India's "father of the nation," Mahatma Gandhi, assassinated. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born on October 2, 1869, went to England to study law at the age of 19, where he was shunned by fellow students for being Indian. After completing his law degree, he returned to India for two years before moving to South Africa, where he became the first “colored” lawyer to be admitted to the bar. During his 20 years in South Africa, Gandhi initiated peaceful protests against racism, which evolved into effo...
Jan 30, 2018•2 min
Author of the Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer is born in Melbourne. Germaine Greer became known as one of the defining authors and speakers of the feminist movement in the 1970s due to her first book, The Female Eunuch. Greer was born on January 29, 1939 in Melbourne, Australia and was educated in a convent. Her post-secondary education earned her degrees at Melbourne and Sydney Universities before she attended Newnham College, a women’s college at the University of Cambridge in England on a schol...
Jan 29, 2018•3 min
Manitoba becomes Canada’s first province to give women the vote. The mostly upper-class women involved in the early days of Canada’s women’s movement viewed universal suffrage (the vote) as a tool to strengthen good, Protestant values in Canada. Their fight, of course, was a lengthy one, and led to a patchwork of results. Involved in the process were women of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association and the National Council of Women, where between 1890 and 1900 they introduced a number o...
Jan 28, 2018•3 min
Supreme Court rules against Premier Duplessis for punishing Jehovah’s Witness. Years ago, many people regarded the Witnesses of Jehovah as a radical Christian sect, especially in Quebec, where they were very critical of the Roman Catholic church. During World War II, Quebecors banned Jehovah’s Witnesses as an organization and imprisoned Witnesses practicing their beliefs. After the war, Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis did everything in his power to put a stop to this group. In 1945, provincial ...
Jan 27, 2018•3 min
Racism caused 11 years of wrongful imprisonment for Donald Marshall, judge rules. When he was 17 years old, a Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq First Nations named Donald Marshall Jr. and his friend Sandy Seale tried to rob a man who pulled a knife on them, killing Seale. Marshall was convicted of the murder and spent 11 years in jail before the actual killer bragged about his actions, leading the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal to quash the conviction. Marshall became part of a process that exposed racism in the...
Jan 26, 2018•2 min
Quebec town adopts popular “standards” that challenge religious differences. Although in 2007 all residents of Hérouxville, Quebec had been born in Canada, the town council decided the community would welcome immigrants – as long as any immigrants followed the town’s clearly established and democratically elected rules. On January 25, 2007, the mayor and six councillors of this rural community of 1,300 adopted a set of “standards” that included the following: “We would like to invite, without di...
Jan 25, 2018•2 min
Sir Winston Churchill dies at age 90. Winston Churchill was born in Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England on November 30, 1874. Known as one of the great statesmen of the 20th century, he was also an accomplished writer and painter. Churchill was born into the British aristocracy, and his childhood entailed boarding schools, poor marks and distant parents. After a short stint in the Army, in 1900 Churchill followed in his father’s footsteps to become a Conservative member of Parliament (MP). H...
Jan 24, 2018•2 min
funding. Susie Adler argued what she felt was a legitimate case: If Ontario fully funds Catholic and Protestant schools, why are schools that are run by other religions in the province not entitled to the same support? Adler linked up with fellow Jewish parents and the Ontario Alliance of Christian School Societies to take the government of Ontario to court. Why? Because their charter rights had been violated, she claimed. While the group lost their cases at all levels of courts including the On...
Jan 23, 2018•2 min
Former Manitoba Premier Edward Schreyer becomes Canada’s governor general. Edward Schreyer was Manitoba’s NDP premier between 1969 and 1977. A strong advocate of social democratic principles, he was a surprise pick for most Canadians when Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau appointed him Canada’s governor general. Schreyer was sworn in on January 22, 1979 – at the age of 43, Canada’s third youngest to take on the role. Prior to his appointment, all the queen’s representatives and heads of stat...
Jan 22, 2018•2 min
RCMP raids home of journalist Juliet O’Neill, prompting widespread condemnation. Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O’Neill was writing about the imprisonment and torture of Canadian Maher Arar, who spent a year in a Syrian prison after being detained in the United States and sent to Syria due to information given to them by Canadian officials. The issue became more than just an embarrassment for the Canadian government as questions arose about the information Canadian officials had given the U.S. I...
Jan 21, 2018•2 min
Norman L. Kwong of Calgary installed as Alberta’s 16th lieutenant governor. Norman Kwong was born in Calgary, 1929 to parents who had immigrated to Canada from China years earlier. In high school, Kwong took a liking to football and at the age of 18 in 1948 joined the Calgary Stampeders Football Club as a halfback. In doing so, he became the first Chinese Canadian player on a Canadian Football League team (CFL) and the youngest on a team that won the Grey Cup. He played for Calgary for three yea...
Jan 20, 2018•2 min
woman prime minister. Indira Gandhi was born into a political family. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was India’s first prime minister, following independence from British rule in 1947. She was schooled in West Bengal and Oxford, and married Feroze Gandhi, a lawyer who rose to prominence in Indian politics before his death in 1960. Like her father, her husband and the most famous of Indians, Mohandas Ghandi (no relation), she was always actively involved in the Congress Party. When India’s prime m...
Jan 19, 2018•3 min
Supreme Court upholds Robert Latimer’s 10-year sentence for murdering daughter Tracy. When Robert Latimer killed his daughter on October 24, 1993, some called him compassionate while others called him a murderer. Tracy Latimer was 12 years old at the time of her death. Due to a lifetime of severe cerebral palsy, she weighed 40 pounds, was a quadriplegic, had the mental capacity of a four-month-old baby and was unable to walk, talk or feed herself. Her mother and father witnessed her five to six ...
Jan 18, 2018•3 min
Ontario’s Pauline McGibbon is appointed the Commonwealth’s first woman lieutenant governor. Pauline Emily Mills was born in Sarnia, Ontario on October 20, 1910. She married her high school love, Donald McGibbon, in 1933, with whom she graduated from the University of Toronto’s Victoria College. At a time when women were just starting to break through gender barriers, McGibbon achieved many firsts. She was the first woman chancellor of the University of Guelph and the first woman chancellor of th...
Jan 17, 2018•2 min
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi flees Iran as Islamic Ayatollah takes control. In 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran to replace the Iranian monarch, the shah of Iran, with his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The new shah reigned over his country with limited powers until 1953, when his supporters – helped by the British and American governments – removed the country’s prime minister in a coup. In the 1960s, the shah brought in reforms in an effort to liberalize the country. He also chose to ...
Jan 16, 2018•2 min
U.S. President Richard Nixon orders ceasefire in Vietnam. With the deaths of more than 900,000 North Vietnamese, 180,000 South Vietnamese, 5,000 foreign Allies and 45,000 Americans, President Richard Nixon called for an end of his government’s bombing of North Vietnam and adjoining countries on January 15, 1973. That ended 18 years of American involvement in Vietnam, marked by an ever escalating military presence aimed at stopping the Viet Cong from getting a country-wide communist hold. Nixon d...
Jan 15, 2018•2 min
Segregationist George C. Wallace is sworn in as governor of Alabama. George Corley Wallace was born in Clio, Alabama in 1919 and graduated from the University of Alabama Law School in 1942. Following a brief military stint, he found his legal work taking him into politics. Initially elected to the Alabama legislature and bench as a judge, the long-time Democrat was defeated in his race for governor in 1958. His opponent had the support of the Ku Klux Klan, an endorsement Wallace refused. But Wal...
Jan 14, 2018•2 min
Ann Cools becomes Canada’s first black senator. Born in Barbados in 1943, Anne Cools moved to Montreal at the age of 13. She graduated from McGill University with a bachelor of arts and worked at various academic institutions. Early on in her career, she demonstrated a passion for advocacy, taking on issues such as domestic violence and violence against women. An active member of Canada’s Liberal Party, she ran for the House of Commons in both 1979 and 1980 in Toronto. Her work inspired Prime Mi...
Jan 13, 2018•2 min
Synchronized swimmer Helen Vanderburg Shaw is born in Calgary, Alberta. Helen Vanderburg Shaw was born in Calgary, Alberta on January 12, 1959. From an early age, she showed amazing talent as a synchronized swimmer. In 1973, Vanderburg Shaw won the Canadian Junior Championships; in 1977 she took first place at the Pan Pacific Games and earned six gold medals at the Canadian Championships. But Calgary’s phenomenal teen swimmer was just warming up. In 1978 at the World Aquatic Games in Berlin, she...
Jan 12, 2018•2 min
B.C. Human Rights Tribunal rules that a Jehovah’s Witness not required to display Christmas décor at work. Ray Jones worked for a Victoria, B.C.’s Shoppers Drug Mart store for 16 years. As a Jehovah’s Witness, he was never expected to display Christmas decorations, since his religion forbade the celebration and promotion of this Christian event. So in November 1998, when his supervisor asked him to put out six poinsettias, Jones refused. The supervisor’s reaction to his refusal led Jones to quit...
Jan 11, 2018•2 min
Actor, screenwriter, monologist Spalding Gray kills self during a depression. On January 10, 2004, Spalding Gray was to have flown to Aspen, Colorado from New York, but his flight was cancelled. Instead, he took his two boys, Theo and Forrest, to see the movie Big Fish, about a dying father and his relationship with his son. After the movie, he said he was going to visit friends, but never reached their home. Two months later, on March 9th, Gray’s body was pulled out of the East River. Spalding ...
Jan 10, 2018•3 min
U.S. Supreme Court rules that doctors, not legislators, determine “fetal viability.” The heated debate in the United States regarding the rights of fetuses and pregnant women was fought on many fronts. In January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the most debated case of all, Roe vs. Wade, declaring that a woman’s constitutional right to privacy is more important than a state’s right to restrict abortions. The same day, another court ruling brought an end to restrictions on abortion faciliti...
Jan 09, 2018•2 min
Newfoundland moves into a non-denominational public school system. For many years, Newfoundland’s public school system was controlled by religious institutions. In fact, when Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949, the schools were controlled by seven religious denominations: Catholic, Anglican, United, Moravian, Presbyterian, Salvation Army and Seventh-day Adventist. In 1987, the constitutional right to full funding under Term 17 was extended to Pentecostals as well. While there was a certai...
Jan 08, 2018•2 min
Justice Frank Iacobucci appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Frank Iacobucci was born the son of Italian immigrants in Vancouver, British Columbia on June 29, 1937. Although he initially aspired to become a doctor, his dislike of blood led him to contemplate other options. When an elementary principal compared the talkative student to a lawyer, he never looked back. Iacobucci graduated from the University of B.C. and Cambridge University before being called to the bar in Ontario in 1970. He...
Jan 07, 2018•2 min
Barbara Hanley becomes Canada’s first woman mayor. Barbara McCallum Smith was born in 1882 in Magnetewan, Ontario. She became a public school teacher, working in a few communities before settling in the northern Ontario town of Webbwood. There she married Joseph Hanley and they adopted a daughter. Hanley was an active member of the Webbwood community before getting into public office, first as a school trustee and then as the first woman town councillor. On January 6, 1936, she became Canada’s f...
Jan 06, 2018•2 min
Elizabeth Bagshaw, one of Canada’s first women doctors, dies at age 100. Elizabeth Catherine Bagshaw was born on a farm in Victoria County, Ontario in October 1881. A bright student with an excellent memory, Bagshaw decided at 16 she would be a doctor. She enrolled at the Women’s Medical College in Toronto and achieved her undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto. When her father died, she briefly returned to Victoria County and attempted to run the family farm. But she encountered so...
Jan 05, 2018•3 min
United States’ first Jewish governor, Moses Alexander, dies. Moses Alexander was born in 1853 in Bavaria, the youngest of eight children. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1867, settling in with two sisters before moving on to Missouri, where he got involved in the retail clothing business and politics. In 1891 he moved to Boise, Idaho to open a number of clothing stores. There, he was instrumental in opening Boise’s first synagogue and getting elected as mayor. After two mayoral terms and several at...
Jan 04, 2018•2 min
Miss Canada pageant comes to an end. The Miss Canada beauty pageant kicked off in 1946 with a swimsuit contest in Hamilton, Ontario. For years, the pageant featured only contestants from Ontario, but gradually it grew into a national event first televised in 1963. Women were rated on their looks, poise, body and “unique talents.” Winners of the Miss Canada title went on to compete in the Miss World pageant. Canada’s Karen Baldwin thrilled many by clinching the world title in 1982. Although the C...
Jan 03, 2018•2 min
Norman Bethune leaves Vancouver for China. Born in Gravenhurst, Ontario on March 3, 1890, Norman Bethune interrupted his education when he enlisted in World War I. Following his experience there as a stretcher-bearer, he returned to complete his M.D. in 1916. As a young doctor, he became disillusioned to see patients he’d saved return to their same, filthy conditions – conditions he considered a virtual death sentence. When Bethune and colleagues pushed for socialized medicine in Canada, they we...
Jan 02, 2018•3 min
White Canadian women given federal vote. The right to vote in Canada evolved like a two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance. The government allowed, then rescinded the vote before deciding to grant it conditionally; it depended on one’s property holdings, race, ethnicity and gender. Before Confederation in 1867, women may have been allowed to vote, but in many regions, they dared not exercise it for fear of social stigma. However, in places where the vote was taken away or never granted, women in...
Jan 01, 2018•2 min
