Showing posts with label Montreal Quebec. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Montreal Quebec. Show all posts

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Monday, April 3, 2023

Tuesday, April 3, 1973. The beginning of the end of personal space and time.

Today In Wyoming's History: April 3:  1973  The T E Ranch Headquarters, near Cody, WY, which William F. Cody had owned, was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The first handheld cellular phone call was made by Martin Cooper in a demonstration call by Motorola.

Would that this would never have occurred.

Montreal announced Canada's first lottery in an effort to help pay for the upcoming 1976 Olympics.

The USSR launched Salyut 2, it's second space station.  It would be a failure due to hitting fragments soon thereafter, and it would crash back to Earth on May 28.  Well, not crash.  It burned up before it hit.

The Kingdom of Sikkim within India experienced a large-scale revolt which would require Indian intervention, and result in eventual Indian annexation.


Seal of Sikkum, downright scary.

Friday, February 11, 2022

Wednesday, February 11, 1942. The Channel Dash.

On this day in 1942 the Germans commenced the "Channel Dash" in an effort to run two battleships from the port of Brest to their home ports in Germany.  The battleships were the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by the cruiser Prinz Eugen.  They'd been enduring bombing by the RAF in Brest.

The German effort commenced under the cover of night on February 11 and with radio jamming which precluded British agents from radioing about the ship's departure.  It was covered by the Luftwaffe, so the ensuing battle was an air and sea battle.

Both sides sustained damage and casualties in the effort, but the German objective was successful.  Given that the Germans did in fact run the channel, albeit partially at night, it was a bit of an embarrassment to the British.

According to Sarah Sundin's blog, there were riots in Montreal over conscription plans on this date.


I'm not aware of the 1942 riots, although I am of 1944 riots. At any rate, conscription had been in place since 1940, but at that time conscripted troops could not be required to serve overseas unless they so volunteered, resulting in an enduring Canadian controversy.  Troops who would not volunteer were termed "zombies" by those who resented it.  Resistance to conscription was particularly strong in Quebec, where Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis had called a snap election in 1939 to oppose the war only to lose his seat to Adelard Godbout, who had the support of the Federal government in the election.

French Canadian resistance to conscription has been an ongoing matter of controversy in Canada.  Simply put, the Québécois were largely disinterested in the war, although 20% of those who volunteered to fight overseas were in fact Québécois.  This makes for a complicated legacy in obvious ways.

US forces arrived to help defend the Dutch islands of Curacoa, Bonaire and Aruba with permission of the Dutch government in exile.

Also, according to Sundin, the US took over Dupont's supply of nylon, a critical war material used for a variety of things, including parachutes.

The documentary Our Russian Front was released on this date in 1942.

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

May 26, 1921. Rickenbacker crashes in Cheyenne.

Today In Wyoming's History: May 261921   Eddie Rickenbacker crashed a mail plane near Cheyenne.

And this photograph was taken of Craig Street in Montreal, five  years before my mother was born in that city.



Saturday, March 23, 2019

March 23, 1919. Wilson Tours, The Sun's Readers tour the Wedding Party


On this day in 1919, President and Mrs. Wilson toured the former front, taking in a gun emplacement that had been occupied by the Paris Gun.

As readers here will recall, the Germans were supposed to destroy the huge artillery pieces but instead they carted them off, where they disappeared into chaotic post war Germany.


Readers of the New York newspaper The Sun saw a photo of Princess Patricia of Connaught's wedding party.

The princess had a huge US and Canadian following, in part because she had travelled in Canada in her youth.  Canada honored her by placing her image on a one dollar bank note in 1917 and then again in 1918 when Canada contributed Alexander Hamilton Gault's privately raised and equipped Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry to the Great War in 1918.  The unit, in which she was an honorary colonel in chief, was the British Empire's last privately raised unit, and the fact that it was successfully raised when the Irish Canadian Rangers really weren't, even though both were raised from Montreal, says something in and of itself.  In February 1919 she married Royal Navy Commander Alexander Ramsey, who was of royal blood.  He would live until 1972, she until 1974.  She was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

Cap badge of the Princess Pat's.  The unit still exists.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

The Seattle Metropolitans win the Stanley Cup

On this day in 1917 the Seattle Metropolitans became the first US hockey team to win the Stanley Cup.



The Metropolitans were members of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. They beat the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey Association three games to one.