By Adam Bunch
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A bird’s-eye tour of the foot of Bathurst Street in the 1950s
This is what the foot of Bathurst Street looked like in the 1950s. It was a brand new intersection back then; this land didn’t even exist until the 1920s...
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How Toronto helped break up The Beatles
At first, no one believed it was really happening. It sounded too good to be true. The Toronto Rock ‘N’ Rock Revival Show was going to be a...
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Down at Fraggle Rock… in Yorkville — The Muppets take Toronto
It all started in 1981 at the Hyde Park Hotel in London, England. Jim Henson was there with some of his writers and puppeteers. For the last five...
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Toronto hearts Stalingrad — “adopting” the Soviet city during WWII
It was the summer of 1942 and things were looking good for Hitler. The Nazis had already swept across Europe; now they were pushing on into Russia...
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Lee’s Palace before it was Lee’s Palace — the roots of Toronto’s famous music venue
This is what Lee’s Palace looked like when it first opened, nearly 100 years ago. It was the spring of 1919 — the first few months after the end of...
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Elizabeth Simcoe’s 1794 nightmare — the story behind one of Toronto’s first recorded dreams
Toronto was founded in a troubled time. It was the summer of 1793 when the first British soldiers showed up to clear the forest and make way for our brand...
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Toronto in 1851 — a snapshot of the booming city at the dawn of a new age
In 1851, the year this painting was painted, Toronto was beginning to boom. It had been less than 60 years since the first British soldiers showed up to...
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The Torontonian roots of Doctor Who — the Canadian behind the legendary TV show
Doctor Who turned 50 years old over the weekend. The Guinness Book of World Records calls it the most successful science-fiction series of all-time...
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A.Y. Jackson goes to war — the Group of Seven on the Western Front
“What war?” In the summer of 1914, A.Y. Jackson was far from home, high among the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. He was there to paint. This...
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The ghost of Christie Mansion — the grisly story of a Toronto cookie baron’s secret mistress
Mr. Christie first came to Toronto in 1848. He was still a teenager back then, but he had already spent a few years as an apprentice to a baker back home...
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Toronto celebrates the false end of the Great Boer War — the anatomy of a photo from 1901
It’s the summer of 1901 and we’re looking east down King Street from the intersection at Yonge. (You can see what the same view looks like...
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Star Trek and Toronto City Hall
Toronto has made an appearance in the Star Trek universe twice and both times it’s been thanks to Nathan Phillips Square. When our new City Hall...