By Jim Clifford Over the past few weeks that world has watched as the United States threatened to bomb Syria to punish the Assad Regime for using chemical weapons against his population. I, like many other people have wondered why chemical weapons are a “Red Line”, but deadly and efficient conventional weapons remain a widely used and legitimate. Conventional attacks… Read more »
By David Zylberberg It is currently spring in Ontario, plants are blooming and many people are expectantly awaiting the cherries, strawberries or tomatoes. Yesterday a pamphlet arrived in my mailbox advertising the home-delivery of seasonal organic produce, which emphasized the virtues of it being locally grown. At the same time, I see others suggesting that eating local food is morally… Read more »
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 Portuguese migration to Canada will… Read more »
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 should get its due.
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 home and abroad had an… Read more »
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 only be trusted in the… Read more »
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. The scale of the devastation… Read more »
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 contemporary lens, we blur history… Read more »
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 have been, derelict. My doctoral… Read more »
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 drinking water to severe air… Read more »
