European History

“The Portuguese in Toronto” Photo Exhibit: An Organizer’s Reflection

May 10, 2013

From May 13-19, Toronto’s City Hall will feature “The Portuguese in Toronto,” a free photo exhibit. What follows are some reflections on how historians can engage with the public by one of the exhibit’s organizers. Raphael Costa On May 13, 2013, the Portuguese Canadian History Project’s (PCHP) photographic exhibit celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of mass [...]

Read the full article →

The 300th Anniversary of the Treaty of Utrecht and the Generosity of Governments

March 27, 2013

By Gregory Kennedy I know what you are thinking.  Not another commemoration of some dusty old treaty or some gruesome colonial war!  Still, since both Thomas Mulcair and Thomas Peace called our attention to the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , it seems only fair that the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 [...]

Read the full article →

Podcast: “Beyond Orange and Green: Toronto’s Irish, 1870-1914” by William Jenkins

February 14, 2013

The 2013 History Matters lecture series kicked off on January 31st, when migration historian William Jenkins (York University) gave a talk to a crowded room at the Parliament branch of the Toronto Public Library.  His presentation examined immigration patterns and political allegiances of Toronto’s Irish between 1870 and World War I, and how struggles at [...]

Read the full article →

“Can I trust you not to shoot me?” A Different Approach to the Gun Debate.

February 12, 2013

By Stephen Duane Dean Junior In 1487, Godfrey O’Donnell killed a Breifre O’Rourke with what was most likely a primitive cast iron hand cannon. Detailed in the Annals of the Four Masters, the text differs on the wording regarding what to call the new weapon. What was less uncertain was that the new weapon could [...]

Read the full article →

60 years on: remembering the North Sea Flood of 1953

February 5, 2013

By Alexander Hall Last week marked the 60th anniversary of the most catastrophic flood that struck the UK in the twentieth century. The North Sea Flood and the associated storm system, which occurred on 31st January – 1st February, 1953, was responsible for over 400 deaths in the UK and nearly 2000 in the Netherlands. [...]

Read the full article →

Photographing History and a Desire to See the Past in the Present

January 17, 2013

By Kaitlin Wainwright At December’s public consultations on the new Museum of Canadian History, Sean Kheraj, an assistant professor of history at York University, made a comment that stuck with me: by commemorating moments in history we actually learn as much about our present as our past. In trying to see the past through a [...]

Read the full article →

Hope and its Implications for Greece: A Perspective from the Diaspora

December 14, 2012

By Christopher Grafos I should have written this article a long time ago. Selfishly, I have remained vaguely apathetic towards Greek politics in anticipation that the negative publicity and connotations of the Greek state and people would quickly dissipate. My assumption was wrong and now I realize that as an aspiring academic, I am, and [...]

Read the full article →

London’s Great Smog, 60 Years On

December 10, 2012

When did the modern environmental movement begin? Did one event mark its beginning? Earlier this year we commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which is often identified as bringing about the environmental movement. While this book’s importance is without question, focusing on it as the birth of environmentalism ignores the importance of urban environmental problems, from unsafe [...]

Read the full article →

Experimenting with Victorian anthropometrics: What can we learn from past scientific practices?

November 8, 2012

By Efram Sera-Shriar Imagine yourself as a nineteenth-century naturalist living in Britain. You are working on a project that seeks to examine differences (both cultural and physical) between the various peoples of the world. You want to collect information from distant locations scattered throughout the globe, but you are unable to travel abroad because of [...]

Read the full article →

The Historical Roots of Today’s Climate of Apathy

October 2, 2012

By Dagomar Degroot In recent weeks widespread outrage over the publication of Kate Middleton’s topless photos has existed in strange parallel with a decidedly muted response to a shocking acceleration of Arctic melting. While every day brought new stories of royal indignation and litigation to the front pages of major newspapers, concern over the plight [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries