History
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A Toronto statue from the graveyard of the British Empire
Our story ends in Toronto, but it starts nearly 12,000 kilometers away: in India, at a place called Coronation Park. It’s a grand, wide-open space...
By Adam Bunch -
Toronto is a geologic force: the Lost Rivers guide to the PATH system
Last month, I joined a Lost Rivers walk within the PATH system. Typically engaged with tracing the routes of buried creeks within Toronto’s topography...
By Daniel Rotsztain -
Welcome to your private nuclear fallout shelter
In 1959, the builders of Regency Acres, a 700-home subdivision in Aurora, Ontario, offered something no other homebuilder in the country could: a private...
By Chris Bateman -
Toronto’s rebel-fighting Freemason, William Jarvis
There’s a spot right in the middle of London, England, with a long-forgotten connection to the history of Toronto. It’s on the Strand, on the edge of the...
By Adam Bunch -
Exploring “downtown” Centreville in the winter: A ghost town in more ways than one
At the peak of it’s population in the 1950s, homes, cottages, and mansions lined the entirety of Toronto Island from Ward’s Island in the east...
By Daniel Rotsztain -
A Toronto historical map of London, England
Toronto has a deeper connection to London, England than it does to almost any other city in the world. After all, our entire country was essentially ruled...
By Adam Bunch -
The great Toronto bridge swap of 1928
The Canadian Pacific Railway had two 243-ton problems in early 1928. Its two newest and most powerful locomotives were due to be ready for the...
By Chris Bateman -
Sir John A. Macdonald, drunk and in flames
It’s one of the best-known facts in all of Canadian history: our first Prime Minister drank. Like, a lot. Sir John A. Macdonald wasn’t just a...
By Adam Bunch -
Good Reads: Winter Edition of Fort York’s newsletter Fife & Drum
The winter edition of the Friends of Fort York’s quarterly newsletter, Fife and Drum was released recently. It’s been a busy season at the fort...
By Shawn Micallef -
The horror of the Rupert Hotel fire still lingers
The fire had been burning out of control at the Rupert Hotel for 17 minutes before someone called 911. As flames and acrid smoke filled the corridors of...
By Chris Bateman -
The grim history of the Ku Klux Klan in Toronto
Two men in hooded Ku Klux Klan uniforms flash Nazi salutes on a porch. Beside them, a woman with “white power” tattooed crudely across her chest stands...
By Chris Bateman -
The day the sun turned blue above Toronto
The first sign of the apocalypse came on a Saturday night in the early autumn of 1950. It was a little after 9 o’clock. That’s when a star was...
By Adam Bunch