Guinea declares total independence from France. When the French colony of Guinea declared independence from France on October 2, 1958, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union eyed it as a place to exert influence in their cold war power struggle. And while the leader of this African country wanted nothing to do with either, he learned to play the two superpowers off one another in an effort to secure financial aid for his country. As Guinea’s first and long-standing ruler, Sékou Touré was both strong...
Oct 02, 2017•2 min
Dr. Charlotte Whitton becomes Canada’s first full-time woman mayor. Dr. Charlotte Whitton joined politics after a distinguished career as an academic at Queen’s University. An expert on child welfare, Whitton served as director of the Canadian Council on Child Welfare during the 1920s and 1930s. Although a champion of women’s rights, she held staunch social conservative views unpopular with more progressive Canadians. Whitton had harsh words for mothers who worked outside the home and she was ag...
Oct 01, 2017•2 min
Sue Rodriguez loses bid for legally sanctioned assisted suicide. In August 1991, a Vancouver a doctor told Sue Rodriguez that she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It meant she would experience a long, slow deterioration of her body, losing her ability to swallow, speak, walk or move without assistance before the disease killed her. She petitioned the Supreme Court of Canada for permission to commit suicide with assistance when she deemed it appropriate. Thou...
Sep 30, 2017•2 min
UN Peacekeepers awarded Nobel Peace Prize. The United Nations attempts to settle, or support those who are trying to settle, conflicts as they arise in various parts of the world. Part of that process includes their peacekeeping operations, which acts as an impartial third body. There are two types of peacekeeping operations, one with unarmed observers and the other with armed military forces. When armed, the forces are only to use their weapons in self-defence. The peacekeepers, first employed ...
Sep 29, 2017•2 min
Taliban take control of Kabul and most of Afghanistan. In the early 1980s, America’s Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan’s Interservices Intelligence Agency supported any group fighting the Soviets who had invaded Afghanistan. A group of ethnic Pashtuns from various regions of Afghanistan, known as the Talib (pluralized as Taliban, meaning “student” or “seekers of knowledge”), received tens of thousands of tons of American weapons and ammunitions. In 1994, the Taliban were able to take cont...
Sep 28, 2017•2 min
Ottawa acknowledges its unjust treatment of Ukrainian Canadians during World War I. When World War I started, the Canadian government worried about the allegiance of Canadian citizens who had come from regions around the Austro-Hungarian empire. So the government interned 8,579 “enemy aliens” in 26 camps across Canada under the War Measures Act. More than 5,000 of these were Ukrainians. Another 80,000 – mostly Ukrainians – had to register as enemy aliens and report regularly to local authorities...
Sep 27, 2017•2 min
Can’t fire an employee based on spouse’s status, Saskatchewan’s top court rules. Heather Ennis was hired to manage the Prince Albert, Saskatchewan Elks Club – then she was fired two weeks later when her employer learned her husband was a convicted murderer serving time in the Saskatchewan Penitentiary. Was that discrimination? Two courts said no, because although Saskatchewan’s human rights code outlawed discrimination based on marital status, the code stated that “discrimination on the basis of...
Sep 26, 2017•2 min
One thousand soldiers escort nine black students into Little Rock Central High. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregating schools based on race was unconstitutional. Just days later the Little Rock, Arkansas school board agreed to abide by the decision and drew up plans a year later to begin gradually integrating schools staring in 1957. After some court challenges to speed up the process were denied, the process was to begin with black students attending classes at Little Rock Cent...
Sep 25, 2017•2 min
Nelson Mandela asks the UN to lift sanctions against South Africa. When Nelson Mandela addressed the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 1993, he boldly asked the world to lift sanctions against his country, South Africa. A political prisoner for 27 years under apartheid, Mandela had become a symbol of the oppressive white minority rule in a country populated mostly by blacks. Mandela, president of the once outlawed African National Congress, told the assembly, “The countdown to dem...
Sep 24, 2017•2 min
Manon Rheaume becomes the first woman to play for the NHL. Manon Rheaume was born in Lac Beauport, Quebec on February 24, 1972. She began skating at the age of three and joined hockey games as a goaltender by age five. So it may not have seemed a big deal to her when, on September 23, 1992, she goal-tended for the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning team in a pre-season game against the St. Louis Blues. She became the NHL’s first female player that day, but Rheaume was used to firsts. She was the first wo...
Sep 23, 2017•2 min
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney apologizes to Japanese Canadians. During World War II, the Canadian government moved Japanese Canadians away from the west coast, confiscated their land without compensation and held thousands as prisoners in internment camps. Even before the war ended, Japanese Canadians urged their government to right this horrible wrong. After years of negotiations and compromise, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney issued a “formal and sincere apology” on September 22, 1988. On behalf...
Sep 22, 2017•2 min
Early Canadian female reporter Kay Rex born in Woodstock. Kathleen Amelia Rex was born on September 21, 1918 in Woodstock, Ontario. “Kay,” as she was called, had an interest in writing from a young age, inspired by her aunt Frances Kay Montgomery, who taught French at the University of Western Ontario. Right after university, Rex began work with the local daily newspaper, the Woodstock Sentinel. After a year she began work with Canadian Press in its Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto bureaus from 194...
Sep 21, 2017•2 min
Billie Jean King wins “battle of the sexes” in tennis. No woman player was a match for him, declared 55 year-old tennis star Bobby Riggs. His overtly chauvinist claim drew an estimated 50 million viewers to his September 20, 1973 match with 20-times Wimbledon champion Billie Jean King, aged 29. In Houston, Texas’s packed Astrodome, King beat Riggs in three straight sets – 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 – and clinched the $100,000 winner-take-all prize. Despite the public jabs between them that led to this “battl...
Sep 20, 2017•2 min
Workplace collective agreements must be based on human rights legislation, Canadian Supreme Court rules. When Joanne O’Brien went on maternity leave before she’d completed her probationary work period at Parry Sound, Ontario’s social services administration board, she returned to find herself fired. That was 1998. She complained to a labour board, which ruled that her employer had violated her rights under Ontario’s human rights code. After further appeals, on September 18, 2003, the Supreme Cou...
Sep 19, 2017•2 min
New Zealand becomes first country to grant women the vote. Although women in Wyoming and Utah were allowed to vote starting in 1869 and 1870 respectively, New Zealand was the first country to grant women universal suffrage. Initially, it allowed them to vote in a parliamentary election on September 19, 1893. The victory stemmed from the efforts of Christian Temperance Union leader Kate Sheppard, who led the women’s movement in New Zealand, and the support she received from politician John Hall. ...
Sep 19, 2017•2 min
during World War II. After the Japanese bombed the American naval fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, the American government and military became concerned about the loyalties of its Japanese citizens and residents. By early 1942 approximately 120,000 persons of Japanese descent were moved from the states of California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona to internment camps away from the coast. By early 1945 Japanese Americans were allowed to go back to their lives, and most did. Howe...
Sep 17, 2017•2 min
RCMP swears in 32 women police officers. One of Canada’s most notable icons is the Mountie – and people expect to see a man. Traditionally, of course, Mounties were male. But the RCMP, like all workplaces, changed in the 1970s. On September 16, 1974, the venerable police force swore in 32 women cadets from across Canada, and sent them to their Regina, Saskatchewan training facility. Six months later, 30 emerged as officers. Dispersed across the country, they met with mixed experiences. .They fac...
Sep 17, 2017•2 min
Louise Arbour appointed to Supreme Court before heading world human rights. Louise Arbour was born on February 10, 1947 in Montreal, Quebec. Her distinguished career started at the University of Montreal, where she earned her law degree before clerking for a Supreme Court of Canada judge and earning her masters in law at the University of Ottawa. She taught criminal law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto’s York University, first as a lecturer and finally as associate dean in 1987. Arbour was ...
Sep 15, 2017•3 min
Dorothea Palmer arrested for distributing information on birth control. In the early 1900s, Canadian women had no access to information about birth control. Most religious and medical leaders even opposed making information about it available. Dorothea Palmer, born in England in 1908 before immigrating to Canada, was instrumental in gaining reproductive rights for women. Palmer worked for the Parents’ Information Bureau in Kitchener, Ontario, where her job involved visiting the homes of poor wom...
Sep 14, 2017•2 min
Canada’s Supreme Court expands religious protections. Easter Monday is an important religious day for members of the Worldwide Church of God. So one of those members, Jim Christie, felt it was reasonable to ask his employer, Central Alberta Dairy Pool at their milk processing plant in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, for an unpaid leave of absence to observe that day. In fact, his religion recognizes a Saturday Sabbath, a five-day Fall Feast of the Tabernacle and five other holy days during the year – one o...
Sep 13, 2017•2 min
Alice Stebbins Wells becomes first American police woman with the power to arrest. In 1909, Alice Stebbins Wells petitioned Los Angeles Mayor George Alexandra and the city council to allow women to become police officers. Her determination paid off when, on September 12, 1910, she became the first American policewoman given the power to make arrests. On her first day of work, Wells climbed onto a city trolley in uniform, only to be accused by a conductor of falsely using her husband’s identity. ...
Sep 12, 2017•2 min
Nicole Juteau becomes Quebec’s first woman provincial constable. Nicole Juneau was born in Laval in 1954 to a father who was a fire fighter. Her desire to do police work was not easy to fulfill, as no women had yet entered a police college in Quebec. However, on September 11, 1975, Juteau broke the barrier when she was sworn in as the first woman police officer in the Quebec provincial police force. She encountered numerous obstacles, from being unable to find a uniform that fit her to being ass...
Sep 11, 2017•2 min
Canada declares war on Germany. Soon after Hitler secured a non-aggression pact with Russia, he invaded Poland. The British and French governments reacted by issuing an ultimatum to Germany to withdraw from Poland, but Hitler refused, citing other countries as provocateurs. So, on September 3, 1939, Britain, France, India, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany. Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King, wanting to assert some independence, waited another week and declared w...
Sep 10, 2017•2 min
“Operation Snatch” takes Doukhobor children from their families. In 1899, Russia decided to rid itself of the Doukhobors, a pacifist religious sect that refused to serve in the Russian Army. Many Doukhobors fled to Canada, where they set up a communal life in rural areas. Even there, however, their non-conformist ways and their refusal to abide by any laws except what thy defined as God’s laws, worried the Canadian government and police. Half a century later, B.C.’s new Social Credit government ...
Sep 09, 2017•3 min
International Literacy Day is established. Literacy does more than boost citizens’ working credentials; it benefits their personal growth and financial well-being. Hoping to persuade countries to emphasize literacy, the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) decided in 1965 to set aside a day for businesses, governments and organizations to help promote literacy and life-long learning through a variety of programs. International Literacy Day would be observed ...
Sep 08, 2017•2 min
Madam Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin is born. Beverly McLachlin was born in Pincher Creek, Alberta on September 7, 1943. Before becoming a law professor at the University of British Columbia in 1974, she practiced law in Edmonton, Alberta, and in two B.C. cities, Fort St. John and Vancouver. Her first appointment to the bench came in 1981, when she sat as a judge in Vancouver’s county court. Only a few months later, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of B.C.; by 1985, she was making decisio...
Sep 07, 2017•2 min
Louisa Ann Swain becomes first U.S. woman to vote in nearly a century. Except for a brief period of New Jersey’s history around 1807 – a constitutional loophole quickly closed, rather than a progressive decision – women could not cast a vote in the U.S. until 1870. Change came nearly a year after the governor of Wyoming Territory, John A. Campbell, signed a bill on December 13, 1869 to give women the vote. When Wyoming joined the Union the following year, it meant Wyoming women could vote. Thus,...
Sep 06, 2017•2 min
Palestinian terrorists raid Munich Olympics and kill 11 Israeli athletes. On September 5, 1972, 11 days into the 1972 summer Olympic Games in Munich, eight Palestinians raided the Israeli team headquarters at the Olympic village. These members of the militant group Black September immediately killed two Israeli athletes, then took nine others hostage. Olympic officials suspended the games and the world watched, horrified, as intense media coverage ensued. The terrorists demanded the release of 2...
Sep 05, 2017•2 min
School board required to pay costs for French language dispute. The two daughters of Jacques Marchand attended French language schools in Penetanguishene, Ontario. Four primary schools served the town, but only one secondary school: L'ecole Secondaire Le Caron. Even that had been built only when the Ontario government required the Simcoe County School Board to do so in 1980. Marchand took issue with the secondary’s school absence of industrial arts and shop courses. His eldest daughter could tak...
Sep 04, 2017•2 min
Mukhtar Mai uses compensation money after vicious attack to establish schools. On June 22, 2002, a 13-year-old boy named Abdul Shakoor was abducted from his home in Pakistan due to allegations from members of the Mastoi tribe that he had had sex with one of their girls. As punishment, three of the men sodomized Shakoor. When his family came to his rescue, they agreed to settle the matter by having Shakoor marry the girl and by his sister Mukhtar Mai apologizing to the family of the girls. But th...
Sep 03, 2017•3 min
