John Lennon’s comments get Beatle records banned in South Africa. Sometimes artists joined governments and human rights organizations in pressuring the South African government to end its apartheid system which legally denied basic rights to blacks. But on August 3, 1966, South Africa decided the Beatles had gone too far. First, the popular British rock and roll band had revealed that it would not tour South Africa until the country lifted apartheid. Then, referring to his band, singer John Lenn...
Aug 03, 2017•2 min
Commonwealth foreign ministers join festival seeking to end apartheid. Canada was actively involved in proposing sanctions against South Africa for its apartheid system, which legally denied basic rights to blacks. As a member of the British Commonwealth, Canada also sought to lead a unified front that would persuade South Africa to change its laws. Canada supported changes that would allow the black majority to vote and enjoy the same freedoms as South Africa’s white population. On August 2, 19...
Aug 02, 2017•2 min
Métis leader Louis Riel found guilty of treason. Louis Riel was born in the Red River settlement of St. Boniface on October 22, 1844. The young Métis returned there in 1868 after studies in Montreal. Due to his education and determination, Riel soon found himself in a leadership position for Métis people. He headed up a provisional government in 1869 which lead to the creation of the Manitoba Act and the territory as a Canadian province. However, after his involvement with the Red River Uprising...
Aug 01, 2017•2 min
Hermann Goering initiates “final solution” plan for Europe’s “Jewish question.” Under Nazi control, the Jews of Europe suffered increasing hardship. Many were enslaved and killed, but Hitler’s ultimate plan was to eliminate them altogether. On July 31, 1941, Hitler’s No. 2 man, Herman Goering, instructed Reinhard Heydrich, second in importance to Heinrich Himmler in the Nazi SS and known as "The Blond Beast" or "Hangman Heydrich”, to create and carry out a plan to do so. He called it the “final ...
Jul 31, 2017•2 min
Preferential treatment of married men violates human rights, says Ontario court. It’s not easy persuading senior employees with families to work in remote job locations, but three engineering and consulting companies referred to as “London Monenco” engaged in a joint venture at the Ontario Hydro Generating Station Project at Atikokan, Ontario thought they had a solution. Married employees, the company announced in the early 1980s, would be allowed paid flights home every three weeks. The decisio...
Jul 30, 2017•2 min
International criminal court investigates Ugandan atrocities. The Republic of Uganda in east Africa has been affected by the violence of military dictatorships of one kind or another since its independence from Britain in 1962. The most infamous of all is Idi Amin Dada who came to power during a military coup in 1971. His reign of terror involved wide-spread murder, horrible abuses of human rights and the expulsion of tens of thousands of Asian residents. During a period of three months, Canada ...
Jul 29, 2017•3 min
Nova Scotia governor orders French-speaking Acadians deported. French people first landed in Acadia – later to become Nova Scotia – in 1604. In 1713, the English took control of the territory under the Treaty of Utrecht. Many French citizens left rather than pledge allegiance to the British Crown. Those who stayed suffered many forms of discrimination under the English, who disliked their religious and cultural practices. The new leaders denied French-speaking Acadians title to their land and ac...
Jul 28, 2017•2 min
Anti-segregation protests get Martin Luther King Jr. arrested in Georgia. Future Nobel prize winner Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. His work as a Baptist preacher and civil rights activist forced the United States to change many of its racist laws and practices. His strategy of peaceful, non-violent direct action gave hope to many blacks and poor people. He urged citizens to stand up against injustice and prejudice, even when it meant a personal sacrifice...
Jul 27, 2017•2 min
Mi’kmaq leader Alexander Denny is born. Alexander Denny was born July 26, 1940 on the Eskasoni reserve of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, where he became an elder, activist and teacher of his people. At the age of 28, he was kji-keptin (grand captain) of the Mi'kmaq, and at 34, and again at 53, he served two-year terms as president of the Union of Nova Scotia Indians. Denny helped enshrine treaty rights for his people through a court challenge that, following many defeats, ended up in the Supre...
Jul 26, 2017•2 min
Italian king arrests Benito Mussolini. On October 31, 1922, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini became Italy’s youngest prime minister. King Victor Emmanuel III appointed him to prevent civil war between right-wing fascists and left-wing communists. But Mussolini’s fascist government ruled by fear and propaganda. After making a pact of friendship with Germany’s Adolph Hitler, Mussolini began annexing countries in the same manner as Hitler. Early into World War II, he decided the Nazis were likely t...
Jul 25, 2017•2 min
French President Charles de Gaulle shouts “Vivre le Quebec libre!” in Montreal. In 1967, Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson invited French President Charles de Gaulle to Canada on a journey that would include many stops and the usual diplomatic fanfare. On July 24, 1967, as de Gaulle was delivering a speech at Expo 67 in Montreal, he shouted “Vivre le Quebec libre!” The message, meaning “long live free Quebec,” prompted roars of approval from the crowd, but condemnation throughout the cou...
Jul 24, 2017•2 min
Ship defying discriminatory Canadian immigration law turned back. The first East Indians to enter Canada suffered hardship and racism sharpened by a concerted effort to keep them out. In 1910, the Canadian Parliament enacted the “continuous journey provision” of the Immigration Act, specifying that only immigrants who had traveled from their place of origin to Canada on one non-stop boat trip, could enter the country as new immigrants. Clearly, this was possible from Europe but not India; the le...
Jul 23, 2017•2 min
Ontario Court of Appeal grants citizenship to Dutch atheists Ernest and Cornelia Bergsma. Dutch immigrants Ernest and Cornelia Bergsma had been living in Canada for nine years when they applied to become Canadian citizens. At their hearing, the judge told them that Canada was a Christian country and asked them if they believed in God. When Ernest answered “I don’t,” the judge refused them citizenship. He felt that the oath of allegiance to Canada and its queen – an oath that ends with “so help m...
Jul 22, 2017•2 min
Ceylon introduces world’s first woman prime minister, Sirima Bandaranaike. When Ceylon’s prime minister was assassinated in 1959, his wife Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike took the helm of her husband’s political party. That made the 42-year-old widow the world’s first woman prime minister, a duty she accepted officially on July 21, 1960. Bandaranaike overhauled the country’s constitution and changed her nation’s name to Sri Lanka. Her leadership caused much turmoil, especially policies leading...
Jul 21, 2017•2 min
Rita Johnson becomes Canada's first woman premier. Rita Johnston was born in Melville, Saskatchewan on April 22, 1935. After moving to Surrey, British Columbia, she and her husband operated a mobile home park and became actively involved in the Chamber of Commerce. From there, Johnston got involved in municipal politics, where she sat as a city councillor from 1969 until 1983, with one failed attempt at the mayorship in 1975. In 1983, Bill Vander Zalm, who would eventually become B.C.’s premier,...
Jul 20, 2017•2 min
Rwanda forms new, multi-ethnic government in wake of slaughter. When the Dutch colonized Rwanda in 1916, they favoured the minority Tutsis over the majority Hutus, giving the Tutsis better jobs and educational opportunities. This created such resentment among the Hutus that when the Dutch granted Rwanda independence in 1962, they seized control of the government and blamed all the country’s problems on the Tutsis. On April 6, 1994, Rwanda’s Hutu president, Juvenal Habyarimana, was killed along w...
Jul 19, 2017•2 min
Canada accepts immigration of 50,000 Vietnamese “boat people.” Two years after the Vietnam war ended, the country’s communist government began stripping the rights of its ethnic Chinese citizens. Hundreds of thousands of them fled any way they could. Those who traveled by boat often landed on the shores of China and other Southeast Asian countries. International pressure mounted for Western countries to admit more of these “boat people,” prompting Canadians to apply pressure on their own leaders...
Jul 18, 2017•2 min
Jailed youths in Toronto subjected to “cruel and unusual” conditions, court rules. On April 19, 1990, an incident took place at a holding cell in Toronto, Ontario that resulted in three youths being charged with mischief. As was normal procedure, they were transferred from the York Detention Centre to smaller cells in the Jarvis facility to await the completion of their court process. But when they came before Judge King of the Ontario Provincial Court, he stayed (dismissed) the charges for an u...
Jul 17, 2017•2 min
Emily Howard Stowe becomes Canada’s first licensed woman doctor. Emily Stowe was born in Norwich, Ontario in 1831 to parents of the Quaker faith who believed strongly in the equality of men and women. So, even though it was unusual for a woman at the time, Stowe set her sights on studying medicine after she had married and had three children. Since the University of Toronto would not admit women, she went to New York and graduated in 1867. When she was denied a license to practice medicine in Ca...
Jul 16, 2017•2 min
Harry Jerome sets world record for 100 metre race in Saskatoon. Henry “Harry” Winston Jerome was born on September 30, 1940 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. When he was 12, his family moved to North Vancouver where, as a black family, they were met with a petition aiming to remove them from the neighbourhood. After moving to a more hospitable neighbourhood, Jerome excelled as a sprinter in school, soon being coached at the University of Oregon by famed coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman. At ...
Jul 15, 2017•3 min
Canadian Parliament abolishes capital punishment. Between 1867 and 1962, Canada executed 710 criminals, while commuting the death sentences of another 400 to life in prison. As early as 1914, parliamentarians began objecting to the death penalty on the grounds that it was cruel and unusual punishment, and there always existed the possibility of a condemned person being proven innocent later. Still, not until December 11, 1962 did Canadians see the end of the practice. That was the date Ronald Tu...
Jul 14, 2017•3 min
John F. Kennedy is nominated first Catholic U.S. president. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born to Rose and Joseph Kennedy in Brookline, Massachusetts on May 29, 1917, one of nine children. After graduating from Harvard in 1940, he became a second world war hero in 1943 before making a fast rise to the top of American politics. With the support of his powerful father, Kennedy was elected a Democratic congressman, and by 1953 he was already a senator. In 1956 he almost won the vice-presidential tick...
Jul 13, 2017•2 min
Louis Joseph Robichaud becomes first Elected Acadian premier of New Brunswick. Louis Robichaud was born into a large Acadian family on October 21, 1925 in the village of Saint-Antoine, New Brunswick. He started school in a one-room schoolhouse, and ended up becoming a lawyer. Robichaud took on the challenge of improving the life of Acadians, who were often forgotten in the Canadian cultural landscape. First elected to the New Brunswick legislature in 1952, Robichaud became leader of the Liberal ...
Jul 12, 2017•2 min
No business on Sundays as Canada’s Senate Passes Lord’s Day Act. Canada’s early immigrants were mostly Christians whose biblical beliefs led them to shun work on Sundays, the religion’s Sabbath. Even so, Catholic and Protestant worshippers wanted this freedom protected with legislation. Proposed legislation known as the Lord’s Day Act forbid business to be conducted on the Christian Sabbath. Following hot debates throughout the country, and after passage in the House of Commons, the Canadian Sen...
Jul 11, 2017•2 min
Sister Sally Liota, supporter of Canadian immigrants to Halifax, is born. Salvatrice (Sally) Liota was born on July 10, 1920 in Hamilton, Ontario. Her parents had left Italy years before, coming through Ellis Island in New York before settling in Canada. After high school, Liota took business education and supervised workers in a radio factory. Her life took a turn in 1944 when she joined the Catholic religious order the Sisters of Service and had her first posting at the port of Montreal, where...
Jul 10, 2017•3 min
Royal Assent means Canada goes officially bilingual. For generations, the power struggle between Canada’s Anglophones and Francophones proved a divisive force. Canada was founded, of course, by people of two distinct cultures and languages – resulting in a predominance of French in Quebec and of English in the rest of Canada. Although the constitution offered protections for both languages, the country had only one official language: English. After rancorous debate in the House of Commons and th...
Jul 09, 2017•2 min
Roman Catholic priest Andy Hogan becomes Canadian MP. An economist and Roman Catholic priest before entering politics, Andrew Hogan was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia on October 28, 1923. The New Democratic Party (NDP) member observed the federal NDP’s rise and fall in the 1970s. It went from holding the balance of power in Ottawa in the 1972 election, to doing poorly in 1974 against Pierre Trudeau’s federal Liberals. However, once the votes had been counted on July 8, 1974, some new Opposition ...
Jul 08, 2017•2 min
Sandra Day O’Connor becomes first woman appointed to U.S. Supreme Court. The daughter of Arizona ranch owners, Sandra Day was born on March 26, 1930 in El Paso, Texas and educated by a mother and grandmother who let her know they had great expectations of her. She graduated from Stanford University in economics, and by 1952 was a newlywed with a Stanford law degree; she had married fellow law student John Jay O’Connor III. Her initial job search met with considerable resistance from private firm...
Jul 07, 2017•3 min
Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family hide from Nazis in Amsterdam. Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929 to parents Otto and Edith Frank. After Anne and her older sister Margot were born in Germany, the family moved to the Netherlands in 1933 to escape Nazi prosecution. Unfortunately, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and caught up with the Franks two years later. When served notice that they would be deported to a labour camp, Margot and Otto gathered the family together and went int...
Jul 06, 2017•2 min
First all-women’s Lilith Fair concert opened by Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan. God created Eve only after Adam’s first wife, Lilith, stomped out of the Garden of Eden to protest Adam’s order that she submit to him. At least, that’s the story according to the Rabinic Talmud. Many centuries later, when promoters told Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan that a women’s concert would never sell, she stomped off to create one anyway. She called it the Lilith Fair, tested the event in 1996, and it opened...
Jul 05, 2017•2 min
