Happy April Fool’s Day! We’re happy to be celebrating our fifth year and thank you to our readers for all your support over the years! After five years of operation, ActiveHistory.ca will be shutting down because of government funding cuts. This website, originally envisioned as a Canadian version of Britain’s popular History & Policy website, grew into a widely accessed… Read more »
On Friday, February 28th, a Royal Society of Canada-funded symposium will be held in the Fountain Commons at Acadia University. This Open Academy brings together scholars and members of the general public, including high school, community college, and university students and members of the African Nova Scotian descendant community. The event’s main objective is to share recent scholarly research in… Read more »
Things aren’t looking very bright for the arts and humanities at the moment. In our current age of austerity, arts and humanities budgets are easy targets for spending reductions. In both the United States and Canada, politicians seem focused on cuts. During his 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney identified the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for… Read more »
By Peter Seixas For the Historical Thinking Project, 2013-14 was the best of times and the worst of times. It was the best of times because two of Canada’s largest provinces made the most concrete and comprehensive headway in adapting the ideas of the Project for their curricula. Ontario implemented a new K-12 curriculum that embedded the historical thinking concepts… Read more »
By Daniel Ross Every Torontonian has a story about Yonge Street. For nearly a century it was the city’s unquestioned commercial and entertainment hub, the place to go for everything from window-shopping and people-watching to a Saturday night out on the town. Even in today’s diverse, dispersed Toronto it remains our most iconic street. Love it or hate it, like… Read more »
By Sean Carleton Illustrate! Educate! Organize! The Graphic History Collective (GHC) is pleased to announce the launch of their new comic book about the Knights of Labor in Canada called Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Canada 1880-1900. The comic book is now available for free on the GHC Website. Dreaming of What Might Be examines… Read more »
In BC’s rough and tumble resource economy before World War One, labour relations were marked by terrible working conditions, lengthy lockouts, imprisonment, even murder at the hands of company gun thugs. Robert Gosden was a fiery radical who advocated in response strikes, sabotage, and, he hinted darkly, assassination, from Prince Rupert to Vancouver Island to San Diego. But by 1919,… Read more »
A story that has been two hundred years in the making will have its broadcast debut tonight at 9:00 P.M. on TVO. Narrated by R.H. Thomson, A Desert Between Us & Them: Raiders, Traitors, and Refugees in the War of 1812 is a 120 minute cinematic documentary that explores those stories that make the War of 1812 a “modern war”… Read more »
As a number of recent high profile issues have made clear, preserving Toronto’s unique heritage is an ongoing effort full of challenges. However, it’s rare that we stop to celebrate all the things that are right with the city’s heritage and history scene. On Tuesday, October 15th, Heritage Toronto takes time to do exactly that at the 39th Annual Heritage… Read more »
Heroes and Villains: Rethinking Good and Evil in History 2013-2014 Lecture Series Presented by the Department of History at SFU It can be tempting to look at historical figures as either wholly good or wholly evil; as heroes or as villains. Mahatma Gandhi: high-minded hero. Rodrigo Borgia: scheming villain. This perspective contains elements of truth, but also ignores the more… Read more »
