeated the threat of the 1588 plan to invade England. In 1858, the government of John A. Macdonald and George-Etienne Cartier resigned when the House of Commons voted against their motion to move the capital of the Province of Canada to Ottawa from York.

In 1873, the first Icelanders to migrate to Canada arrived. Their homes had been destroyed by a volcanic eruption. Numbering 285, they arrived in Quebec and headed for the Muskoka area of Ontario.

They found it difficult to settle there, however, and moved on to Willow Point on Lake Winnipeg. They named it Gimli -- Icelandic for paradise. In 1874, social reformer J.S. Woodsworth was born.

He helped form the Manitoba Independent Labour Party and was elected to the Commons in 1921. In 1926, he bargained his party's two votes for a promise by Prime Minister Mackenzie King to enact an old-age pension plan. In 1890, artist Vincent van Gogh died in Auvers, France, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In 1899, the permanent international court of arbitration was established at The Hague, in the Netherlands. In 1900, King Humbert I of Italy was assassinated at Monza, Italy. In 1905, Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish diplomat and secretary general of the UN from 1953-61, was born.

His spiritual