William Lyons Mackenzie King not only holds the honour of being Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister (1921-1930, 1935-1948), he also holds the distinction of becoming Canada’s first official Canadian citizen in 1947. The concept of a Canadian citizen has been an evolving one. Residents of Canada have gone from being colonial subjects to British …
Alexander the Great. The name alone inspires images of a man with a massive army at his back, his face laden with both the burden and the right to sweep the world and bring it under his rule. During his time, and for centuries afterwards, Alexander the Great, son of the infamous Phillip of …
Exactly what time did the Battle of Shiloh begin? Precisely what time of day did U.S. presidents prior to 1918 become inaugurated? The answer to these questions is we don’t know and never will know. You see, the idea of exact time evolved in American history. Today there are four time zones in the …
Gut instincts are kind of our thing — for better and, often, for worse 1865 “Abe, you’re gonna love ‘Our American Cousin’” It’s unclear who suggested President Lincoln go to the theater on April 14, but whoever recommended the idea wasn’t necessarily wrong. ‘Our American Cousin’ was a hit comedy that had been running …
The long past Egyptian civilization is a great one, and you will be hard pressed to find someone to who will think otherwise. Ancient Egypt in modern terminology is situated in Africa, at the northwest area. The Nile River, in most cases just called the ‘Nile’, passed through the center of the civilization. The …
It was on January 1, 1776 that the Continental army was restructured and adjusted according to a Congressional resolution which heralded American forces to the command of George Washington. On that day, the American Continental Army was blockading Boston which had been taken over by the British army. It has been said that the …
The guillotine was first put to lethal use on April 25, 1792, at 3:30 PM, in Paris at the Place de Greve on the Right Bank of the Seine. It separated highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier’s head from the rest of his body. The device was perfected – though not invented – by Doctor Joseph …
In the 1800s, most women remained in their parents’ households until they married. Young ladies who were single were known as “spinsters”; middle aged and older women who remained unmarried were dubbed “old maids.” Many in the older generation fretted about the existence of too many bachelors, spinsters and old maids. This fretting led …
I’ve learned to be careful when writing that someone or something was the first of its kind. As it turns out, the person credited with being the very first in a book or on a historic marker might not have been the first. But somewhere along the way, a reporter or author who didn’t …