June 26 is the 177th day of the year (178th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 188 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events[link]

• 221 – Roman Emperor Elagabalus adopts his cousin Alexander Severus as his heir and receives the title of Caesar.
• 363 – Roman Emperor Julian is killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire. General Jovian is proclaimed Emperor by the troops on the battlefield.
• 1409 – Western Schism: the Roman Catholic church is led into a double schism as Petros Philargos is crowned Pope Alexander V after the Council of Pisa, joining Pope Gregory XII in Rome and Pope Benedict XII in Avignon.
• 1541 – Francisco Pizarro is assassinated in Lima by the son of his former companion and later antagonist, Diego Almagro the younger. Almagro is later caught and executed.
• 1718 – Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich of Russia, Peter the Great's son, mysteriously dies after being sentenced to death by his father for plotting against him.
• 1723 – After a siege and bombardment by cannon, Baku surrenders to the Russians.
• 1848 – End of the June Days Uprising in Paris.
• 1857 – The first investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde Park, London.
• 1870 – The Christian holiday of Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States.
• 1886 – Henri Moissan isolated elemental Fluorine for the first time.
• 1907 – The 1907 Tiflis bank robbery took place in Yerevan Square, now Freedom Square, Tbilisi.
• 1909 – The Science Museum in London comes into existence as an independent entity.
• 1917 – The first U.S. troops arrive in France to fight alongside Britain and France against Germany in World War I.
• 1918 – World War I, Western Front: Battle for Belleau Wood – Allied Forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord defeat Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.
• 1924 – American occupying forces leave the Dominican Republic.
• 1927 – The Cyclone roller coaster opens on Coney Island.
• 1934 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Federal Credit Union Act, which establishes credit unions.
• 1936 – Initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter.
• 1940 – World War II: under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Romania requiring it to cede Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina.
• 1941 – World War II: Soviet planes bomb Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia), giving Hungary the impetus to declare war the next day.
• 1942 – The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat.
• 1945 – The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.
• 1948 – The Western allies begin an airlift to Berlin after the Soviet Union blockades West Berlin.
• 1948 – William Shockley files the original patent for the grown junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor.
• 1948 – Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery is published in The New Yorker magazine.
• 1952 – The Pan-Malayan Labour Party is founded in Malaya, as a union of statewise labour parties.
• 1953 – Lavrentiy Beria,head of MVD, is arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo.
• 1955 – The South African Congress Alliance adopts the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown.
• 1959 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway opens, opening North America's Great Lakes to ocean-going ships.
• 1960 – The former British Protectorate of British Somaliland gains its independence as Somaliland.
• 1960 – Madagascar gains its independence from France.
• 1973 – At Plesetsk Cosmodrome 9 people are killed in an explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.
• 1974 – The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio
• 1975 – Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial.
• 1977 – The Yorkshire Ripper kills 16 year old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald in Leeds, changing public perception of the killer as she is the first victim who is not a prostitute.
• 1978 – Air Canada Flight 189 to Toronto overruns the runway and crashes into the Etobicoke Creek ravine. Two of 107 passengers on board perish.
• 1991 – Ten-Day War: the Yugoslav people's army begins the Ten-Day War in Slovenia.
• 1995 – Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani deposes his father Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in a bloodless coup.
• 1996 – Irish Journalist Veronica Guerin is shot in her car while in traffic in the outskirts of Dublin
• 1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
• 2003 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.
• 2006 – Mari Alkatiri, the first Prime Minister of East Timor, resigns after weeks of political unrest.
• 2008 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual right, and that the District of Columbia handgun ban is unconstitutional.

Births[link]

• 1501 – Cho Shik, Korean Joseon Dynastys Neo-Confucian scholar and politicians (d. 1572)
• 1575 – Anne Catherine of Brandenburg, queen of Denmark and Norway (d. 1612)
• 1582 – Johannes Schultz, German composer (d. 1653)
• 1681 – Hedwig Sophia, duchess of Holstein-Gottorp, Swedish writer (d. 1708)
• 1685 – Antonio Bernacchi, Italian castrato, composer, and teacher of singing (d. 1756)
• 1689 – Edward Holyoke, American academic (d. 1769)
• 1694 – Georg Brandt, Swedish chemist and mineralogist (d. 1768)
• 1702 – Philip Doddridge, English religious leader (d. 1751)
• 1703 – Thomas Clap, American academic (d. 1767)
• 1730 – Charles Messier, French astronomer (d. 1817)
• 1798 – Wolfgang Menzel, German writer (d. 1873)
• 1817 – Branwell Bronte, British painter and poet (d. 1848)
• 1819 – Abner Doubleday, American Major General (d. 1893)
• 1821 – Bartolomé Mitre, Argentine historian and politician (d. 1906)
• 1824 – William Thomson, Irish-born physicist (d. 1907)
• 1835 – Thomas W. Knox, American author (d. 1896)
• 1839 – Sam Watkins, American Confederate soldier and author (d. 1901)
• 1854 – Robert Laird Borden, Canadian politician (d. 1937)
• 1865 – Bernard Berenson, American art historian (d. 1959)
• 1866 – George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, English financier of Egyptian excavations (d. 1923)
• 1869 – Martin Andersen Nexø, Danish writer (d. 1954)
• 1880 – Natalia, Princess Brassova (d. 1952)
• 1881 – Ya'akov Cohen, Israeli poet (d. 1960)
• 1892 – Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel laureate (d. 1973)
• 1895 – George Hainsworth, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1950)
• 1898 – Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer (d. 1978)
• 1898 – Chesty Puller, American military officer (d. 1971)
• 1899 – Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (d. 1918)
• 1901 – Stuart Symington, American politician (d. 1988)
• 1902 – Hugues Cuénod, Swiss Tenor (d. 2010)
• 1904 – Frank Scott Hogg, Canadian astronomer (d. 1951)
• 1904 – Peter Lorre, Hungarian actor (d. 1964)
• 1906 – Alberto Rabagliati, Italian singer (d. 1974)
• 1906 – Viktor Schreckengost, American industrial designer (d. 2008)
• 1907 – Debs Garms, American baseball player (d. 1984)
• 1909 – Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager (d. 1997)
• 1909 – Wolfgang Reitherman, American animator (d. 1985)
• 1911 – Babe Didrikson Zaharias, American athlete (d. 1956)
• 1913 – Aimé Césaire, French Martinican poet and politician (d. 2008)
• 1913 – Maurice Wilkes, British computer scientist (d. 2010)
• 1914 – Kathryn Johnston, American police shooting victim (d. 2006)
• 1914 – Laurie Lee, British writer (d. 1997)
• 1915 – Paul Castellano, American organized crime figure (d. 1985)
• 1915 – Charlotte Zolotow, American author
• 1916 – Virginia Satir, American psychotherapist and author (d. 1988)
• 1916 – Giuseppe Taddei, Italian opera singer (d. 2010)
• 1919 – Richard Neustadt, American political historian (d. 2003)
• 1921 – Violette Szabo, French WWII secret agent (d. 1945)
• 1922 – Eleanor Parker, American actress
• 1923 – Barbara Graham, American murderer (d. 1955)
• 1924 – Kostas Axelos, Greek philosopher (d. 2010)
• 1925 – Pavel Belyayev, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 1970)
• 1927 – Robert Kroetsch, Canadian author (d. 2011)
• 1928 – Jacob Druckman, American composer (d. 1996)
• 1928 – Yoshiro Nakamatsu, Japanese inventor
• 1929 – Milton Glaser, American designer
• 1931 – Colin Wilson, British writer
• 1933 – Claudio Abbado, Italian conductor
• 1933 – Gene Green, American baseball player (d. 1981)
• 1934 – Jeremy Wolfenden, British journalist (d. 1965)
• 1934 – Dave Grusin, American jazz pianist
• 1936 – Robert Maclennan, British politician
• 1936 – Jean-Claude Turcotte, Cardinal Archbishop of Montreal
• 1937 – Sombat Metanee, Thai film actor
• 1937 – Robert Coleman Richardson, American physicist, Nobel laureate
• 1938 – Gerald North, American climatologist
• 1938 – Billy Davis, Jr., American singer (The 5th Dimension)
• 1941 – Yves Beauchemin, Canadian novelist
• 1942 – Gilberto Gil, Brazilian singer and Minister of Culture
• 1942 – James J. Dillon, American professional wrestling manager
• 1943 – John Beasley, American actor
• 1943 – Georgie Fame, British singer
• 1943 – Warren Farrell, American author
• 1944 – Wolfgang Weber, German footballer
• 1945 – Malachi York, Nuwaubian leader
• 1951 – Pamela Bellwood, American actress
• 1951 – Gary Gilmour, Australian cricketer
• 1953 – Robert Davi, American actor
• 1954 – Steve Barton, American actor (d. 2001)
• 1955 – Mick Jones, British guitarist (The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite)
• 1955 – Dick Mol, Dutch paleonthologist
• 1955 – Gedde Watanabe, American actor
• 1956 – Chris Isaak, American singer
• 1957 – Patty Smyth, American singer (Scandal)
• 1957 – Philippe Couillard, Quebec neurosurgeon and politician
• 1959 – Mark McKinney, Canadian actor
• 1960 – Zachary Breaux, American jazz guitarist (d. 1997)
• 1961 – Greg LeMond, American cyclist
• 1961 – Terri Nunn, American singer (Berlin)
• 1962 – Jerome Kersey, American basketball player
• 1962 – Preston A. Whitmore II, American screenwriter and film director
• 1963 – Richard Garfield, American game designer
• 1963 – Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, Russian businessman
• 1963 – Mark McClellan, American government official
• 1963 – Harriet Wheeler, British singer (The Sundays)
• 1964 – Tommi Mäkinen, Finnish rally driver
• 1966 – Minaguchi Yuko, Japanese voice actress
• 1966 – Jürgen Reil, American drummer (Kreator)
• 1966 – Dany Boon, French director, actor and writer
• 1967 – Todd Pletcher, American horse trainer
• 1968 – Paolo Maldini, Italian footballer
• 1968 – Shannon Sharpe, American football player
• 1969 – Colin Greenwood, British musician
• 1969 – Ingrid Lempereur, Belgian swimmer
• 1969 – Mike Myers, American baseball player
• 1970 – Paul Thomas Anderson, American filmmaker
• 1970 – Irv Gotti, American record producer
• 1970 – Sean Hayes, American actor
• 1970 – Matt Letscher, American actor
• 1970 – Chris O'Donnell, American actor
• 1970 – Nick Offerman, American actor
• 1971 – Max Biaggi, Italian motorcycle racer
• 1972 – Garou, Canadian singer
• 1972 – Jai Taurima, Australian long jumper
• 1973 – Gretchen Wilson, American singer
• 1973 – Rebecca Budig, American actress
• 1973 – Jussi Sydänmaa, Finnish musician (Lordi)
• 1974 – Jason Craig, American artist
• 1974 – Jeff Frankenstein, American musician (Newsboys)
• 1974 – Derek Jeter, American baseball player
• 1974 – Jason Kendall, American baseball player
• 1974 – Nicole Saba, Lebanese singer
• 1974 – Matt Striker, American professional wrestler
• 1975 – Chris Armstrong, Canadian hockey player
• 1975 – Jonah Sorrentino, American hip hop artist
• 1975 – Terry Skiverton, English football player
• 1976 – Ed Jovanovski, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1976 – Paweł Małaszyński, Polish actor
• 1976 – Chad Pennington, American football player
• 1977 – Mark Jindrak, American professional wrestler
• 1977 – Florian Kehrmann, German handball player
• 1977 – Kubo Tite, Japanese cartoonist
• 1977 – Quincy Lewis, American basketball player
• 1979 – Wálter Herrmann, Argentinian basketball player
• 1979 – Ryo Fukuda, Japanese racing driver
• 1979 – Ryan Tedder, American musician
• 1979 – Brandi Burkhardt, American actress and beauty pageant contestant
• 1980 – Jason Schwartzman, American actor
• 1980 – Michael Vick, American football player
• 1980 – Chris Shelton, American baseball player
• 1980 – Sinik, French singer and rapper
• 1980 – Hamílton, naturalized Togolese footballer
• 1981 – Damien Sargue, French singer
• 1982 – Zuzana Kučová, Slovak tennis player
• 1983 – Vinícius, Brazilian footballer
• 1983 – Felipe Melo, Brazilian footballer
• 1984 – Elijah Dukes, American baseball player
• 1984 – Raymond Felton, American basketball player
• 1984 – Deron Williams, American basketball player
• 1984 – Jose Juan Barea, American basketball player
• 1984 – Aubrey Plaza, American comedian, writer and actress
• 1984 – Gabrielle Walcott, Trinidad and Tobagoian beauty pageant contestant
• 1985 – Urgyen Trinley Dorje, 17th Karmapa Lama, Tibetan spiritual leader
• 1986 – Francisco Jiménez Tejada, Spanish footballer
• 1987 – Carlos Iaconelli, Brazilian racing driver
• 1987 – Samir Nasri, French footballer
• 1988 – Oliver Stang, German footballer
• 1988 – Rina Nakanishi, Japanese model and singer (AKB48)
• 1991 – Houssem Chemali, French footballer
• 1991 – Diego Falcinelli, Italian footballer
• 1992 – Jennette McCurdy, American actress and singer
• 1992 – Joel Campbell, Costa Rican footballer
• 1993 – Ariana Grande, American actress and singer
• 1995 – Reema Major, Canadian rapper
• 2005 – Princess Alexia of the Netherlands

Deaths[link]

• 363 – Julian the Apostate, Roman Emperor (b. 331)
• 1541 – Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conqueror of Peru
• 1688 – Ralph Cudworth, English philosopher (b. 1617)
• 1784 – Caesar Rodney, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1728)
• 1793 – Gilbert White, English ornithologist (b. 1720)
• 1795 – Johannes Jährig, German linguist (b. 1747)
• 1810 – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, French inventor (b. 1740)
• 1836 – Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, French composer (La Marseillaise) (b. 1760)
• 1856 – Max Stirner, German philosopher (b. 1806)
• 1878 – Mercedes of Orleans, queen of Spain (b. 1860)
• 1918 – Peter Rosegger, Austrian poet (b. 1843)
• 1922 – Albert I, Prince of Monaco (b. 1848)
• 1939 – Ford Madox Ford, English writer (b. 1873)
• 1943 – Karl Landsteiner, Austrian biologist and physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1868)
• 1945 – Emil Hácha, President of Czechoslovakia (b. 1872)
• 1946 – Yōsuke Matsuoka, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan (b. 1880)
• 1946 – Max Kögel, SS officer (b. 1895)
• 1947 – Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1870)
• 1948 – Lilian Velez, Filipino actress (b. 1924)
• 1949 – Kim Gu, President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (b. 1876)
• 1955 – Engelbert Zaschka, German helicopter pioneer (b. 1895)
• 1956 – Clifford Brown, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1930)
• 1957 – Alfred Döblin, German writer (b. 1878)
• 1958 – George Orton, Canadian athlete (b. 1873)
• 1958 – Andrija Štampar, Croatian physician and United Nations diplomat (b. 1888)
• 1964 – Leo Dandurand, American-born Canadian sports executive (b. 1889)
• 1964 – Gerrit Rietveld, Dutch architect (b. 1888)
• 1967 – Françoise Dorléac, French actress (b. 1942)
• 1975 – Saint Josemaría Escrivá, Spanish Catholic priest (b. 1902)
• 1980 – Miriam Daly, Irish republican activist (b. 1928)
• 1990 – Anni Blomqvist, Finnish novelist (b. 1909)
• 1992 – Herman Rohde, professional wrestler (b. 1921)
• 1993 – William H. Riker, American political scientist (b. 1920)
• 1993 – Roy Campanella, American baseball player (b. 1921)
• 1994 – Jahanara Imam, Bangladeshi writer and activist (b. 1929)
• 1996 – Veronica Guerin, Irish journalist (b. 1958)
• 1997 – Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Hawaiian singer (b. 1959)
• 2001 – Soccer (dog actor) (b. 1988)
• 2002 – Arnold Brown, the 11th General of The Salvation Army (b. 1913)
• 2002 – Jay Berwanger, American football player and first recipient of the Heisman Trophy (b. 1914)
• 2003 – Marc-Vivien Foé, Cameroon footballer (b. 1975)
• 2003 – Denver Randleman, U.S. Army Seargent (b. 1920)
• 2003 – Strom Thurmond, U.S. Senator (b. 1902)
• 2003 – Sir Denis Thatcher MBE, husband of Margaret Thatcher (b. 1915)
• 2004 – Yash Johar, Indian film producer (b. 1929)
• 2004 – Naomi Shemer, Israeli singer and song-writer (b. 1930)
• 2005 – Richard Whiteley, British television game show host (b. 1943)
• 2006 – Tommy Wonder, Dutch magician (b. 1953)
• 2007 – Liz Claiborne, Belgian-born American fashion designer (b. 1929)
• 2007 – Joey Sadler, All Black rugby player (b. 1914)
• 2010 – Sergio Vega, Mexican Banda singer (b.1969)
• 2010 – Algirdas Brazauskas, President of Lithuania (b. 1932)

Holidays and observances[link]

• Army and Navy Day (Azerbaijan)
• Christian Feast Day:
  • Anthelm of Belley
  • Hermogius
  • John and Paul
  • Josemaría Escrivá
  • Mar Abhai (Syriac Orthodox Church)
  • Vigilius of Trent
  • June 26 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
• Flag Day (Romania)
• Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Madagascar from France in 1960
• International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (International)
• International Day in Support of Victims of Torture (International)
• Sunthorn Phu Day (Thailand)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: June 26

• BBC: On This Day
• The New York Times: On This Day
• On This Day in Canada

The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour PC OC KCSG
Picture of Lord Black in 2005.
Born	Conrad Moffat Black (1944-08-25) August 25, 1944 (age 67) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Nationality	Canadian (1944–2001) British (1999–present)
Education	Carleton University, (B.A.) Université Laval (LL.L.) McGill University (M.A.)
Occupation	former newspaper publisher, author, columnist, investor
Home town	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Net worth	$80 million (2011) [1]
Religion	Catholic
Spouse	Joanna Hishon (1978–1992) Barbara Amiel, Lady Black (1992–present)
Children	2 sons, 1 daughter
Parents	George Montegu Black II, Jean Elizabeth Riley

Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, PC, OC, KCSG (born August 25, 1944) is a Canadian-born member of the British House of Lords, and a historian, columnist and publisher, who was for a time the third largest newspaper magnate in the world.^[2] Lord Black controlled Hollinger International, Inc. Through affiliates, the company published major newspapers including The Daily Telegraph (UK), Chicago Sun Times (U.S.), Jerusalem Post (Israel), National Post (Canada), and hundreds of community newspapers in North America.

Black is also an author and historian, having written two memoirs (A Life in Progress and A Matter of Principle) and biographies of Maurice Duplessis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon. He writes a regular column for Canada’s National Post and contributes to The American Spectator, National Review Online, The Huffington Post and The Catholic Herald.

Beginning in 2005, Black was the subject of a highly publicized prosecution in the United States. Black has maintained his innocence since the beginning of the legal saga.^[3][4] Having initially faced 17 charges of misconduct and of defrauding the company he led, Hollinger International, of $60 million, he was convicted of three counts of fraud and one count of obstruction of justice in a U.S. court in 2007^[5] and sentenced to six and a half years' imprisonment.^[6] On July 19, 2010, Black was granted bail following a unanimous judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States in which Black succeeded in having the scope of the honest services fraud statute narrowed. Subsequent to that decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturned two of the three remaining mail fraud counts against Black in October 2010.^[7] The sole remaining mail fraud count was in the amount of $600,000,^[8] of which Black’s share was $285,000.^[9] On June 24, 2011 he was resentenced on the one remaining count of mail fraud and on the one count of obstruction of justice to a prison term of 42 months and a fine of US$125,000.^[10] As the 29 months Black had already served were included in this sentence, he returned to prison on September 6, 2011,^[11] to serve his remaining term of thirteen months.^[12] Black was released on May 4, 2012.^[13] As he renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001, Black was granted a one-year temporary resident permit to re-enter Canada upon his release from prison. The permit is valid until May 2013.^[14][15]

Early life and family[link]

Black was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to a wealthy family originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba. His father, George Montegu Black, Jr., C.A., was the president of Canadian Breweries Limited, an international brewing conglomerate that had earlier absorbed Winnipeg Breweries (founded by George Black Sr.). Conrad Black's mother was the former Jean Elizabeth Riley, a daughter of Conrad Stephenson Riley, whose father founded the Great-West Life Assurance Company, and a great-granddaughter of an early co-owner of the Daily Telegraph.

Biographer George Toombs said of Black's motivations: "he was born into a very large family of athletic, handsome people. He wasn't particularly athletic or handsome like they were, so he developed a different skill – wordplay, which he practised a lot with his father."^[16] Black has written that his father was “cultured [and] humorous” and that his mother was a “natural, convivial, and altogether virtuous person.”^[17] Of his older brother George Montegu Black III (Monte), Black has written that he was “one of the greatest natural athletes I have known,” and that though “generally more sociable than I was, he was never a cad or even inconstant, or ever an ungenerous friend or less than a gentleman.”^[18]

Education[link]

Black was first educated at Upper Canada College (UCC), during which time, at age eight, he invested his life savings of $60 in one share of General Motors.^[19] Six years later, according to Tom Bower's biography Dancing on the Edge,^[20] he was expelled from UCC for selling stolen exam papers. He then attended Trinity College School where he lasted less than a year, being expelled for insubordinate behaviour. Black eventually graduated from a small, now defunct, private school in Toronto called Thornton Hall, continuing on to post-secondary education at Carleton University (History, 1965). For a time, he attended Toronto's Osgoode Hall Law School of York University; however, his studies ended after he failed his first year exams.^[20] He completed a law degree at Université Laval (Law, 1970), and in 1973 completed a Master of Arts degree in history at McGill University.^[21] Black's thesis, later published as a biography, was on Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis. Black had been granted access to Duplessis’s papers, housed in Duplessis’s former residence in Trois-Rivières,^[22] which included “figures from the famous Union Nationale Caisse Electorale (the party war chest), a copy of the leader of the Opposition’s tax returns, [and] gossip from bishops,”^[17] as well as “historically significant letters from Cardinal Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Villeneuve side-by-side with hand-written, ungrammatical requests for jobs with the Quebec Liquor Board, unpaid bills, the returns of his ministers who were cheating on their taxes, a number of scribbled notes for Assembly speeches, tidbits of political espionage, compromising photographs, [and] a ledger listing the political contributions of every tavern-keeper in the province.”^[22] Black subsequently had the principal items from the papers copied and microfilmed, and donated copies to McGill, York, and Windsor universities.^[17]

Marriages[link]

Black's first marriage was in 1978 to Joanna Hishon of Montreal, who worked as a secretary in his brother Montegu's brokerage office. The couple had two sons and a daughter.^[23] The couple separated in 1991. Their divorce was finalized in 1992; the same year Black married Watford-born journalist Barbara Amiel. Black flattered Amiel, describing her variously as "beautiful, brilliant, ideologically a robust spirit" and "chic, humorous and preternaturally sexy." Courtroom evidence revealed that the couple exchanged over 11,000 emails.^[16] In a February, 2011, public Valentine greeting, Black wrote:

“I have been persecuted and Barbara was under no obligation to share fully in the life-enhancing and undoubtedly character-building experience of sharing that fate with me completely. But she has, and no one can know, and it is beyond my power adequately to express here, what her constancy has meant to me. For more than four years before I was sent to prison, she toiled with me against the heavy odds generated by the legal and media onslaught. She endured an avalanche of abuse directed at her (although she wasn’t accused of anything) as extravagant, flakey, apt to bolt, domineering, and what Kafka called 'nameless crimes.' For the next 29 months, she led a lonely life in Florida, in a climate that aggravated her medical problems. And once or twice every week, she got up at 3 a.m. to drive over four hours to see me.”^[24]

Religion[link]

"My family," Black wrote in 2009, "was divided between atheism and agnosticism, and I followed rather unthinkingly and inactively in those paths into my twenties." By his early thirties, however, he "no longer had any confidence in the non-existence of God." Thereafter, he "approached Rome at a snail's pace," and began to study the writings of Roman Catholic thinkers such as St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Cardinal Newman, and Jacques Maritain.^[25] Having accepted the possibility of miracles and thus of the Resurrection of Christ, Black was received into the Catholic Church on June 18, 1986 by Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter, Archbishop of Toronto.^[17] Black would develop a close friendship with Carter and rely on him as a spiritual advisor; on Carter’s death, Black wrote: “In the 25 years I knew him, his judgment and personality were always sober but never solemn; and never, not at his most beleaguered and not on the verge of death, did he show a trace of despair. He was intellectual but practical, spiritual but not sanctimonious or utopian, proud but never arrogant. He must have had faults, but I never detected any. He was a great man, yet the salt of the earth.”^[26]

Black has written that his faith helped him endure his imprisonment in the United States.^[27] Black is also a major shareholder in The Catholic Herald,^[27] and was the vice-president of Paul-Émile Cardinal Léger’s charity for a number of years.^[28]

Career[link]

Black became involved in a number of businesses, mainly publishing newspapers, and briefly in mining. In 1966, Black bought his first newspaper, the Eastern Townships Advertiser in Quebec. Following the foundation, as an investment vehicle, of the Ravelston Corporation by the Black family in 1969, Black, together with friends David Radler and Peter G. White, purchased and operated the Sherbrooke Record, the small English language daily in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In 1971, the three formed Sterling Newspapers Limited, a holding company that would acquire several other small Canadian regional newspapers.

Corporate ownership through holding companies[link]

George Black died in June 1976, leaving Conrad Black and his older brother, Montegu, a 22.4% stake in Ravelston Corporation, which by then owned 61% voting control of Argus Corporation, an influential holding company in Canada. Argus controlled large stakes in 7 major Canadian corporations, Labrador Mining, Noranda Mines, Hollinger Mines, Standard Broadcasting, Dominion Stores, Domtar and Massey-Ferguson.^[29]

In 1977, Black became a director of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.^[30]

Through his father's holdings in Ravelston, Black gained early association with two of Canada's most prominent businessmen: Bud McDougald and E. P. Taylor, president and founder of Argus, respectively. Following McDougald's death in 1978, Black paid $30-million to take control of Ravelston and thereby, control of Toronto-based Argus. This arrangement resulted in accusations that Black had taken advantage of the widows of Ravelston Directors McDougald and Eric Phillips, though these accusations were never proven. Black, for his part, recorded that the widows “understood and approved every letter of every word of the agreement”.^[17] Other observers admired Black for marshalling enough investor support to win control without committing a large block of personal assets.^[29]

Some of the Argus assets were already troubled, and others did not fit Black's long-term vision. Black resigned as Chairman of Massey Ferguson company in 1979, after which Argus donated its shares to the employee's pension funds (both salaried and union).^[31] Hollinger Mines was then turned into a holding company that initially focused on resource businesses.^[29]

In 1981 Norcen Energy, one of his companies, acquired a minority position in Ohio-based Hanna Mining Co. A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stated that Norcen took "an investment position" in Hanna. However, the filing did not disclose that Norcen's board planned to seek majority control. Black subsequently was charged by the SEC with filing misleading public statements. These charges were later withdrawn.

Dominion pension dispute[link]

In 1984, Black withdrew over $56 million from the Dominion workers' pension plan surplus without consulting plan members. The firm said it considered the surplus the rightful property of the employer (Dominion Stores Ltd.). The Dominion Union complained, a public outcry ensued, and the case went to court. The Supreme Court of Ontario ruled against the company, and ordered the company to return the money to the pension fund, claiming that though the most recent language in the plan suggested the employer had ownership of the surplus, the original intention was to keep the surplus in the plan to increase members' benefits.^[32] Eventually, the pension dispute was settled in equal shares between the shareholders and the plan members.^[17]

Industrial holdings shifted to publishing[link]

Over time, Black focused formerly diverse activities of his companies on newspaper publishing. Argus Corporation, once Canada's most important conglomerate, divested itself of interests in manufacturing, mining, retailing, banking and broadcasting. Canadian writer John Ralston Saul argued in 2008, "Lord Black was never a real "capitalist" because he never created wealth, only dismantled wealth. His career has been largely about stripping corporations. Destroying them."^[33] Journalist and writer George Jonas, however, contends that Hollinger made its “investors… billions [of dollars]”.^[34]