This day in history

By a bare majority of 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, citizens of the province of Quebec vote to remain a province of Canada.

French-speaking Quebec has long considered itself culturally divided from the rest of Canada. The referendum was the most serious threat to Canadian unity in the country’s 128-year existence, carrying with it the possibility of losing nearly one-third of Canada’s population if the Yes vote won. Quebec separatists refrained from violence after their narrow defeat.

In Poland, the body of the anti-communist priest Father Jerzy Popieluszko is found. Popieluszko had been kidnapped and killed by members of the secret police. 

In Britain, Nicholas Reed, a pro-euthanasia campaigner, is sentenced two and a half years in prison for assisting people to die.

Muhammad Ali defeats George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, to regain the world heavy weight championship in what becomes known as the “Rumble in the jungle.”

In Britain, the Conservative government announces plans to reform the House of Lords, allowing women to sit in the chamber for the first time and creating Life Peerages. 

President Franklin Roosevelt approves a Lend-Lease programme of American aid to the Soviet Union.