calendar day excerpts

Dec. 1, 1926:
Ontario ends 5-plus years of Prohibition.

Sept 19, 2002:
7 men charged with public nudity at Toronto's Gay Pride Parade have their charges dropped because they were wearing shoes.

Dec. 31, 1963:
1st US shipment of nuclear weapons that Canada agreed to arrives in North Bay ON. Canada had been hosting US nuclear weapons without being told since 1950.

Jan. 22, 1918:
Manitoba movie censor board bans comedies, claiming they make audiences too frivolous.

Aug. 28, 2003:
Paul Martin turns 65, hands over control of Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) to his sons and begins collecting his ample CSL pension.

Oct. 17, 2003:
David Orchard called the merger of the Alliance and the Tories "an illegitimate creation conceived in deception and born in betrayal." He vowed revenge to uphold the Progressive Conservative Party’s constitution and tradition.

April 24, 1928:
Canada’s Supreme Court rules that women are not "qualified persons" and therefore cannot sit in Senate (see Oct. 18 ).

Sept. 12, 2000:
Stockwell Day arrives at his press conference in a wetsuit, vows to shake up Parliament, then roars off on a jet-ski across Lake Okanagan.

Aug. 5, 1986:
Canada adopts sanctions against South Africa for its apartheid policies. South African ambassador to Canada responds by saying they modelled apartheid on Canada's native reserves.

Nov. 4, 2003:
Men’s clothing store owner, Don Atchison, makes shirt & tie dress-code his first regulation as Saskatoon's new mayor. He fails to see any conflict of interest.

Aug. 29, 1917:
5,000 Québécois demonstrate in Montreal against conscription ordered by Military Service Act. All male subjects of the empire, up to 45 years of age liable for active service in World War 1.

Nov. 29, 1990:
17 year old Neil Stonechild found frozen to death (minus 28C) in field outside Saskatoon. Police foul play suspected. It takes 13 years for inquiry to begin.

Aug. 26, 1939, 4AM:
Unable to sleep after sending personal peace appeals to Hitler, Mussolini & President of Poland in an effort to avert World War II, MacKenzie King confides in Pat, his trusted dog and writes in his diary: "he seemed to understand everything I said to him."