The Toronto Circus Riot of 1855 — the day the clowns picked the wrong Toronto brothel
If that isn’t the headline of the decade, then perhaps the first sentence deserves some kind of award (if not the story itself): “These weren’t the kind of clowns you want to mess with.”
John Graves Simcoe’s Weird Relationship with Slavery
Toronto’s founder was an abolitionist who was assigned to suppress a slave rebellion in Haiti.
The Tangled History of the Joubert Singers’ “Stand On The Word”
This echoes the previous article. It’s an interesting mess, and these sorts of issues remind me of similar problems with folk music: there are a million versions, no one knows which one came first, and perhaps, from some angles… it doesn’t matter? It is frustrating when someone other than the creator is making money, though.
The Roman Empire’s Roads In Transit Map Form
•10-cent thrift shop record sends Toronto artist on a years-long reggae investigation
I pulled a 1,500-year-old sword out of a lake
From an eight-year-old with the very cool name of Saga: “People are saying I am the queen of Sweden because of the legend of King Arthur.”
“Six months ago, a conservancy official cleaning out an office came across two cardboard boxes that had been sitting around for decades. Inside were 2,924 color slides, pictures made in parks across New York City’s five boroughs late in the summer of 1978. No one had looked at them for 40 years.” (via)
•David Reich: ‘Neanderthals were perhaps capable of many modern human behaviours’
Reich’s work as a leader of prehistoric population studies includes the discovery that all people of non-African descent carry small amounts of Neanderthal DNA, showing that Homo sapiens – at one stage – must have interbred with this long-dead species of ancient humans.
Also, hobbits were real.
There is a Canadian hip-hop history exhibit going down at the McMichael; pictured: Michie Mee. (Thanks Ed)
•People City prompts a journey down memory lane
Here’s the finished film.
•Something Ed and I have been working on
•The First Woman to Translate the ‘Odyssey’ Into English
First line: “Tell me about a complicated man.”
How to Read the JFK Assassination Files
Big document dump coming today!
In search of the elusive Lawren Harris “Toronto House”
I had no idea Harris painted city life.
Major underwater Roman ruins discovered off Tunisia
He said that an underwater expedition had found streets, monuments and about 100 tanks used to produce garum, a fermented fish-based condiment that was a favourite of Ancient Rome.
Mmmmmm, fermented fish.
How the CIA Came to Doubt the Official Story of JFK’s Murder
A bunch of JFK files have been recently declassified and they paint a strange picture; not what you’d expect. However, many more are still secret and intelligence agencies are lobbying Trump to keep them so. (thanks y!)
Sankey War Scrapbook Page 41
This post is part of The Sankey War Scrapbook project.
Sankey War Scrapbook Page 39
Interesting tidbit about dollar-a-year men (reminds me of Steve Jobs). Also description of a huge air raid on Berlin, which notes it was the 53rd, reminds both of how sustained the allied air game was at the time and also of where all the US industrial production was, in large part, going.
This post is part of The Sankey War Scrapbook project.
Sankey War Scrapbook Pages 37 and 38
Canada makes a dramatic appearance on page 38, gunning down some U-Boats. And FDR mixes some threats toward unions in with his threats about the Nazis. Does make you realize just how much of an urgent war footing the US was on already.
This post is part of The Sankey War Scrapbook project.
War Scrapbook Page 36
Text of FDR’s speech continues – there’s quite a bit of this, just wholesale publishing of his speeches. I’m actually fairly curious about the claims of Nazi documents on the previous page. Was the Nazi church a real plan? And their plans to carve up South America?
This post is part of The Sankey War Scrapbook project.
War Scrapbook Page 35
Eastern Front rages on: 300,000 Russian dead in first three weeks.
This post is part of The Sankey War Scrapbook project.
The Persistence of Prog Rock
Hot take: any proper history of prog would include Radiohead, regardless of what they say
War Scrapbook Page 34
Lots of interesting news including a possible strike and an America First rally featuring Charles Lindbergh.
This post is part of The Sankey War Scrapbook project.