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An in-brief survey of some of the significant news events in 2015, in chronological order:

January

1 - Donna Douglas, who played the attractive tomboy Elly May Clampett on the hit 1960s TV sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies," died of pancreatic cancer. She was 82.

1 - Mario Cuomo, a three-term Democratic governor of New York, died at age 82.

2 - Singer-songwriter Little Jimmy Dickens, the oldest cast member of the Grand Ole Opry who had been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1983, died at a Nashville-area hospital of cardiac arrest. He was 94.

3 - Islamic extremist group Boko Haram killed as many as 2,000 civilians and destroyed 3,700 homes and businesses in an attack in the northeast Nigerian town of Baga, a key military base near the border of Cameroon and Chad.

5 - Dalhousie University suspended 13 male dentistry students from clinical activities over misogynistic comments that were allegedly posted on Facebook. The university later said the 13 would no longer attend classes with the rest of their classmates.

5 - Canada came perilously close to blowing a four-goal lead but persevered in a scoreless third period to beat Russia 5-4 to win the gold medal at the World Jr. Hockey Championship, its first since 2009.

5 - After an 18-month tenure marred by controversy, confrontation and cries of incompetence, Conservative Julian Fantino was removed from the Veterans Affairs portfolio and demoted to his old job as a junior minister. Erin O'Toole, a former member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, was named his replacement.

7 - Two al-Qaida-linked gunmen stormed the Paris office of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people, including eight journalists and two police officers, to avenge depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. A co-conspirator killed a French policewoman the next day and four other people died in a hostage-taking at a kosher grocery store on January 9th before he was killed by police. The original gunmen - two brothers - also died in a shootout with police on the same day at a printing plant north of Paris.

7 - J.P. Parise, a Minnesota North Stars standout who also played for Canada in the landmark Summit Series against the Soviet Union in 1972, died of lung cancer. He was 73.

8 - Three new charges of sexual assault were laid against fired CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi during a brief court appearance in Toronto after three new complainants came forward. Ghomeshi had been charged in November with four counts of sexual assault and one of choking stemming from alleged incidents involving three other women. He denied all charges. Prosecutors later withdrew two sexual assault charges.

8 - Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, the man hailed as a hero for killing the gunman who'd stormed Parliament Hill in October of 2014 after killing a soldier at the National War Memorial, was named Canadian ambassador to Ireland.

8 - Legendary Grammy Award-winning gospel performer, songwriter and choir director Andrae Crouch died in a Los Angeles hospital almost a week after suffering a heart attack. He was 72. Crouch's work graced songs by Michael Jackson and Madonna and movies such as "The Lion King."

8 - The U.S. government fined Honda 70-million dollars -- the largest civil penalty levied against an automaker -- for not reporting to regulators 1,729 complaints that its vehicles caused deaths and injuries, and for not reporting warranty claims. The complaints covered an 11-year period dating back to 2003.

9 - Montreal Maine and Atlantic Canada Co., its insurance carrier, rail-car manufacturers and some oil producers reached a settlement with families of victims of the 2013 rail disaster in Lac-Megantic, Que. Roughly 25 companies ended up agreeing to contribute about 450-million dollars to the settlement, which was approved by judges in the U.S. and Quebec in October.

11 - Anita Ekberg, the Swedish-born actress and sex-symbol of the 1950s and '60s who was immortalized bathing in the Trevi fountain in "La Dolce Vita," died at age 83.

11 -Tennis great Roger Federer defeated Canadian Milos Raonic at the Brisbane International final to register his 1,000th career match win. He is only the third player to reach that plateau.

11 - Canadian Khaled Al-Qazzaz, a former aide to ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, was freed from a Cairo prison a year-and a-half after his arrest due to health concerns. The 35-year-old - a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood which was banned after Morsi's ouster - had been accused of membership in a terrorist organization.

12 - Ezekiel Elliott rushed for 246 yards and four touchdowns to help the Ohio State Buckeyes win the first national title in U.S. college football's playoff era, running over the Oregon Ducks 42-20.

15 - U.S.-based retail giant Target Corporation announced it would close all 133 money-losing Canadian stores just two years after its much-anticipated launch, affecting 17,600 employees.

15 - A second young man who pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography in the Rehtaeh Parsons case in Halifax was sentenced to a year of probation. He was 16 when the offence took place in 2011.

15 - The Black Crowes founding member Rich Robinson announced the blues-rock band was breaking up after 24 years.

16 - The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Mounties had the right to engage in meaningful collective bargaining, but did not explicitly state that they had the right to form a union. The 6-1 ruling gave the federal government a year to create a new labour relations scheme.

16 - Barbra Streisand's "Partners" album went platinum, solidifying her place as the female artist with the most platinum albums at 31.

23 - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the powerful U.S. ally who fought against al-Qaida and sought to modernize his ultraconservative Muslim kingdom, died at age 90. His 79-year-old half-brother, Prince Salman, was his successor.

24 - Legendary Canadian figure skater Toller Cranston died at his home in Mexico from an apparent heart attack. He was 65. The six-time Canadian senior men's champion won a bronze medal at the 1974 world championships and 1976 Olympics but is best known for bringing new artistry to the sport.

25 - Alexis Tsipras' radical left-wing Syriza party won a historic victory in Greece's national elections on a pledge to renegotiate the country's painful austerity measures that were implemented as part of the E.U.'s massive bailout, which included cuts in pensions and the minimum wage.

26 - A Greek F-16 fighter jet crashed into other aircraft on the ground during NATO training at the Los Llanos base in southeastern Spain, killing at least 10 French and Greek military personnel.

26 - The 500-year-old Church of England consecrated its first female bishop. The Reverend Libby Lane became the eighth Bishop of Stockport in a service at York Minster.

27 - A Los Angeles jury awarded 71-year-old funk legend Sly Stone $5 million in a breach-of-contract suit that claimed his business partners and his own company cheated him out of royalties.

27 - The entire city of Winnipeg was placed under a boil-water advisory after routine sampling showed the presence of E. coli and coliform at extremely low levels in the municipal water supply. The ban was lifted two days later after subsequent tests came back clean.

27 - Tim Hortons announced 350 layoffs at its Toronto-area headquarters and regional offices in a reorganization of its operations after its takeover by Burger King Worldwide in 2014.

29 - NHL goalie Martin Brodeur announced his retirement after a stellar 22-year career. He held the league records for regular season wins (691), shutouts (125), games played (1,266) and minutes played (74,438). He also had 113 career post-season victories to go along with three Stanley Cups and four Vezina Trophies as the NHL's top goaltender.

30 - Marion "Suge" Knight, the former music mogul who founded hip-hop label Death Row Records, was arrested on suspicion of hitting and killing a man with his truck and then fleeing the crash in Compton, near Los Angeles. Knight maintained he was attacked and was trying to flee after being ambushed but a judge ordered him to stand trial on charges of murder and attempted murder.

31 - An online video was released that appeared to show an Islamic State group militant beheading Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, ending days of negotiations by diplomats to save the man.

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February

1 - New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady orchestrated two fourth-quarter touchdown drives to erase a 10-point deficit and defeat the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 to win his fourth Super Bowl title and record-tying third MVP award.

1 - Serena Williams defeated Maria Sharapova 6-3, 7-6 (5) for her sixth Australian Open title. Five-time winner Novak Djokovic defeated Andy Murray in four sets to take the men's title.

3 - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's most trusted and high-profile cabinet ministers, shocked political observers by announcing his resignation from cabinet in the House of Commons. He resigned as an MP in March, saying it was time for a new chapter in his life after spending 20 years in politics and public life.

3 - A video released online showed a Jordanian pilot captured by the Islamic State extremist group being burned to death. Jordan vowed "punishment and revenge" and executed two al-Qaida prisoners.

3 - Police in Ottawa laid terror charges against three Ottawa men, two of whom were believed to be in the Middle East and fighting on behalf of the Islamic State.

4 - Defrocked Arctic priest Eric Dejaeger was sentenced to 19 years in prison for dozens of sex offences against Inuit children that took place 35 years ago earlier in the remote Nunavut community of Igloolik when he was there as an Oblate missionary.

5 - A jury in Britain found former glam rock singer Gary Glitter guilty of a string of sex abuse offences against three young girls in the 1970s. The 70-year-old Glitter - whose real name was Paul Gadd - was later sentenced to 16 years prison.

5 - Former federal New Democrat MP Glenn Thibeault won a provincial byelection in Sudbury, Ontario, for the governing Liberals. But the victory was marred by a criminal investigation of allegations made by independent candidate Andrew Olivier. He had been dumped by the Liberals in favour of Thibeault and alleged the party had offered him a job or appointment to try to get him to step aside.

6 - The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously struck down the ban on providing a doctor-assisted death to mentally competent patients suffering incurable illness or suffering. The historic decision was put on hold for 12 months, giving Parliament and provincial legislatures time to craft new laws that comply with the ruling.

7 - Brian Williams said he was temporarily stepping aside as anchor of "N-B-C Nightly News" after telling a false story about being in a helicopter hit by a grenade in Iraq 12 years earlier. N-B-C later suspended him for six months without pay. The network announced in June he would not return as "Nightly News" anchor, but would continue breaking news reports at the cable network MSNBC.

8 - British singer Sam Smith took home three of the top four Grammy awards, including song and record of the year for "Stay With Me (Darkchild Version)" and best new artist, while Beck won album of the year for his disc "Morning Phase." Smith also won best pop vocal album for "In the Lonely Hour."

9 - Jason Kenney was named defence minister in a cabinet shuffle while former minister Rob Nicholson took over foreign affairs following the abrupt resignation of John Baird. Kenney's former job as minister of employment and social development was handed to Minister of State for Democratic Reform Pierre Poilievre.

9 - Controversial Toronto-area Conservative MP Eve Adams crossed the floor to sit with the Liberals. She had dropped out of a bitter Conservative nomination contest in the riding of Oakville North-Burlington amid allegations on both sides of dirty tricks. Her fiancé Dimitri Soudas had also been fired from his top role with the Conservative Party after he was accused of interfering with the race. Adams lost her bid in July for the Liberal nomination in the Toronto riding held by Finance Minister Joe Oliver.

10 - Jon Stewart announced he was stepping down as host of "The Daily Show" after 16 years. His final show was on August 6th. Thirty-one-year-old South African comedian Trevor Noah was named as his replacement.

11 - Francesco Schettino, the captain of the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He was accused of causing the 2012 shipwreck that claimed 32 lives and of abandoning the luxury liner while many of the 42-hundred passengers and crew were still aboard.

11 -Longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Bob Simon, who had covered major overseas conflicts and news stories since the late 1960s, was killed in a car crash in New York. He was 73.

12 - Al-Jazeera journalist and Canadian citizen Mohamed Fahmy, who had spent more than a year in a Cairo prison, was ordered released on bail by an Egyptian court about an hour after the start of his retrial on widely-denounced terror-related charges.

13 - The right-wing Sun News Network, dubbed "Fox News North" by critics, went off the air without fanfare after almost four years of struggling in the ratings. Negotiations to sell the troubled television channel were unsuccessful.

13 - Two people were arrested in an alleged plot to open fire at a popular Halifax shopping mall on Valentine's Day. Twenty-three-year-old Kantha Souvannarath of Geneva, Illinois and 20-year-old Randall Steven Shepherd of Halifax were charged with conspiracy to commit murder. A 19-year-old suspect had also shot himself to death the previous day when police surrounded his home in Timberlea.

13 - A gunman fired on a Copenhagen cafe hosting a free speech event, killing a Danish filmmaker and wounding three police officers. The event was organized by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had faced numerous threats for caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad. The next day, the guman killed a Jewish security guard outside a synagogue and was shot to death by a police SWAT team hours later.

14 - Seventy-one-year-old Gary Sorenson and 61-year-old Milowe Brost were convicted of fraud and theft for one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Canadian history. They bilked between $100 million and $400 million from more than 2,400 investors around the world. They were later both sentenced to 12 years in prison.

16 - Singer-songwriter Lesley Gore, who topped the charts in 1963 at age 16 with her epic song of teenage angst "It's My Party" and followed it up with the hits "Judy's Turn to Cry" and the feminist anthem "You Don't Own Me," died of lung cancer. She was 68.

16 - Egypt carried out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in neighbouring Libya a day after the group issued a grisly video of the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians who had travelled to Libya for work.

19 - A three-year-old Toronto boy died after wandering away from his grandmother's apartment building at 4 a.m. into the bitter cold dressed only in a shirt, diaper and winter boots. Elijah Marsh was found about six hours later in the corner of a nearby backyard.

19 - The 1954 Les Paul Gibson guitar known as "Black Beauty" sold at auction in New York for just over $335,000 US. It was considered the "holy grail'' among musicians because it was a prototype for thousands of others.

20 - An Ottawa man was found fit to stand trial in the 2014 home invasion attack on 101-year-old D-Day veteran Ernest Cote. Ian Bush was then charged in the 2007 triple homicide of retired tax court judge Alban Garon, his wife Raymonde and their neighbour, Marie-Claire Beniskos.

21 - Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter Clark Terry, who played in the orchestras of both Count Basie and Duke Ellington and on "The Tonight Show," died at age 94.

22 - "Birdman," a surreal comedy starring Michael Keaton as an actor fleeing his superhero past, won Academy Awards for best picture, best director for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, best original screenplay and best cinematography. Eddie Redmayne won best actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything" and Julianne Moore was named best actress for her performance as an academic with early onset Alzheimer's in "Still Alice."

23 - Wade MacLauchlan was sworn in as P-E-I's 32nd premier. He ran unopposed for the Liberal party's leadership after Robert Ghiz announced he was stepping down after eight years as premier.

23 - Two Nova Scotia men pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2013 death of 62-year-old Harley Lawrence, a homeless man who was found in a burned out bus shelter in Berwick. Twenty-seven-year-old Daniel Wayne Surette and 26-year-old Kyle David James Fredericks both received automatic life sentences with Surette to serve 20 years before becoming eligible for parole, while Fredericks would be able to apply for parole after serving 18 years.

24 - U.S. President Barack Obama vetoed a bill that would have approved construction of the Keystone X-L oil pipeline. The eight-billion-dollar project from Calgary-based TransCanada Corporation would connect the Alberta oilsands to Gulf Coast refineries. Republicans in the U.S. indicated they would continue to fight for the project, first proposed in 2008.

24 - Alaska became the third U.S. state to legalize recreational marijuana. Colorado and Washington state had legalized recreational marijuana in 2012 and opened retail shops in 2014.

24 - R&B singer Chris Brown was barred from entering Canada for upcoming concerts in Montreal and Toronto. The Grammy winner has been involved in numerous scandals and tangles with the law, most prominently, pleading guilty to felony assault in an incident with Rihanna hours before the 2009 Grammy Awards.

24 - Avalanches caused be a heavy winter snow killed at least 162 people across four northeast provinces in Afghanistan.

25 - Four brothers, aged 9 to 16, died in an early morning fire at a two-storey farmhouse in the rural Manitoba community of Kane. Three other children were able to escape while the parents were taken to hospital.

25 - The City of Montreal withdrew charges against nearly two-thousand demonstrators accused of violating a controversial bylaw that banned masks at protests and required that an itinerary be submitted by organizers before any demonstration.

25 - Thanks to his surprise album "If You're Reading This It's Too Late," Toronto rapper Drake had 14 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, tying him with The Beatles for the most songs on the chart at the same time.

26 - Embattled Quebec Education Minister Yves Bolduc quit politics amid criticism of his comments that he supported strip searches at Quebec high schools. The issue surfaced after a 15-year-old girl told the Journal de Quebec she felt violated after being strip-searched because the school suspected her of selling drugs.

27 - Leonard Nimoy, the actor known and loved by generations of "Star Trek" fans as the pointy-eared half-human, half-Vulcan, purely logical science officer Mr. Spock, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at his Los Angeles home. He was 83.

27 - The Ontario Securities Commission permanently banned former media baron Conrad Black and his ex-colleague, former Hollinger International chief financial officer John Boultbee, from acting as a corporate director or officer of a public company in Ontario.

27 - Multi-platinum country singer Carrie Underwood gave birth to a son. Isaiah Michael Fisher was the first child for Underwood and her husband, NHL player Mike Fisher.

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March

1 - Xavier Dolan's acclaimed feature film "Mommy" racked up nine prizes including best picture and best director at the Canadian Screen Awards. In the TV categories, the sci-fi clone saga "Orphan Black" won for best drama and star Tatiana Maslany won for best actress in a drama.

6 - Sergeant Andrew Joseph Doiron was killed in a nighttime friendly fire incident by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers in Iraq, marking Canada's first casualty as part of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL. Three other Canadian soldiers were injured.

8 - Team Canada upset Brad Jacobs' Northern Ontario rink 6-5 in the final of the Tim Hortons Brier. Pat Simmons, who took over as Team Canada skip from John Morris midway through the tournament, drew to the button on the last rock in the extra end.

8 - Premier Greg Selinger narrowly survived a challenge to his leadership of Manitoba's New Democratic Party. He won 51 per cent of the vote on the second ballot of a leadership contest. It followed a caucus revolt after party support plummeted following Selinger's decision to raise the provincial sales tax by one percentage point in 2013.

9 - Sylvain Laporte took over as president of the Canadian Space Agency. His appointment followed a more than two decade career in the public service, including with the Canadian military.

9 - Two helicopters collided in midflight in a remote part of Argentina, killing all 10 people on board both aircraft, including three French Olympians taking part in a popular European reality show.

10 - A Los Angeles jury determined that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied elements of R&B legend Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give it Up" for their 2013 megahit "Blurred Lines." They were ordered to pay nearly $5.2 million to the late singer's three children and 50 per cent of the song's future royalties.

10 - The CBC selected Juno Award-winning rapper Shad as the new host of its arts and culture radio program "Q", which was helmed by Jian Ghomeshi until he was fired in 2014 over sexual assault allegations. Shad debuted on the newly rebranded "q" on April 20.

10 - The Military Police Complaints Commission released a long-awaited report into the 2008 suicide of troubled soldier Cpl. Stuart Langridge at his Edmonton barracks. It found there was incompetence and negligence, but no intentional bias in the way the military police handled their investigation. It also said there were "unacceptable errors'' in the way military cops dealt with the soldier's grieving family.

10 - Italy's highest court upheld Silvio Berlusconi's acquittal on charges he paid for sex with an underage prostitute during raunchy, sex-fuelled "bunga bunga" parties at his Milan villa, and used his influence to cover it up.

11 - Muslim leaders from across Canada issued an Islamic edict, called a fatwa, against the militant group ISIL and its supporters, calling them non-Muslim.

11 - Embattled Ferguson, Missouri police Chief Tom Jackson resigned days after a scathing Justice Department report contended there were racist, profit-driven law enforcement practices in the small St. Louis suburb. The investigation followed the August 2014 shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, which sparked a national dialogue in the U.S. on race and law enforcement.

11 - Former Team Canada junior ski coach Bertrand Charest was arraigned on 47 charges including sexual assault and breach of trust involving eight females between the ages of 12 and 19. The alleged crimes occurred between 1991 and 1998. A ninth alleged victim came forward the next day.

15 - Eighty-year-old Leonard Cohen snagged album of the year at the Juno Awards in Hamilton while Kiesza won three awards, including breakthrough artist of the year. The Arkells took rock album of the year and group of the year and The Weeknd won artist of the year. Alanis Morissette was ushered into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

15 - The Carleton Ravens trounced the Ottawa Gee-Gees 93-46 to win their fifth straight CIS men's basketball championship.

17 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud Party scored a resounding victory in the country's election.

20 - A Toronto jury found Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier guilty of eight terrorism charges between them in a plot to derail a passenger train travelling between Canada and the U.S. They were both sentenced to life in prison in September with no parole eligibility until 2023.

20 - Former Mountie Benjamin (Monty) Robinson, who was involved in Robert Dziekanski's 2007 Taser-related death at Vancouver's airport and was later held up by the force as an example of a bad apple within its ranks, was convicted of perjury for his testimony at a public inquiry into the death.

20 - Fox TV's McKinley High School song-and-dance saga "Glee" concluded after six tuneful seasons. The series' cast flooded the Billboard Hot 100 chart with a record-setting 207 songs.

21 - Seven Jewish siblings, ages 5 to 16, were killed in a devastating house fire in Brooklyn. N.Y. A hot plate left on for the Sabbath was believed to have sparked the fire.

21 - Victoria native point guard Steve Nash announced his retirement after an illustrious 19-year NBA career that included two MVP awards. An eight-time all-star, Nash ranks third in NBA history with 10,335 assists and left as the league's all-time leading free-throw shooter at 90.4 per cent.

23 - Gary Ross Dahl, the creator of the wildly popular 1970s fad the Pet Rock, died at age 78 in southern Oregon. Dahl estimated he had sold 1.5 million of them at roughly $4 each by the time the fad fizzled.

24 - The co-pilot of a Germanwings jet barricaded himself in the cockpit and deliberately and wordlessly dropped the plane from a cruising altitude of 38,000 feet to just over 6,000 feet before slamming into a remote mountainside in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

25 - Ben E. King's "Stand by Me," was among the 25 recordings selected for preservation to the National Recording Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress. Also chosen: The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" by Johnny Mercer as well as albums from Steve Martin ("A Wild and Crazy Guy"), Joan Baez (self-titled debut) and Radiohead ("OK Computer").

25 - H.J. Heinz Co. announced plans to buy Kraft Foods Group and create one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, Kraft Heinz Co.

25 - U.S. ally President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled Yemen by sea as Shiite rebels and their allies moved on his last refuge in the southern port of Aden, captured its airport and put a bounty on his head.

26 - Alberta's Conservative government tabled a budget that increased taxes and fees virtually across the board while running the largest deficit in the province's history at $5 billion.

27 - The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision gave Ottawa the right to order the destruction of Quebec's data in the now defunct federal long-gun registry. Quebec said it would proceed with its own gun registry.

27 - Italy's highest court overturned the murder conviction of Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend in the 2007 slaying of Knox's university roommate Meredith Kercher, bringing a definitive end to the high-profile case that captivated trial-watchers on both sides of the Atlantic.

27 - The Aequitas Neo Exchange, a new stock market aimed at deterring high-frequency trading strategies, celebrated its launch on what was once the trading floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

28- Electronics retailer Best Buy Canada announced it was closing 66 Future Shops effective immediately, affecting 500 full-time and 1,000 part-time jobs. The 65 other stores were re-branded as Best Buy.

29 - An Air Canada plane attempting to land at the Halifax airport in the midst of snowstorm clipped an antenna array, losing its main landing gear. It slammed hard onto the ground some 300 metres short of the runway and bounced onto to it before skidding on its belly for another 335 metres until coming to a stop. Twenty-five of the 133 people on board were hospitalized but none of the injuries were life-threatening.

30 - Federal MPs voted 142-129 in favour of a motion to extend the military mission in Iraq for up to a full year and authorized bombing runs in Syria against targets belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. After taking power following the Oct. 19 federal election, the Trudeau Liberals announced Canada's CF-18 jets would be brought home and the focus would be on military training.

31 - A reported marijuana deal gone wrong in a Miami home resulted in an exchange of gunfire that claimed the life of the 17-year-old son of Roxanne Dube, Canada's top diplomat in Florida. Her 15-year-old son, who was waiting in a car parked outside, was arrested on felony murder charges. The suspected drug dealer was also killed and another man wounded.

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April

1- The world's oldest person, Misao Okawa of Japan, died a few weeks after celebrating her 117th birthday. American Gertrude Weaver, 116, assumed the title.

2 - An Indonesian court found Burlington, Ont., teacher Neil Bantleman guilty of child sexual abuse and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. He and an Indonesian teaching assistant appealed their convictions of sexually abusing three students at the Jakarta International School. On August 14th, both men left prison after a court overturned their convictions but prosecutors appealed that decision.

2 - After marathon negotiations, the U.S., Iran and five other world powers announced an agreement outlining limits on Iran's nuclear program to block it from developing atomic weapons and directing negotiators toward a final accord.

2 - Seven-foot-5, 360-pound Canadian Sim Bhullar signed a 10-day contract with the Sacramento Kings, becoming the NBA's first player of Indian descent.

2 - Al-Shabab gunmen rampaged through a university in northeastern Kenya at dawn, killing 148 people with the al-Qaida-linked group singling out non-Muslim students. Four militants were slain by security forces to end the siege just after dusk.

2 - Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the Southern California televangelist and author who beamed his upbeat messages on faith and redemption to millions from his landmark Crystal Cathedral only to see his empire crumble in his waning years, died at age 88. He was diagnosed with terminal esophageal cancer in 2013.

4 - Montreal Canadiens legend Elmer Lach, who centred Maurice (Rocket) Richard and Toe Blake on the famous Punch Line of the 1940s, died at age 97 in Montreal. He could skate and score well enough to be called Elegant Elmer and had a battling nature that made him an invaluable player throughout his 14-year career with the Canadiens.

5 - Don Dunphy, 59, was fatally shot at his home in Mitchells Brook, N.L., by an officer on Premier Paul Davis's security team who was investigating potentially threatening tweets.

5 - Canada's Pat Simmons beat Finland's Aku Kauste 8-4 to win bronze at the world men's curling championship in Halifax.

6 - The federal government sold its remaining 73.4 million shares in General Motors, worth $3.3 billion, to Goldman, Sachs & Co.

6 - Duke overcame a nine-point deficit to grit out a 68-63 victory over Wisconsin in the NCAA Men's Tournament championship game, giving coach Mike Krzyzewski his fifth national title.

6 - A divorced father and his seven children - aged 6 to 15 - were found dead in their Maryland rental home as a result of carbon monoxide from a gas-powered generator only days after a power company discovered a stolen meter and cut off electricity.

7 - The trial began for suspended senator Mike Duffy, whose disputed expense claims rocked the Conservative government, on 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery.

7 - Charleston, S.C., police officer Michael Slager was charged with murder after law enforcement officials viewed a bystander's cellphone video showing him shooting a fleeing black man several times in the back after a traffic stop. Slager claimed in his official police report that he killed Walter Scott in self-defence after the motorist grabbed his Taser.

7 - Singer-songwriter Don McLean's original 16-page manuscript and notes to "American Pie" sold at auction for $1.2 million U-S. The eight-minute-long wistful anthem was released in 1971 and was named a "song of the century" by the Recording Industry Association of American and the National Endowment for the Arts.

8 - A U.S. federal jury found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty on all 30 charges stemming from the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. He was later sentenced to death by lethal injection.

8 - Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, who oversaw the funerals of NHL great Maurice (Rocket) Richard and former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau during his 22 years as archbishop of Montreal, died after a lengthy diabetes-related illness. He was 78. During his religious career, he took part in two conclaves that chose the successors to two popes, Jean-Paul II and Benedict XVI.

8 - The NFL hired Sarah Thomas to be its first female full-time game official. She was to be a line judge for the 2015 season.

9 - Juno and Grammy award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan was one of five recipients of the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards for lifetime artistic achievement.

12 - Jordan Spieth, 21, romped to his first major championship with a record-tying performance at the Masters, shooting an 18-under 270 to become the first wire-to-wire winner of the green jacket since 1976. (He also set Masters scoring records for both 36 holes (14-under) and 54 holes (16-under))

12 -Former U.S. secretary of state, senator and first lady Hillary Clinton announced her long-anticipated second bid to become the Democratic candidate for the presidency.

13 - Ontario and Quebec signed a cap-and-trade deal to put a price on carbon in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

13 - Toronto's Zain Rajani was the world's first baby born using the Augment in-vitro fertilization treatment. Eggs extracted from his mother Natasha Rajani were re-energized after being injected with mitochondria from her own egg precursor cells. The eggs were also injected with her husband Omar's sperm and the resulting embryos were then implanted in her uterus.

14 - The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the 2013 Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that the Harper government's law requiring mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes was unconstitutional.

14 - Ottawa announced it would send 200 military trainers to Ukraine, joining the U.S. and Britain in an international effort to shore up the eastern European country in its efforts to maintain sovereignty, security and stability in the face of Russian aggression.

14 - Rock and Roll hall-of-Famer Percy Sledge, who soared from part-time singer and hospital orderly to lasting fame with his 1966 classic "When a Man Loves a Woman," died of liver failure. He was 74.

15 - Ex-NFL star Aaron Hernandez was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in the 2013 shooting death of Odin Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancée.

16 - Christopher Husbands, who gunned down two people in Toronto's crowded Eaton Centre food court in June 2012, was sentenced to at least 30 years behind bars - an unprecedented sentence for second-degree murder. He was ineligible for parole for 15 years for each killing, which were to be served consecutively rather than concurrently.

18 - Drummer Ringo Starr was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, the last of The Beatles to enter for his individual work.

18 - More than 800 people drowned when a boat packed with migrants trying to reach Europe sank near the Italian island of Lampedusa, making it the worst such incident ever in the Mediterranean.

20 - World-renowned circus troupe Cirque du Soleil signed a deal to sell a majority stake in the Quebec-based company to U.S. private equity firm TPG for an undisclosed price. Billionaire founder Guy Laliberte was to maintain a stake in the business and continue to provide strategic and creative input.

20 - Mark Saunders was introduced as Toronto's new Chief of Police, becoming the first black man named to the top job. He was sworn in May 20.

20 - Toronto Raptors guard Lou Williams won the NBA's Sixth Man Award as the league's best reserve player.

21 - An Egyptian criminal court sentenced ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to 20 years in prison on charges linked to the killing of protesters in 2012, the first verdict to be issued against the country's first freely elected leader.

21 - Latasha Gosling and her three children - all under nine years old - were murdered in their home in Tisdale, Saskatchewan by her ex-boyfriend Steven O'Shaughnessy. He then took their six-month-old baby and went to a home in Prince Albert, where he killed himself. The baby was unharmed.

22 - Blake Leggette and Victoria Henneberry pleaded guilty to first-degree and second-degree murder respectively in the death of Loretta Saunders, whose body was found dumped along the side of a New Brunswick highway two weeks after she vanished from her Halifax apartment in February 2014. Leggette received an automatic life sentence with no eligibility for parole for 25 years, while Henneberry received life in prison with no parole eligibility for 10 years.

22 - Lois Lilienstein, of Sharon, Lois & Bram fame, died after a battle with a rare form of cancer. She was 78. Lilienstein and musical partners Sharon Hampson and Bram Morrison entrenched themselves as preschool stars with their CBC-TV series "The Elephant Show," which ran from 1984 to 1989. The three-time Juno Award-winning trio issued its debut "One Elephant, Deux Elephants" in 1978.

23 - Senate Speaker Pierre Claude Nolin died at the age of 64. He had been battling a rare form of cancer since 2010.

24 -Former Guantanamo Bay inmate Omar Khadr was granted bail pending the appeal of his U.S. conviction for war crimes in Afghanistan. The federal government lost its appeal of the decision and Khadr was released from an Edmonton-area prison on May 7, his first taste of freedom since his capture as a wounded 15-year-old in Afghanistan in July 2002.

25 - More than 8,000 people, including two Canadians, were killed when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal and across a swath of four countries as the violently shaking earth collapsed houses, levelled centuries-old temples and triggered avalanches on Mt. Everest. A second earthquake May 12 killed another 96 people.

27 - Lt.-Gen. Jonathan Vance was named the next chief of defence staff, replacing retiring Gen. Tom Lawson.

27 - Jack Ely of The Kingsmen died at his home in Redmond, Oregon, after a long illness. He was 71. Ely's incoherent singing on the 1963 hit "Louie, Louie" prompted an FBI investigation into whether it was obscene.

29 - In what was believed to be the first major league game played without fans in attendance, the Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox 8-2. The gates at Camden Yards were locked because of concern for fan safety following recent rioting in Baltimore after a 25-year-old black man died in police custody.

30 - Vaughan, Ont.-native Andrew Wiggins, the first overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, was named rookie of the year and became the first Canadian to win the award.

30 - A long-awaited external review of sexual misconduct in the Canadian military was published, painting a portrait of a highly sexualized culture that created a hostile and potentially dangerous environment.

30 - Ben E. King, lead singer for The Drifters and a solo star whose R&B classics include "Stand by Me," ''There Goes My Baby," "Save the Last Dance For Me" and "Spanish Harlem," died at age 76. King and The Drifters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

30 - Canadian Andrew Wiggins was named the NBA's top rookie. The native of Vaughan, Ont., captured the award after averaging 16.9 points and 4.6 rebounds in the season with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

30 - The Tampa Bay Buccaneers picked Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jameis Winston with the first overall pick in the NFL draft.

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May

1 - Baltimore's state attorney announced criminal charges against six officers in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a severe spinal injury while in custody in a police van. The announcement came after nearly two weeks of protests and growing anger over Gray's death. The stiffest charge -- second-degree "depraved heart" murder -- was laid against the driver of the police van. Other officers face charges of involuntary manslaughter, assault and illegal arrest.

2 - Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, welcomed their second child - daughter Charlotte Elizabeth Diana. She will be known as Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and is fourth in line to the throne.

2 - Floyd Mayweather Jr. remained undefeated with a unanimous victory over Manny Pacquiao in their highly-anticipated unified welterweight megafight in Las Vegas. It was the richest purse in boxing history - a bout that made Mayweather at least $180 million and Pacquiao $120 million.

2 - Jockey Victor Espinoza guided favourite American Pharoah to a one-length victory over Firing Line in the 141st running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs before a record crowd of 170,513.

3 - Two gunmen opened fired outside a suburban Dallas venue exhibiting cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, wounding a security officer, but were killed by police officers before they could enter the building.

4 - Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry won the NBA's Most Valuable Player award.

4 - Rookie politician Wade MacLauchlan led the Liberal party to a third straight majority government in the P.E.I. election.

5 - Rachel Notley led the New Democrats to a historic first victory in the Alberta election. The majority victory toppled the Progressive Conservative dynasty that had been in power since 1971 and drove leader Jim Prentice from politics. The NDP took 53 seats while the Wildrose party captured 21 to form the official Opposition. The once-mighty PCs were reduced to 10 seats.

7 - Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Kahdr was freed on bail after an Alberta Court of Appeal justice rejected a last-ditch federal government effort to keep him behind bars while Khadr appeals his U.S. conviction for war crimes in Afghanistan.

7 - British voters returned David Cameron's Conservative Party to power for a second term, but this time with an unexpected majority - albeit a slim one. The Labour Party was routed in Scotland by Nicola Sturgeon's pro-independence Scottish National Party, which took almost all of the 59 seats.

9 - Little-known federal Tory backbencher Patrick Brown was elected the new leader of Ontario's Progressive Conservative party, defeating deputy PC leader Christine Elliott. He resigned his federal seat in the riding of Barrie and on May 2nd he won a provincial byelection in the riding of Simcoe North.

9 - The World Health Organization officially marked the end of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, which accounted for almost half of the more than 11,000 deaths in West Africa.

11 - Fox TV announced that "American Idol" would go off the air in 2016 after its 15th season. The singing competition dominated television throughout the 2000s and launched the careers of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Hudson.

11 - The NFL suspended Super Bowl MVP quarterback Tom Brady for the first four games of the 2015 season, fined the New England Patriots $1 million and took away two draft picks as punishment for the "Deflategate" scandal, where under-inflated footballs were used in the AFC title game against Indianapolis.

11 - Pablo Picasso's "Women of Algiers (Version O)" set a world record for artwork at auction, selling for US$179.4 million. Alberto Giacometti's life-size sculpture "Pointing Man" also set a record as the most expensive sculpture sold at auction, at US$141.3 million.

12 - The Ottawa Redblacks made offensive lineman Alex Mateas the first pick of the CFL draft.

14 - The Supreme Court of Canada summarily rejected the federal government's bid to have former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr declared an adult offender. The case centered on whether the eight-year war-crimes sentence he got from a U.S. military commission in 2010 ought to be interpreted as a youth or adult sentence.

14 - Bombardier, one of the world's biggest manufacturers of planes and trains, announced it would cut about 1,750 employees in Montreal, Toronto and Ireland because of weak demand for its largest business jets.

14 - Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the still-to-be built bridge connecting Windsor, Ont. and Detroit would be called the Gordie Howe International Bridge, named after the hockey legend and expected to be operational in 2020.

14 - B.B. King, whose scorching guitar licks and heartfelt vocals made him the idol of generations of musicians and fans while earning him the nickname King of the Blues, died at age 89. He sold millions of records worldwide, won 15 Grammys and was a member of both the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

15 - A jury sentenced 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection for the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.

16 - An Egyptian court sentenced the country's first freely elected leader, ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, and over 100 others to death over a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak and eventually brought Morsi to power.

16 - American Pharoah pulled away for a convincing win at the Preakness Stakes in driving rain. The Kentucky Derby winner was unfazed by sloppy track and thunder on the way to his sixth straight win and the second leg of the Triple Crown.

17 - Pop crossover starlet Taylor Swift won eight Billboard awards - including top artist, top female artist and Billboard 200 album for "1989" - to become the most decorated artist in the show's history with 20 wins.

17 - "Mad Men," AMC's acclaimed drama set in the 1960s New York advertising world, concluded its seven-season run.

17 - Team Canada ran the table with a perfect 10-0 record at the World Hockey Championship in Prague, ending with a dominant 6-1 win over its archrival Russia in the gold medal game.

19 - Under pressure from U.S. safety regulators, Japan-based Takata Corp. agreed to double the size of its recall to 33.8 million air bags, making it the largest recall in U.S. history. More than 1.5 million vehicles were recalled in Canada.

20 - David Letterman ended his 33-year career as a late-night television host after presiding over 6,028 broadcasts on NBC and CBS. He made Top Ten lists and ironic humour staples of television comedy and influenced a generation of performers.

20 - The Toronto Argonauts got a new owner and a new home. Bell and MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum purchased the CFL team and would relocate it to BMO Field.

22 - Irish voters resoundingly backed amending the constitution to legalize gay marriage after the world's first national vote on the issue.

24 - For a second time, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya won the Indy 500.

27 - Swiss prosecutors opened criminal proceedings into FIFA's awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, only hours after seven soccer officials were arrested on corruption charges at the request of American prosecutors and threatened with extradition to the U.S. Four other soccer and marketing officials and two corporate entities agreed to plead guilty, and prosecutors said they agreed to forfeit more than $150 million in illegal profits.

29 - Peter MacKay, one of the architects of the modern Conservative party who rose to the rank of justice minister and attorney general of Canada, formally announced he wouldn't seek re-election in his Nova Scotia riding after 18 years as a member of Parliament.

29 - Seventy-nine-year-old Sepp Blatter was re-elected as FIFA president for a fifth term, chosen to lead world soccer despite separate U.S. and Swiss criminal investigations of corruption within the organization that were launched days earlier. Although initially defiant and feisty when fending off questions about FIFA's battered reputation, he announced on June 2 he would resign after a new successor was elected.

29 - Benjamin Levin, who once served as deputy education minister in Ontario and Manitoba, was sentenced to three years in prison after he earlier pleaded guilty to three child porn-related offences.

29 - A controversial new law took effect allowing the federal government to revoke Canadian status of dual citizens convicted of terrorism, treason or espionage.

31 - Anthony Cirelli was the unlikely hero in the Oshawa Generals' 2-1 Memorial Cup victory over the Kelowna Rockets in overtime. It was the first Memorial Cup for the Generals in 25 years.

31 - A ban on flavoured tobacco - including menthol - took effect in Nova Scotia, making it the first jurisdiction in the world to do so. Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick also introduced similar legislation.

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June

1 - A Quebec Superior Court ordered three Big Tobacco companies to pay $15.6 billion to smokers in what is believed to be the biggest class-action lawsuit ever seen in Canada. All three firms immediately said they would appeal the decision.

1 - Jacques Parizeau, the blunt-talking sovereigntist former premier of Quebec, died at age 84. Parizeau was premier during the 1995 provincial referendum which saw the federalist No side defeat sovereigntists by a whisker after a bitter campaign. He blamed "money and the ethnic vote" for the loss and was roundly criticized to the point that he resigned as premier a day later.

2 - The Truth and Reconciliation Commission offered 94 broad recommendations in a summary report that concluded that what happened to aboriginal children in residential schools in Canada for 120 years amounted to cultural genocide. The government-funded, church-run schools subjected many of the children to substandard education and physical and sexual abuse. More than 6,000 children are estimated to have died.

2 - A jury found B.C. couple John Nuttall and Amanda Korody guilty of conspiring to commit murder in a terror plot involving a foiled attempt to bomb the B.C. legislature on Canada Day in 2013. A second stage of their trial began in July with defence lawyers arguing the verdict should be set aside because the RCMP entrapped the pair through a months-long undercover operation.

4 - The results of an unprecedented audit of Senate expenses by Auditor General Michael Ferguson was delivered to the upper chamber and identified $976,627 in questionable spending among 30 current and retired senators.

6 - American Pharoah handily won the Belmont Stakes to become the 12th Triple Crown winner and the first since Affirmed in 1978.

6 - Canada defeated China 1-0 on a penalty kick in stoppage time in the opening game of the FIFA Women's World Cup before a crowd of 53,058 at Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium, a record for a Canadian national team match on home soil. Canada was later knocked out by England in the quarter-final stage.

6 - No. 1 one-ranked Serena Williams defeated Lucie Safarova 6-3, 6-7, 6-2 for her third French Open title and 20th career Grand Slam title overall.

6 - Two convicted murderers used power tools to cut their way out an upstate New York maximum-security prison. Richard Matt and David Sweat remained on the lam until Matt was shot and killed by authorities on June 26 and Sweat was shot and captured two days later only a few kilometres from the Canadian border. Two prison workers were charged with helping them escape.

7 - Christopher Lee, an actor who brought dramatic gravitas and aristocratic bearing to screen villains from Dracula to the wicked wizard Saruman in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, died at age 93. He appeared in more than 250 movies.

8 - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the Group of Seven wealthy democracies agreed that the world should phase out the use of fossil fuels by the end of this century.

8 - Edmonton police Const. Daniel Woodall, 35, was fatally shot and Sgt. Jason Harley wounded as they tried to serve an arrest warrant to a man suspected of the anti-Semitic bullying of another man and his family. Norman Raddatz fired shots through his front door and then later shot himself after setting his house on fire.

9 - Photography chain Blacks announced it was shuttering all of its 59 stores in Canada as of early August after 85 years in operation. Most of the stores were in Ontario and employed about 485 people. It later announced it would survive as an online-only business.

9 - CBC severed ties with high-profile news host Evan Solomon after a Toronto Star report alleged he had ``secretly been brokering lucrative art deals'' with people he dealt with through his job. Solomon said he never intentionally used his position at CBC to promote a private business partnership he was involved in.

10 - Gilles Duceppe returned as leader of the Bloc Quebecois, reprising a role he held for 14 years from 1997 until the sovereigntist party was nearly wiped off the electoral map in 2011 when the party won a mere four seats as Jack Layton's NDP roared through the province.

11- The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that medical marijuana can include products other than dried pot, such as cannabis-infused cookies, brownies, oils and tea.

13 - Former big-league sluggers Carlos Delgado, Corey Koskie and Matt Stairs as well as longtime Montreal Expos manager Felipe Alou were inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

15 - The Chicago Blackhawks captured their third Stanley Cup in six years with a 2-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 in the NHL finals. Chicago defenceman Duncan Keith was the unanimous choice as playoff MVP.

15 - The Queen led commemorations to mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. The ceremony was held at Runnymede, where the document - seen by many as the most influential legal document in history - was signed by King John on June 15, 1215.

16 - The Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 105-97 in Game 6 to capture the team's first NBA championship since 1975.

16 - Bombastic real estate magnate and TV personality Donald Trump announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in a free-ranging 40-minute speech that included disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants.

17 - A white man opened fire during a Bible study at a historic black church in downtown Charleston, S.C., killing nine people, including pastor state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, in an assault that authorities described as a hate crime. Dylann Roof, 21, was arrested the next day.

18 - Manitoba became the first province to formally apologize for the '60s Scoop, when child-welfare agents removed aboriginal children from their families and placed them for adoption in non-Indigenous homes. A few days later, Alberta also apologized.

19 - Convicted sex offender Graham James pleaded guilty to more charges involving a player who described the former junior hockey coach as his tormentor and his demon. Two years were added onto the five-year sentence James was almost finished serving on other charges.

21 - American Jordan Spieth won the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, capturing the first two legs of the Grand Slam following his Masters victory in April.

24 - Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price captured the Hart Trophy as the MVP, Vezina Trophy as the best goaltender, Ted Lindsay Award as the most outstanding player as voted by his peers, and the William H. Jennings Trophy for the best goals-against average, becoming the first goalie in NHL history to sweep all four awards.

24 - Vancouver became the first city in Canada to regulate illegal marijuana dispensaries in what mayor Gregor Robertson called a common-sense approach after the federal government's failure to provide proper policies.

25 - Former Ontario Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro was sentenced to serve one month in jail and 18 months probation after he was convicted in the fall of 2014 for three 2008 federal election offences -- overspending, failing to report a contribution he made to his campaign and filing a false report.

25 - Patrick Macnee, the British-born actor best known as dapper secret agent John Steed in the long-running 1960s TV series "The Avengers," died at age 93.

26 - The U.S. Supreme Court declared that same-sex couples have a right to marry in all 50 states. It culminated two decades of Supreme Court litigation over marriage, and gay rights generally. Only 14 states, in the South and Midwest, had yet to legalize same-sex marriage.

26 - A gunman rushed from the beach into a hotel in the Tunisian resort town of Sousse, killing 38 people and wounding 37 others. ISIL claimed responsibility.

27 - Chris Squire, bassist of the Grammy-winning progressive rock band Yes, died after a battle with a rare form of leukemia. He was 67.

30 - Greece defaulted on a roughly 1.6 billion euro International Monetary Fund debt repayment, becoming the first developed country to fall into arrears on IMF payments. At the same time, its international bailout expired and with it any access it could have to existing financing from its eurozone partners and the IMF.

30 - An Indonesia air force transport plane crashed shortly after takeoff into a residential neighbourhood in the country's third-biggest city, Medan, killing all 122 on board and at least 19 people on the ground.

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July

1 - Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer shot well-known, protected African lion Cecil with a crossbow in a killing that outraged conservationists and others.

2 - Officials in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana announced an $18.7 billion settlement with BP that resolved years of litigation over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The settlement raised BP's spill-related costs to over $53 billion.

2 - A U.S. judge granted $134.2 million in damages to the widow of an American soldier killed in Afghanistan and another soldier partially blinded by a hand grenade in their lawsuit against former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, Canadian Omar Khadr.

3 - Pilot Andre Borschberg and his single-seat solar-powered aircraft landed in Hawaii after a 120-hour voyage from Japan, breaking the record for the world's longest non-stop solo flight.

5 - Nine-week-old Princess Charlotte, the daughter of Prince William and his wife Kate, was christened at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, a sprawling royal estate near England's eastern coast. The church is where Charlotte's late grandmother, Princess Diana, was christened in 1961.

5 - Greeks voted overwhelmingly to reject creditors' proposals of more austerity measures in return for rescue loans, leaving the bankrupt country's future in the 28-nation European Union and its euro currency uncertain. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who had clashed with European officials in the bailout talks, announced his resignation the next day.

5 - U.S. captain Carli Lloyd scored three times in the opening 16 minutes to lead the Americans to a 5-2 victory over Japan in the FIFA Women's World Cup final in Vancouver.

5 - Shaman Ghost rallied to capture the $1-million Queen's Plate at Toronto's Woodbine Racetrack, finishing 1 1/4-lengths ahead of Danish Dynaformer in a battle of the two race favourites.

9 - Composer Michael Masser died after a long illness. He was 74. In the 1970s, he wrote "Touch Me in the Morning" and "Theme from 'Mahogany' (Do You Know Where You're Going To?)" for Diana Ross. He began collaborating with Whitney Houston in the early 1980s, writing and producing such hits as "The Greatest Love of All," ''Saving All My Love" and "Didn't We Almost Have It All." He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007.

10 - Omar Sharif, the Egyptian-born actor who soared to international stardom in two David Lean epics, "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago," died of a heart attack in a Cairo hospital. He was 83.

11 - Serena Williams dispatched Garbine Muguruza 6-4, 6-4 for her sixth Wimbledon title and 21st major overall.

11 - Canada won its first medal of the Pan American Games in Toronto - a gold in the K-4 500 metres women's kayaking. Canadian athletes hauled in 217 medals - 78 of them gold - both national records for the Pan Ams. Canada finished second to the U.S. in both medal count (265) and golds (103).

11 - Top Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, escaped prison for a second time, this time from Mexico City's highest-maximum security prison via a tunnel in the shower-area of his cell. He had escaped in 2001 and was recaptured in 2014.

12 - No. 1-seeded Novak Djokovic won the Wimbledon title for the second straight year, and again against seven-time champion Roger Federer. It was his third Wimbeldon title and ninth major overall.

13 - After months of acrimony, Greece finally clinched an 85 billion euro bailout agreement with its European creditors that secured the country's place in the euro and avoided financial collapse. The Greek government later passed a raft of austerity measures.

14 - After long, fractious negotiations, world powers and Iran struck an historic deal to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions. The agreement was aimed at averting the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and another U.S. military intervention in the Middle East.

14 - HarperCollins released Harper Lee's second novel "Go Set a Watchman," the sequel to her 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning "To Kill a Mockingbird" about race and injustice in the Deep South in the 1930s. The book was written before "Mockingbird," but takes place 20 years after the setting for her first novel.

14 - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft transmitted data to Earth after passing within 12,400 kilometres of Pluto, the last stop on a planetary tour of the solar system that spanned an incredible 4.8 billion kilometres.

15 - The Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate a quarter-point to 0.5 per cent, sending the Canadian dollar tumbling to its lowest level in more than six years at 77.40 cents U.S. The central bank also slashed its outlook for the economy due to Canadian oil producers further cutting their investment plans amid the oil price plunge.

15 - A contractor discovered a major oil pipeline leak near Nexen Energy's Long Lake oilsands facility, about 35 kilometres southeast of Fort McMurray, Alta. About five million litres of bitumen, sand and produced water leaked, affecting an area of about 16,000 square metres.

16 - A gunman unleashed a barrage of fire at a recruiting centre and another U.S. military site a few miles apart in Chattanooga, Tenn., killing four Marines. The Kuwait-born attacker was killed by police gunfire. A wounded Navy sailor died the next day.

16 - Colorado theatre shooter James Holmes was convicted in the chilling 2012 attack on defenceless moviegoers at a midnight Batman premiere after jurors swiftly rejected defence arguments that he was insane and driven to murder by delusions. Twelve people were killed and 58 others were wounded. Holmes was sentenced to life without parole.

17 - Gen. Jonathan Vance, a combat veteran of Afghanistan and Canada's former operations commander, was sworn in as the chief of defence staff in a high-security ceremony, replacing Gen. Tom Lawson, who retired after almost three years in the high-profile post.

20 - Zach Johnson captured his second major - winning the British Open in a four-hole playoff over Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman in a suspense-filled final round at St. Andrews that ended on a Monday for only the second time in history.

20 - Cuba's blue, red and white-starred flag was hoisted at the country's embassy in Washington in a symbolic move signalling the start of a new post-Cold War era in U.S.-Cuba relations.

20 - The Ontario Court of Appeal overturned a lower court ruling that had restored the right of more than one million Canadian long-term expats to vote in federal elections.

21 - Former Quebec bar president J. Michel Doyon was named the province's new lieutenant-governor. The historian and former university lecturer replaced Pierre Duchesne, who had held the post since 2007.

23 - A lone gunman sitting in a packed Lafayette, La., movie theatre stood up about 20 minutes into the showing of "Trainwreck" and began firing into the crowd, killing two and wounding at least nine others before fatally shooting himself.

26 - Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of the late singing legend Whitney Houston and R&B singer Bobby Brown, died at age 22. She had been in hospital for months - eventually being placed in hospice care in June - after being found on Jan. 31 face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub, in a manner grimly similar to the way her megastar mother died three years earlier.

26 - Flora MacDonald, who served as a senior cabinet member in two Conservative federal governments and made a run for the party's leadership in 1976, died at age 89. She was the first woman to hold the foreign affairs portfolio, handling the job in Joe Clark's short-lived government in 1979 and early 1980.

28 - A barnacle-encrusted airplane wing fragment later determined to belong to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was found washed up in the sand on Reunion Island, in the western Indian Ocean. The jet vanished on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, two of them Canadians, while travelling from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing. A massive multinational search effort of the South Indian Ocean, the China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand had failed to find any sign of the plane.

28 - A Calgary judge sentenced Gary Sorenson, 71, and Milowe Brost, 61, to 12 years in prison for one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Canadian history. They were found guilty of fraud and theft in February of bilking between $100 million and $400 million from more than 2,400 investors from around the world.

28 - A Canadian Forces ombudsman's report found cadets severely injured in a grenade explosion at a military-run summer camp in Quebec in 1974 but ineligible for long-term care were mistreated and deserved immediate compensation.

28 - Breaking Lucky, a 13-1 longshot, held off Queen's Plate winner and race favourite Shaman Ghost to capture the Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie Racetrack, claiming the second jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown.

28 - NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell upheld the four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for his role in using underinflated footballs in the team's victory in the AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts in January.

29 - Dr. Jen Walter became the first woman to hold any kind of coaching position in the NFL, a six-week internship coaching inside linebackers for the Arizona Cardinals through training camp and the four pre-season games.

30 - Country singer Lynn Anderson, whose strong, husky voice carried her to the top of the charts with her Grammy-winning hit "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden," died in Nashville after suffering cardiac arrest. She was 67.

31 - Beijing was selected to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, defeating the only other bid from Almaty, Kazakhstan, to become the first city awarded both the winter and summer games. The Chinese capital hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics.

31 - Hall of Fame wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, the kilt wearing trash-talker who headlined the first WrestleMania and later found movie stardom, died at age 61.

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August

2 - World No.1-ranked Inbee Park won the Women's British Open, capturing her seventh major title and becoming just the seventh female player to complete the career grand slam.

2 - Stephen Harper asked Gov. Gen. David Johnston to dissolve Parliament, touching off an 11-week campaign in advance of the fixed-date election on Oct. 19, making it the longest campaign since 1872.

3 - Design personality Chris Hyndman, an accidental TV star best known for his on-screen and off-screen partnership with fellow decorator and husband Steven Sabados, died at age 49.

6 - Jon Stewart said goodbye after 16 years on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," which had established him as America's foremost satirist of politicians and the media. Trevor Noah replaced him as host in September.

7 - Frances Kelsey, a Canadian-born doctor known for keeping the morning sickness drug thalidomide off the U.S. market, died at age 101, less than 24 hours after receiving the Order of Canada in a private ceremony. Thousands of children were saved from crippling birth defects as a result of Kelsey's actions.

7 - Defensive end Michael Sam became the first openly gay player to appear in a Canadian Football League game, playing sparingly for the Montreal Alouettes in a 26-23 loss to the Ottawa Redblacks. A week later, he announced he was stepping aside because he was concerned about his mental health.

9 - Frank Gifford, known for his Pro Football Hall of Fame career as a player and his role in the broadcast booth on "Monday Night Football," died at age 84.

11 - With a full complement of 30 Major League Baseball teams in action, it marked the first time all 15 home teams won on the same day.

12 - At least 121 people were killed, half of them firefighters, and 700 injured after huge explosions at a warehouse for hazardous chemicals in the Chinese port of Tianjin sent massive fireballs into the night sky.

12 - Nigel Wright, Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, began testifying at the trial of Sen. Mike Duffy. He told the court he did not inform the Prime Minister of the original plan to have the Conservative party fund repay Duffy's questionable expense filings. When the amount ballooned to $90,000, the party would not cover it, prompting Wright to foot the bill himself.

13 - ISIL claimed responsibility for a truck bomb that ripped through a popular Baghdad food market in a predominantly Shiite neighbourhood, killing at least 67 people and injuring over 150 others.

14 - The American flag rose over the newly opened U.S. Embassy in Cuba for the first time in 54 years, making a symbolically charged victory lap for the Obama administration's new policy of engagement with Cuba.

15 - Parti Quebecois Leader Pierre Karl Peladeau married longtime partner Julie Snyder, in Quebec City.

16 - Jason Day won the PGA Championship to capture his first major title. His 20-under score set a new major record in relation to par.

16 - Smith Falls, Ont.-native Brooke Henderson won the Cambia Portland Classic by eight strokes to become the third-youngest champion in LPGA Tour history at 17 years, 11 months, 6 days, and the first Canadian to win a tournament since 2001.

16 -In Rogers Cup tennis finals, No. 2 seed Andy Murray defeated top seed and defending champ Novak Djokovic in Montreal and unseeded Swiss teenager Belinda Bencic beat Simona Halep in Toronto.

17 - A bomb exploded at Bangkok's revered Erawan Shrine, packed with tourists at one of the capital's busiest intersections, killing 20 people and injuring 120 others.

19 - Former longtime Subway pitchman Jared Fogle agreed to plead guilty to allegations that he paid for sex with minors and received child pornography produced by the former head of his charitable foundation. On Nov. 19 he was sentenced to almost 16 years in prison.

19 - Hackers leaked millions of email addresses of clients of adultery website AshleyMadison.com after it refused to bow to their demands to close the site. Hundreds of accounts were connected to federal, provincial and municipal workers across Canada, as well as to the RCMP and the military. A second data dump occurred the next day.

20 - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned and called early elections, in an attempt to get a new, stronger mandate to implement a three-year bailout program that sparked a rebellion within his radical left party.

21 - Three Americans and a British man disarmed a gunman on an Amsterdam to Paris high-speed train who was known to intelligence services in three countries. Two people were wounded in the incident, including an American Air Force serviceman who was stabbed while intervening. The four were praised for possibly averting a massacre aboard the train.

22 - Eleven people were killed when a vintage jet fighter slammed onto a highway after it failed to pull out of a loop manoeuver during the Shoreham Airshow in southern England, plowing through cars on the road and exploding in a huge fireball.

23 - IndyCar driver Justin Wilson was hit in the head by a large piece of debris that broke off a car in the crash-filled race at Pocono Raceway. Wilson's car veered left and directly into an interior wall. He died the next day in hospital. He was 37.

23 - Twenty-year-old Canadian sprinter Andre De Grasse tied for bronze with a personal best 9.911 in the 100 metres at the world track and field championships in Beijing, 0.121 of a second behind winner Usain Bolt.

23 - All six people aboard a sightseeing seaplane died after it crashed in a wooded area, six kilometres from the Quebec community of Les Bergeronnes.

24 - Canadian Shawn Barber won the country's first ever gold in pole vault at the world track and field championships in Beijing, and the first gold since Perdita Felicien won the 100-metre hurdles in 2003 in Paris.

24 - The continuing rout on China's main market prompted a worldwide sell-off that sent North American markets into a tailspin from which they only partially recovered. The S&P/TSX index plunged 768 points in early trading, then rallied strongly before sliding again, finishing the day at 13,052.74 points - down 420.93 points.

26 - WDBJ-TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were shot to death during a live remote broadcast in Virginia by their former colleague, a disgruntled journalist who also recorded himself carrying out the killings and then posted the video on social media. The person being interviewed was also shot but she survived. The gunman crashed his vehicle during a police chase and then shot himself, dying hours later in hospital.

29 - An Egyptian court sentenced Canadian Mohammed Fahmy and two other Al-Jazeera English journalists to three years in prison on widely denounced terror charges. Fahmy had spent more than a year in prison before a successful appeal of an earlier conviction resulted in the re-trial. On Sept. 23, Fahmy was among 100 prisoners who were pardoned by Egypt's president and ordered released.

30 - Wes Craven, the prolific writer-director who thrilled audiences with iconic and bloody suburban slashers like "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream," died after battling brain cancer. He was 76.

--

September

2 - Canadian music stars Avril Lavigne and Chad Kroeger announced their separation after two years of marriage.

4 - Gay couples walked out of a Rowan County, Ky., courthouse with marriage licences, a day after the county's defiant clerk, Kim Davis, was taken to jail for defying a federal judge after refusing for months to license same-sex marriages.

4 - A U.S. judge overturned the NFL's four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for his role in "Deflategate." The judge slammed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for "dispensing his own brand of industrial justice." The NFL immediately announced it would appeal.

6 - Canadian tennis player Eugenie Bouchard withdrew from her fourth-round match at the U.S. Open with a concussion. The 21-year-old suffered the injury two days earlier after she slipped in the locker room and hit her head.

8 - Stephen Colbert began his tenure as host of "The Late Show" on CBS, taking over for the retired David Letterman. Colbert previously portrayed a political talk-show host character on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" for nine years.

9 - The Queen became the longest-reigning British monarch, surpassing her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, who served for 63 years and 216 days from 1837-1901. The Queen began her reign upon the death of her father, King George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952.

11 - A massive crane collapsed in a storm and crashed onto the Grand Mosque in Mecca, killing 111 people and injuring nearly 400.

12 - "Mamma Mia!", the musical based on the songs of ABBA, ended its Broadway run after 5,773 performances over 14 years.

13 - Gord Bamford repeated as Male Artist of the Year and for Single of the Year at the Canadian Country Music Awards in Halifax. He also won Songwriter of the Year. For his first CCMA ever, former Default rocker-turned country singer Dallas Smith won the coveted Album of the Year award for "Lifted." Jess Moskaluke won Female Artist of the Year for the second year in a row, while Johnny Reid claimed the Fans' Choice Award for the sixth time in the past seven years.

13 - Top-ranked Novak Djokovic defeated Roger Federer in four sets in the U.S. Open final for his 10th Grand Slam title.

13 - NBA great Moses Malone died at age 60. The three-time league MVP and Pro Basketball Hall of Famer played for numerous teams over his 20 seasons.

14 - Terry Blanchette, 27, was killed in his Blairmore, Alta., home and his two-year-old daughter Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette was abducted. Her remains were found a day later in a rural area. Derek Saretzky, 22, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of committing an indignity to a body.

15 - Sen. Patrick Brazeau pleaded guilty to reduced charges of assault and possession of cocaine after a more serious charge of sexual assault was dropped. He was granted an unconditional discharge, avoiding the prospect of jail time and even a criminal record.

16 - Montreal La Presse, owned by Power Corp., announced that the print edition of the 131-year-old French-language paper would only be available on Saturdays after Jan. 1. La Presse introduced its free digital tablet edition in 2012.

17 - General Motors agreed to pay $900 million to resolve criminal charges over its concealment of an ignition-switch defect linked to at least 169 deaths. GM also agreed to pay $575 million to settle hundreds of civil lawsuits, including the bulk of pending wrongful death and injury cases.

17 - Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning joined Brett Favre as the only quarterbacks in NFL history with at least 70,000 yards passing.

19 - Jackie Collins, the bestselling author of dozens of novels including "Hollywood Wives" that dramatized the lifestyles of the rich and the treacherous, died of breast cancer. She was 77.

20 - Alexis Tsipras' left-wing Syriza party comfortably retained a coalition partnership with the small right-wing Independent Greeks, after a snap election was called following widespread discontent over conditions attached to a third international economic bailout.

20 - Long-standing barriers fell at the Emmy Awards as Viola Davis became the first African-American to win for best actress in a drama series for her portrayal of a ruthless lawyer in "How to Get Away With Murder."

21 - Seventy-four-year-old folk icon Buffy Sainte-Marie won the $50,000 Polaris Prize for her album "Power in the Blood," deemed the best full-length Canadian album of the past year based on artistic merit.

22 - German carmaker Volkswagen AG stunningly admitted about 11 million diesel vehicles built since 2008 were intentionally fitted with software programmed to evade emissions controls. CEO Martin Winterkorn stepped down the next day. VW set aside C$9.6 billion to cover the fallout and lost billions more in market value.

22 - Lovable legend Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame catcher renowned as much for his left field wisdom as his unmatched 10 World Series championships with the New York Yankees, died at age 90. "It ain't over 'til it's over" and "It's deja vu all over again!" are among the Yogi-isms included in "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations."

22 - Brian Williams returned to the airwaves of MSNBC to anchor coverage of the visit of Pope Francis to the U.S., his first day back at work following his suspension from NBC News and demotion for misleading viewers about his role in news stories.

23 - Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier were sentenced in a Toronto court to life in prison with no chance of parole until 2023 after being found guilty in March of eight terrorism charges between them after being accused of plotting to derail a passenger train.

23 - The loonie closed at 74.92 cents US, the lowest since mid-2004.

24 - 769 people were killed and 934 injured in a stampede in Mina, on the outskirts of Mecca, at the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

24 - Pope Francis became the first pontiff to speak to a joint session of U.S. Congress.

25 - FIFA President Sepp Blatter was placed under criminal investigation by Swiss authorities for possible criminal mismanagement and misappropriation of FIFA money.

27 - Three young children and their grandfather were killed after their minivan was T-boned at a crossroads in Vaughan, Ont. Marco Muzzo, 29, part of one of Canada's wealthiest families, was charged with a dozen impaired-driving offences and six counts related to the dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.

28 - Famed Canadian tenor Michael Burgess, who captivated theatre audiences as Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables" and was well-known to sports fans for his stirring rendition of "O Canada," died after a lengthy battle with skin cancer. He was 70.

29 - Statistics Canada data showed seniors (16.1 per cent) outnumbered children under 15 (16.0 per cent) for the first time, with baby boomers accounting for almost one-third of the senior demographic.

30 - Former Quebec lieutenant-governor Lise Thibault, 76, was given an 18-month prison term after pleading guilty to fraud and breach of trust charges stemming from her time in the post between 1997 and 2007. She claimed more than $700,000 in improper expenses, including gifts, trips, parties, meals and skiing and golf lessons.

30 - Russia carried out its first airstrikes in Syria. Moscow insisted it targeted Islamic State militants while U.S. officials and others claimed the Russians appeared to be attacking opposition groups fighting Syrian government forces.

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October

1 - A gunman opened fire inside a classroom at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., killing nine people and injuring seven others before committing suicide after being wounded in a shootout with police.

1 - The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Baltimore Orioles 15-2 to win the American League East Division title for the first time since 1993.

3 - A U.S. airstrike mistakenly destroyed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz, killing 30 people - including 13 staff members of the international medical aid group - and wounding dozens more.

5 - Twelve nations, including Canada, reached a tentative deal on the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive Pacific Rim trading bloc that would cover 40 per cent of the world's economy. The deal must still be ratified by the parliaments and lawmaking authorities of all 12 member countries.

6 - Arthur McDonald -- a professor emeritus at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., and the director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in northern Ontario -- and Japanese scientist Takaaki Kajita shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on subatomic particles called neutrinos.

6 - "Down in the Boondocks" singer Billy Joe Royal died at age 73. The song hit No. 9 in 1965.

9 - Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield released his debut album, "Space Sessions: Songs From a Tin Can," the first album recorded at least partially off planet. He laid down guitar and vocal tracks while aboard the International Space Station in 2013.

9 - The National Dialogue Quartet -- a coalition of four Tunisian civil society groups -- received the Nobel Peace Prize for its patient negotiating efforts, which carried Tunisia through an extended constitutional crisis and laid the groundwork for the only democracy that remains following the 2011 Arab Spring demonstrations.

10 - Two nearly simultaneous suicide bombings killed 95 people and injured over 200 others at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey, attended by activists, labour unions and members of the pro-Kurdish party.

13 - Giant panda Er Shun gave birth to two cubs at the Toronto Zoo, the first giant pandas to be born in Canada. Er Shun and male panda Da Mao were on loan to Canada from China until 2023.

13 - Withrow, Alta., sisters Catie Bott, 13, and 11-year-old twins Jana and Dara died after they were trapped and suffocated while playing on their family's grain truck loaded with a dense pile of tiny canola seeds.

14 - Jose Bautista hit a dramatic three-run home run in the seventh inning and flipped his bat as the Toronto Blue Jays rallied for a 6-3 win over the Texas Rangers in Game Five of the ALDS to advance to the American League Championship Series.

15 - Former Canadian diplomat Ken Taylor, whose role in the 1979 "Canadian Caper" made him a hero on both sides of the border for helping shelter six U.S. citizens at the height of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, died after a battle with cancer. He was 81.

16 - A single Lotto 6/49 winning ticket for the $64 million grand prize - the biggest lottery jackpot in Canadian lottery history - was sold in Mississauga, Ont., just west of Toronto.

19 - Justin Trudeau was elected Canada's 23rd prime minister, completing the first father-son dynasty in the country's federal government history. Trudeau led the third-party status Liberals to a stunning majority victory in the federal election, capturing 184 seats in the newly expanded 338-seat House of Commons and relegating the incumbent three-term Conservatives to Official Opposition. Stephen Harper announced immediately that he was stepping down as party leader but remaining as an M-P. The NDP couldn't sustain its 2011 "orange wave" breakthrough, winning only 44 seats -- down from 95 at dissolution.

20 - South African double-amputee Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius was released from prison and moved to correctional supervision, a form of house arrest. A year earlier, he was sentenced to five years in prison for the lesser charge of culpable homicide in the killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day in 2013. On Dec. 3, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeals overturned Pistorius' manslaughter conviction and convicted him of murder.

22 - Gilles Duceppe stepped down as leader of the Bloc Quebecois just four months into his second stint in charge. He failed to win his riding in the Oct. 19 federal election while the party won only 10 out of Quebec's 78 ridings, two short of the number required for official party status. He first stepped down in 2011 when the party won four seats.

23 - A lumber truck and a bus transporting local retirees on a day trip were involved in a fiery head-on collision near Bordeaux, France. The crash killed 41 bus passengers, the truck driver and his three-year-old son. Four other people were badly injured.

23 - Patricia, which peaked as the strongest hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere, made landfall on a sparsely populated stretch of Mexico's Pacific coast as a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 266 km/h, avoiding direct hits on the resort city of Puerto Vallarta and major port city of Manzanillo.

24 - The Blue Jays fell to the Kansas City Royals 4-3 to lose the American League Championship Series in six games and their shot at an appearance in the World Series.

24 - A car plowed into a crowd at the Oklahoma State University homecoming parade, killing four people including a two-year-old boy - and injuring dozens more. Adacia Avery Chambers, 25, was charged with driving while under the influence, four counts of second-degree murder and 46 assault counts.

25 - Five British nationals and an Australian man died when a whale watching boat with 27 people on board capsized and sank off Vancouver Island. The rest of the passengers were rescued. The Transportation Safety Board said many of the passengers were sightseeing on one side of the upper deck when a wave hit the Leviathan-Two from the opposite side, capsizing the boat.

26 - 272 people died in Pakistan and 121 in Afghanistan after a magnitude-7.5 earthquake. It was centered deep beneath the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan's sparsely populated Badakhshan province that borders Pakistan, Tajikistan and China.

29 - Troubled Bombardier announced a US$1 billion lifeline from the Quebec government to help complete development of its CSeries aircraft and restore customer faith in the delayed and costly commercial jet program.

29 - China announced it would allow all married couples to have two children, signaling the end after 35 years of the unpopular "one-child" policy.

29 - The Toronto Blue Jays parted ways with popular GM Alex Anthopoulos, less than a week after coming within one inning of forcing Game 7 in the American League Championship Series.

30 - A Polish judge ruled that the nation's law forbids extraditing Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski to the U.S., where he pleaded guilty nearly four decades ago to having sex with a minor.

30 - Al Molinaro, the loveable character actor with the hangdog face who was known to millions of TV viewers for playing Murray the cop on "The Odd Couple" and malt shop owner Al Delvecchio on "Happy Days," died of complications of gallstone problems. He was 96.

30 - A pyrotechnics display during a concert by local heavy metal band Goodbye to Gravity ignited flammable soundproof foam in a crowded basement club in Bucharest, trapping many and triggering a stampede to the lone exit that would leave 48 people dead and 180 injured. Two guitarists from the band were among the dead.

31 - Triple Crown champion American Pharoah completed the first-ever Grand Slam with a 6 1/2 lengths victory at the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic in his final race before retirement.

31 - A Russian passenger plane crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula just 20 minutes after taking off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh en route to St. Petersburg, killing all 224 people on board. ISIL claimed it shot down the plane but American and British officials said it was most likely a bomb.

--

November

1 - The Kansas City Royals rallied late yet again to defeat the New York Mets 7-2 in 12 innings in Game 5 to capture the team's second World Series title.

1 - Former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, a folksy Tennessee lawyer whose career led him from politics to Hollywood and back again, died following a recurrence of lymphoma. He was 73. At 6-foot-6 with a booming voice, Thompson appeared in at least 20 movies and in the TV series "Law & Order."

2 - At 30 years, 307 days, LeBron James became the youngest NBA player to reach 25,000 career points.

4 - Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was sworn in as Canada's 23rd prime minister and named a 30-member cabinet that was predominantly young, ethnically diverse and the first gender-balanced in Canadian history. Bill Morneau became the first political rookie to take on the finance portfolio since 1919 and Jody Wilson-Raybould was the first aboriginal person to be sworn in as justice minister.

5 - The new Liberal government made good on its election promise to resurrect the mandatory long-form census survey cancelled by the Conservatives. The next census, which takes place every five years, is scheduled to take place in 2016, with the data to be released the following year.

5 - Electrical utility behemoth Hydro One, whose sale sparked political controversy in Ontario, made its IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange. It closed the day at $21.62, up $1.12. Ontario's Liberal government sold a 13.6 per cent stake in its first of three steps to gradually sell 60 per cent to generate $9 billion in the province's 10-year, $130-billion transit and infrastructure plan.

5 - The federal Conservatives chose Alberta MP Rona Ambrose as their interim replacement for former leader Stephen Harper.

6 - U.S. President Barack Obama officially rejected TransCanada's application to build the Keystone XL pipeline, capping a seven-year saga that became an environmental flashpoint in both Canada and the U.S. The $8-billion project was to designed to carry Alberta oilsands bitumen to specialized refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

6 - Waterloo, Ont.-based technology company BlackBerry released the Priv smartphone, which for the first time runs the Android operating system instead of its own operating software.

7 - Pop crooner Michael Buble and late actor-singer Lorne Greene were among a group honoured with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. Teen singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes received the Allan Slaight Award, presented annually to a young Canadian making a positive impact in the music industry.

8 - Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy party scored a massive election victory over Myanmar's military-backed Union Solidarity Development Party.

10 - Helmut Schmidt, the chancellor who guided West Germany from 1974 to 1982 through economic turbulence and Cold War tensions, stood firm against a wave of homegrown terrorism and became a respected elder statesman, died at age 96.

10 - Toronto writer Andre Alexis won the $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel "Fifteen Dogs" - just one week after nabbing the $25,000 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for the same book.

10 - Legendary New Orleans musician Allen Toussaint, who racked up hits like "Working in the Coal Mine" and "Lady Marmalade" as a behind-the-scenes songwriter and producer before he gained new fame as a performer, died of a heart attack not long after a performance in Spain. He was 77.

10 - A 66-year-old former British soldier was arrested in connection with the 1972 Northern Ireland massacre known as "Bloody Sunday" - the first detention of its kind following decades of demands for justice. Fourteen people died when British troops opened fire on a civil rights march in Londonderry.

13 - Islamic State extremists launched co-ordinated gun-and-suicide bombing attacks across Paris that left 130 people dead and over 350 injured. A majority of the victims were in a concert venue watching an American rock band perform. There were also gun attacks at multiple cafes and three suicide bombers outside France's national stadium, including one who tried but failed to get inside. On Nov. 18, the suspected ringleader of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, died along with two others during a police raid on an apartment in the suburb of Saint-Denis.

13 - The IAAF barred Russia from all international track and field competition for an indefinite period, including the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, until the country is judged to have fixed its problems and fallen into line with global anti-doping rules.

15 - Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning surpassed Brett Favre's NFL record of 71,838 career passing yards, but the milestone was somewhat overshadowed by a dismal four-interception performance and benching in a loss to Kansas City.

18 - Canadian Golf Hall-of-Famer Dan Halldorson, who won the 1980 Pensacola Open for his lone PGA Tour title, died at age 63. He had suffered a stroke two days earlier. He helped Canada win two World Cup titles, teaming with Jim Nelford in 1980 and Dave Barr in 1985.

18 - Houston Astros lefty Dallas Keuchel won the American League Cy Young Award while Chicago Cubs ace Jake Arrieta took the National League honour.

19 - Acclaimed singer-songwriter Ron Hynes, Newfoundland and Labrador's "man of a thousand songs," died after a battle with cancer. He was 64.

19 - Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson was named the American League MVP and Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper was a unanimous choice as National League MVP.

20 - Two Islamic extremists armed with guns and grenades stormed the Radisson hotel in Mali's capital, killing 19 people. Security forces swarmed in to free guests floor by floor. Both attackers were killed as was one Malian soldier in the fighting.

20 - Jim Perry, the longtime game show host of "Definition" and emcee of the Miss Canada Pageant, died in Oregon at the age of 82.

20 - British singer Adele released her much-anticipated album, "25." It sold 3.38 million copies in the U.S. in its first week, smashing the previous record held by 'NSYNC's "No Strings Attached" in 2000, which sold 2.4 million copies. It also broke the record for most albums sold digitally in a week.

23 - Premier Bob McLeod easily recaptured his Yellowknife South seat in the Northwest Territories general election.

23 - Viagra-maker Pfizer and Botox-maker Allergan agreed on a US$160-billion stock deal that would create the world's largest drugmaker. It's also the largest so-called inversion, where a U.S. corporation combines with a company headquartered in a country with a lower corporate tax rate, saving potentially millions each year in U.S. taxes.

24 - The Liberal government revised its original plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by year's end. The new plan called for 10,000 to arrive by Dec. 31 and the remainder by the end of February.

24 - Defending champion Golden State Warriors became the first team in NBA history to begin a season 16-0. They extended it to 20 games by Dec. 4.

24 - White Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder for fatally shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014. The charge was laid just hours before the city released a dash-cam video of the killing. A week later, Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, created a task force for police accountability and expanded the use of body cameras.

24 - Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane it said had crossed into its territory from Syria, killing one of the two pilots and marking the first time in half a century that a NATO member had downed a Russian plane.

26 - University of Calgary quarterback Andrew Buckley won the Hec Crighton Trophy as Canada's top university football player for a second year in a row.

27 - A gunman killed three people, including a police officer, during a shooting rampage at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. The 57-year-old suspect surrendered to police after an hours-long standoff.

27 - The Philadelphia 76ers dropped their 27th game in a row dating to the previous season for the longest losing streak in major U.S. pro sports history -- passing the NFL's 1976-'77 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and 2013-14 76ers team. They extended it to 28 games before beating the Los Angeles Lakers.

28 - The UBC Thundersbirds won the 51st Vanier Cup, beating the Montréal Carabins 26-23 to win their fourth championship.

29 - The Edmonton Eskimos overcame an early 13-0 deficit to defeat the Ottawa Redblacks 26-20 and capture the Grey Cup championship. Edmonton secured its first title since 2005 and 14th overall in a record 25th appearance.

30 - The Liberals led by Dwight Ball earned a hefty majority in the Newfoundland and Labrador provincial election, ending 12 years of Progressive Conservative rule. The Liberals won 31 of the legislature's 40 seats, the Tories seven and the NDP two.

30 - Garret Sparks became the first goalie in Toronto Maple Leafs' history to get a shutout in his NHL debut, stopping 24 shots in a 3-0 win over the Edmonton Oilers.

--

December

1 - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced on — of course — Facebook the birth of their daughter Max as well as plans to donate most of their wealth, or roughly $45 billion, to a new organization that will tackle a broad range of the world's ills.

1 - Music streaming service Spotify announced its end-of-the-year list and Toronto rapper Drake was the most streamed artist in the world, with 1.8 billion streams in 2015. "Beauty Behind the Madness," the breakout album by Canadian R&B singer The Weeknd, was the most streamed album of the year, edging out Drake's "If You're Reading This It's Too Late."

2 - A radicalized married couple opened fire on a holiday gathering of the husband's county co-workers at a social services centre in San Bernardino, Calif., killing 14 people and wounding 21 others. Hours later, they died in their getaway vehicle in a shootout with police just a few kilometres from the site of the deadly rampage.

2 - The British House of Commons voted to join the international campaign of airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group in Syria, and within hours warplanes carried out the first airstrikes.

3 - A South African appeals court convicted double-amputee Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius of murder, overturning a lower court's conviction on the lesser charge of manslaughter for the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day in 2013. In Ocober 2014, he was sentenced to five years in prison but only served one year before being released from jail and placed under house arrest.

3 - Scott Weiland, the magnetic frontman of the Stone Temple Pilots whose three-decade career in music also included solo albums and a spot in the supergroup Velvet Revolver, died at age 48. Weiland, who was dogged by substance abuse problems throughout his career, passed away in his sleep while on his tour bus at a stop in Bloomington, Minn., with his current band, Scott Weiland & the Wildabouts.

3 - Adele's "25" album sold another 1.11 million copies in its second week of release, making it the first album in the Soundscan era to sell more than a million copies in two separate weeks. It sold a record 3.38 million copies in the first week.

3 - Former British Columbia premier Bill Bennett, an architect of financial restraint in the province and a signatory to Canada's Constitution, died at the age of 83 following a long fight with Alzheimer's disease.

4 - The Justin Trudeau era officially began in Parliament with the reading of a throne speech sketching out the priorities of the new Liberal government.

4 - Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay paid US$1.75 million (plus commission) at auction for Ringo Starr's first Ludwig drum set. He already owns prominent guitars from The Beatles' other three members — Paul McCartney, the late George Harrison and the late John Lennon

5 - Reality star Kim Kardashian and rap legend husband Kanye West welcomed a second child, a boy, they named Saint.

5 - An anonymous buyer paid US$790,000 at auction for Ringo Starr's copy of the 1968 White Album with serial number 1, surpassing the highest amount paid for a record set earlier in the year when rocker Jack White bought Elvis Presley's first acetate recording ("My Happiness") for $300,000.

5 - The New York Times first Page 1 editorial since 1920 called for greater gun regulation in the wake of recent deadly mass shootings.

6 - Evan Leversage, a seven-year-old terminally ill St. George, Ont., boy who galvanized a community to put on an early Christmas parade for him in October complete with artificial snow, died in his mother's arms at a hospice. Evan suffered from an inoperable brain tumour.

6 - Former Quebec cardiologist Guy Turcotte was found guilty at retrial of second-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of his two children in 2009. In the first trial, he was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder and was briefly confined to a mental health facility before being released.

7 - Pop superstar Justin Bieber performed an intimate acoustic concert in Toronto to benefit an outreach centre in his hometown of Stratford, Ont. His mother used the services of the Stratford House of Blessing when he was little.

7 - Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," an idea swiftly rebuked by his rival GOP candidates for president, other Republicans and prompted fury around the world.

8 - Eight months into his fraud trial, embattled Sen. Mike Duffy took to the witness stand to testify in his own defence.

8 - Bonnie Lou, a pioneering country music artist and rock 'n' roll singer and who later became a TV host, died at age 91. She is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

9 - German Chancellor Angela Merkel was named Time's Person of the Year, praised by the magazine for her leadership on everything from Syrian refugees to the Greek debt crisis.

10 - The first government airlift of Syrian civil war refugees landed in Toronto under the Liberals' plan for resettlement. Other flights will land in Toronto and Montreal in the coming weeks as the government seeks to bring 10,000 Syrians by year's end, and then a further 15,000 by the end of February.

11 - The last issue of Playboy magazine to feature complete nudity hit the stands. All-time covers champ Pamela Anderson graced it for a 14th time. Kristy Garrett was selected as the last nude Playmate of the Month. The first issue was published in December 1953 and featured Marilyn Monroe.

11 - Winnipeg police announced Raymond Joseph Cormier was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, who was found in the Red River in August 2014. Her death intensified calls for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal girls and women.

11 - Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced homebuyers must put 10 per cent down on the portion of the price over $500,000. Anything under $500,000 will still only require a five-per-cent down payment.

11 - A Nova Scotia judge struck down an anti-cyberbullying law inspired by the death of Rehtaeh Parsons on constitutional grounds, ruling it violates Charter rights to freedom of expression and liberty.

13 - Nearly 200 countries adopted the first global pact to fight climate change, calling on the world to collectively cut and then eliminate greenhouse gas pollution but imposing no sanctions on countries that don't. The agreement reached at meetings in France aims to keep global temperatures from rising another degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) between now and 2100.

14 - The J.J. Abrams-directed "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" made its world premiere in Los Angeles. It's the seventh instalment in the space odyssey franchise and the first from Disney after purchasing Lucasfilm Ltd. for US$4 billion in 2012. (It set opening weekend records, raking in $248 million in the U.S. and $529 million globally, surpassing the marks set by "Jurassic World" earlier this year.)

15 - Justice Murray Sinclair formally wrapped up the six-year Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the release of its final report. The commission chronicled decades of suffering and tragedy in thousands of pages of testimony from victims of the residential school system.

16 - The Federal Reserve in the United States lifted its key rate by a quarter-point to a range of 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent, ending an extraordinary seven-year period of near-zero rates that began at the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. Consumers and businesses could face modestly higher rates on some loans.

16 - Shaw Communications reaches deal to acquire Wind Mobile in a transaction valued at $1.6 billion. The agreement is subject to regulatory approval.

18 - Three males are charged in connection with the shooting deaths of two convenience store employees in Edmonton. Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht called the killings "barbaric and gratuitous.''

18 - U.S. averts potential trade war with Canada over meat labelling after Congress passes a massive spending bill that also repealed a controversial labelling law.

19 - New Brunswick jury finds Dennis Oland guilty of second-degree murder in the slaying of his father Richard. The Oland family is well known in New Brunswick.

20 - Several Canadians among the injured in Las Vegas after a car crashed into pedestrians on a sidewalk.

22 - Quebec wins challenge in assisted-dying law. The province's appeal court ruled the legislation is constitutional and can remain in effect.

23 - The Crown drops privately laid assault charges against former federal cabinet minister Julian Fantino. The Crown told the court there was no reasonable prospect for conviction due primarily to inconsistencies in the accuser's testimony and lack of witnesses.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2016