Human Rights a Day
365 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 6 years ago - ★★★ - 4 ratingsJoin me every day for Human Rights a Day. It's a journey through 365 Days of Human Rights Celebrations and Tragedies That Inspired Canada and the World. The short 2 minute readings are from my book Steps in the Rights Direction. Meet people who didn't want to be special but chose to stick their neck out and stand up for what they believed and in doing so changed our world. There's still room for you to make a difference. Start each day with something that will inspire and motivate you to take a chance - to make the world better for us all.
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Episodes
March 31, 1959 - Dalai Lama
March 31, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesDalai Lama of Tibet escapes to India. Tibet embraced Buddhism in the 7th century under head of state and spiritual leader Dalai Lama. The present and 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was identified at the age of two as a reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. From an early age, he tried to deal with the tensions between his country and China. But China, feeling its power threatened, invaded Tibet in 1950, asserting its sovereignty over the centuries-old region. Tibetan anger grew until an anti-...
March 30, 1992 - Native Women's Association
March 30, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesNative women’s group loses discrimination case. In 1991, when the federal government was trying to change the constitution, it gave $10 million to four aboriginal groups to secure their input throughout an extensive consultative process. Unfortunately, the government overlooked the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), whose members felt they should have been at what they considered a male-dominated table. Belatedly trying to correct matters, the government gave NWAC $560,000, but it d...
March 29, 1993 - Catherine Callbeck
March 29, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesCatherine Callbeck becomes Canada’s first woman elected premier of a province. Catherine Callbeck spent her life alternating between her love of business and her penchant for politics. Born July 25, 1939 in Central Bedeque, Prince Edward Island, she earned bachelors of commerce and education and did post-graduate work in business administration before teaching business in New Brunswick and Ontario. She then returned to PEI to join the family business until her interest in politics landed her ...
March 28, 2002 - Arab Peace Plan
March 28, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesArab countries propose peace plan to Israelis. Even before Israel became an independent country, its citizens and neighboring Arabs were prone to battle. Every peace plan put forward evaporated in the heat of violence. Arabs refused to recognize Israel, and Israelis refused to return any land won during the 1967 Six-Day War: West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. And yet, March 28, 2002 marked a day of hope, when all Arab countries managed to agree on a peace plan process, one that woul...
March 27, 1905 - Elsie MacGill
March 27, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesElsie MacGill was a woman of unusual capability and resilience. Born in Vancouver on March 27, 1905, she was the first woman to graduate with an electrical engineering degree from the University of Toronto, then the first woman to receive her masters in aeronautical engineering from the University of Michigan. Although she contracted polio the same year, the determined young engineer defied the odds and taught herself to walk with two metal canes. She went on to become the first woman to desi...
March 26, 1984 - Bora Laskin
March 26, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesBora Laskin dies while Chief Justice of Canada’s Supreme Court. Born in Fort William (Thunder Bay), Ontario on October 5, 1912, Bora Laskin pursued education in a big way: He earned his bachelor of arts, masters of arts, and bachelor of laws degrees from the University of Toronto and his masters of laws from Harvard Law School. Shortly after being called to the bar, Laskin taught at the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School, also publishing and editing notable legal texts and repo...
March 25, 1994 - Simon Thwaites
March 25, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesCan’t fire HIV-positive naval seamen, federal Court of Canada warns. After enlisting with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) in 1980, Simon Thwaites spent six years progressing to the rank of master seaman, where he spent most of his time on naval vessels. The same year, the Canadian Red Cross informed him he was HIV positive. He voluntarily told the CAF, but when staff there learned he was homosexual, they downgraded his security clearance to a level that made it impossible to do his job. Force...
March 24, 1853 - Mary Ann Shad
March 24, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesThe Provincial Freeman first published by Mary Ann Shad. Mary Ann Shadd was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the oldest of 13 children to Harriet and Abraham Shadd. Both her parents were leaders in the Underground Railroad, which helped black slaves reach freedom in Canada. Her parents sent her to a Quaker school, and her love of learning led her to open a school for black children, then to continue teaching for years. When the U.S. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, forcing authori...
March 23, 1933 - Adolph Hitler
March 23, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesGermany grants Adolph Hitler dictatorial powers. How did Adolph Hitler rise to power? For various and strange reasons, Hitler was sworn in as chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, and his cabinet’s few Nazis were assigned key positions, including control of the police. Weeks later, the Nazis burned down the German Parliament building (the Reichstag) and blamed it on the communists. Hitler used the event as an excuse to con President Hindenburg and the cabinet into passing emergency laws...
March 22, 1984 - Jane Gray
March 22, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesCanada’s first women radio broadcaster, Jane Gray, dies. Only a few years after landing her first radio broadcasting job in London, Ontario on CJGC at the age of 28, Jane beat out 90 other applicants to host a cooking program on Toronto’s CFRB radio. Many Torontonians remember Gray’s public appearances, where she dressed in native costume and played Indian princess Mus-Kee-Kee to answer questions from the station’s listeners. A savvy broadcaster who even dabbled in buying and selling radio ti...
March 21, 1966 - Sharpeville, South Africa
March 21, 2018 06:01 - 1 minuteCommemoration date to eliminate racial discrimination. For decades, black South Africans had to carry identification papers known as “passbooks” anywhere they went. Passbooks formed a central part of the country’s racist apartheid system by placing severe restrictions on their holders. For blacks, needless to say, passbooks were a constant source of anger and resentment. On March 21, 1960, a large crowd gathered in Sharpeville, South Africa to peacefully protest the laws requiring passbooks....
March 20, 1985 - Libby Riddles
March 20, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesLibby Riddles makes history for women in winning Iditarod Trail dogsled race. In 1925, a diphtheria epidemic required medical supplies to be rushed to Nome, Alaska. Traditional methods of transport could get no goods further than within 674 miles of the site. Teams of dogsleds rushed the precious medicine the rest of the way. In 1973, Alaskan officials decided to memorialize this traipse by turning the 1,150-mile Iditarod Trail between Anchorage and Nome into an official race. Soon, hardy dri...
March 19, 1990 - Women's Hockey
March 19, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesCanadian women take gold at first Women’s Ice Hockey World Championships. Given the popularity of women’s ice hockey today, it’s hard to believe that prior to 1990, it had a very low profile. Not until March 19, 1990 did the International Ice Hockey Association open a World Championship to women. On that date, Ottawa played host for three days to nine teams from Canada, the United States, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, West Germany and Japan. Canada clinched gold, the U.S. took silver,...
March 18, 1992 - Apartheid Ends
March 18, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesWhite South Africans vote to end apartheid. International pressure against South Africa’s ongoing white-minority rule and apartheid system had by the 1980s brought boycotts against South African products and sports teams. The result was a deteriorating economy. Clearly, something had to change. When F.W. de Klerk became president of South Africa in 1989, he worked swiftly to shift more power to the black majority. In 1990, he lifted the four-year-old state of emergency that still existed in m...
March 17, 1912 - Bayard Rustin
March 17, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesFuture behind-the-scenes civil rights activist Bayard Rustin is born. Bayard Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania on March 17, 1912 and raised by a Quaker grandmother. A bright student and accomplished athlete, he formed an early understanding about racism. His involvement in the Young Communist League between 1936 and 1941 would later be used against this great civil rights leader, but it was probably his homosexuality that robbed him of the prominence he deserved. Rustin was credi...
March 15, 1990 - Baltej Singh Dhillon
March 16, 2018 06:01 - 1 minuteRCMP Sikhs allowed to wear turbans. Baltej Singh Dhillon was born in Malaysia in 1966 and immigrated to Canada at the age of 16. He trained to be an officer with the RCMP, but as a baptized Sikh, was required to wear a turban as a tenet of his religion. This precluded him from wearing the hat that formed part of the RCMP’s ceremonial uniform. In this he shared a dilemma with many Canadian Sikhs who felt under pressure to comply with regulations against their beards and turbans. Dhillon chose ...
March 16, 1968 - My Lai
March 16, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesU.S. soldiers massacre 500 civilians at My Lai, Vietnam. While serving in Vietnam in late 1967, a U.S. Army regiment named Charlie Company suffered one casualty and several injuries from a Viet Cong booby trap in Quang Ngai province. Captain Ernest Medina, set on revenge, gave the men a pep talk and plotted the destruction of the village known as My Lai 4. At 7:22 a.m. on March 16, 1968, U.S. Army helicopters stormed the village of 700. Their mission was to root out the Viet Cong, and despit...
March 14, 1868 - Emily Murphy
March 14, 2018 06:01 - 2 minutesFuture suffragist, journalist and judge Emily Murphy is born. Emily Ferguson was born into a wealthy and influential Canadian family on March 14, 1868 in Cookstown, Ontario. Years later, she and her Anglican minister husband, Arthur Murphy, moved to Alberta, where she took up the cause of women’s equality. Her constant pressure led the Alberta government to pass the Dower Act in 1911, ensuring the right of a wife to one-third of her husband’s property. When Alberta’s attorney general made Mu...
March 13, 1885 - Chinese Restriction Act
March 13, 2018 06:01 - 1 minuteBritish Columbia passes the Chinese Restriction Act. In the late 1800s, Chinese people wishing to immigrate to Canada were welcomed into the country because they offered cheap (and in some cases, disposable) labour for building Canada’s Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR). Once the railroad was completed, however, CPR reneged on its pledge to pay their passage back to China. Incidents of discrimination and resentment quickly escalated. On March 13, 1885, British Columbia passed the Chinese Restri...
March 12, 1999 - Florence Bird
March 12, 2018 06:01 - 1 minuteFlorence Bird Memorial Library opens at Status of Women Canada office. Florence Rhein was born in 1908 in Philadelphia and brought up in a privileged family that believed in gender equality. After marrying journalist John Bird, she moved with him to Montreal, then Winnipeg. While her husband worked for the Winnipeg Tribune, Bird wrote articles under the pen name Anne Francis and took up radio broadcasting. Shortly after World War II, when the couple moved to Ottawa, she became a women’s right...
March 11, 1948 - Dr. Reginald Weir
March 11, 2018 07:01 - 1 minuteAfrican American Dr. Reginald Weir competes in U.S. Indoor Lawn Tennis Championship. When a New Yorker named Dr. Reginald Weir signed up to play indoor lawn tennis at a national tournament scheduled for March 11, 1948, it raised no eyebrows. The organizers failed to block him for the simple reason that it never occurred to them that a black man might have the title of a physician. Thus, red-faced officials ended up letting him play, even though blacks at the time were banned from U.S. Indoor...
March 10, 1993 - Michael Griffin
March 10, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesAnti-abortion extremist murders Florida doctor. Despite daily pickets, protests and death threats from anti-abortionists, Dr. David Gunn provided abortion services to women in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. He paid for his courage and defiance with his life on March 10, 1993. That’s the day anti-abortion extremist Michael Griffin responded to what he called “a sign from God” by murdering Gunn outside the Pensacola Florida Women’s Medical Services abortion clinic. The crime fuelled the debate...
March 9, 2002 - Robert Mugabe
March 09, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesZimbabwe’s rigged election proves a turning point. When the practice of a white minority ruling over a black majority ended in 1980 in Africa’s Rhodesia, the country was renamed Zimbabwe. Initially, the nation’s new president, Robert Mugabe, and his Zanu-PF Party pushed through reforms instrumental in achieving greater fairness across the population. But Mugabe soon turned more tyrant than democratic leader. He oppressed opposition, violated basic human rights and obliterated the freedom of t...
March 8, 2005 - Carl Beam
March 08, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesArtist Carl Beam receives Governor General’s Award for art. Carl Beam was born the eldest of nine children on the West Bay First Nations (later to be renamed M'chigeeng) reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario on May 24, 1943. Although his white father was killed during World War II, his Ojibway maternal grandfather took a significant interest in his upbringing. In his late 20s, Beam followed in his artist mother’s footsteps by studying at the Kootenay School of Art before further studies at th...
March 7, 1969 - Gold Meir
March 07, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesGolda Mabovitz was born in Kiev, Russia on May 3, 1898 and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She married Morris Meyerson before moving to Tel Aviv, which was part of Palestine in 1921. There she became actively involved in the labour movement and the creation of the Jewish state of Israel. Shortly after Israel became independent in 1948, she was named minister of labour, a post she held until 1956. Prime Minister Ben Gurion eventually appointed her foreign minister, a post she held until 1966. ...
March 6, 1857 - Dred Scott
March 06, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesU.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision outlaws slavery. Dred Scott was a black slave who lived in the slave state of Missouri. In 1846, when Scott’s master moved briefly to Illinois and Wisconsin – both “free states” – before returning to Missouri, Scott saw an opportunity to sue for his freedom. Scott won his case in Missouri, only to have the Missouri Supreme Court overturn the ruling. When the case proceeded to the U.S. Supreme Court, seven of the nine justices decided against Scott on M...
March 5, 1956 - Black Students
March 05, 2018 07:01 - 1 minuteU.S. Supreme Court: Black students can attend schools and universities. In the early 1950s, black and white students in many states were governed by policies of “separate but equal,” which meant they would attend separate educational institutions on the guise that they could be equal. When the University of North Carolina was ordered to admit three black students in 1954, it appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court’s March 5, 1956 ruling upholding the decision rankled other ...
March 4, 1982 - Bertha Wilson
March 04, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesBertha Wilson becomes first woman appointed to Canada’s Supreme Court. Bertha Wilson was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland in 1923 and earned an MA and teaching diploma from the University of Aberdeen before emigrating to Canada with her husband in 1949. Her desire to attend Dalhousie Law School in Halifax in 1954 was not met with open arms from the dean, Horace E. Read, who told her, “Madam, we have no room here for dilettantes. Why don’t you just go home and take up crocheting?” She persevered, g...
March 3, 1952 - Court prohibits communist teachers
March 03, 2018 07:01 - 1 minuteU.S. Supreme Court prohibits communists from teaching in New York schools. At the height of the “red scare” in the United States, a number of laws were passed to prevent anyone with communist sympathies from working in the public service. In the state of New York, the Feinberg Law prohibited people who’d called for a government overthrow to teach. Designed to catch Communist Party members, the law enabled school boards to fire a number of teachers for their political beliefs. But when a group...
March 2, 2000 - Augusto Pinochet
March 02, 2018 17:15 - 2 minutesBritain allows former Chilean dictator Pinochet to go home without trial for human rights abuses. In June 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende appointed General Augusto Pinochet as the country’s commander-in-chief. It was a fateful decision. Just months later, Pinochet seized control of the democratically elected government and Allende was murdered in a military coup. In Pinochet’s subsequent bid to rid the country of left-leaning dissidents, he had thousands of Chileans tortured and murd...
March 1, 2005 - Ernst Zundel
March 01, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesHolocaust-denier Ernst Zundel deported from Canada to prison in Germany. When Ernst Zundel turned 19 in 1958, he moved to Canada to avoid Germany’s military conscription. He married in 1960 and had two sons. While professionally a graphic artist and printer, he published racist and anti-Semitic views under the pseudonym Christof Friendrich. He became involved in politics and at the federal level actually became a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1967 (Pierre Trud...
February 28, 2000 - Joerg Haider
February 28, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesEuropean protests prompt resignation of right-wing Austrian leader Joerg Haider from coalition government. Austria’s history is full of far-right political movements, notably the willingness of many Austrians to join Hitler’s Germany prior to World War II. Even after the war, however, the far-right commanded popular support. The country elected former United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim as president in 1986 despite his well-known involvement as First Lieutenant in the German Army d...
February 27, 1973 - Wounded Knee
February 27, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesAmerican Natives Occupy Wounded Knee, South Dakota for 71 days. In 1968, a number of native Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota created the American Indian Movement (AIM), whose focus was to improve the lives of urban Indians and native Americans’ relations with the federal government generally. AIM members brought attention to their grievances by occupying offices, sponsoring a high-profile road excursion called Trail of Broken Treaties and confronting authorities. At the Pine Ridge Indian ...
February 26, 1942 - Japanese Canadians
February 26, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesCanada evacuates Japanese Canadians from the West Coast. The moment Japanese pilots bombed Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, the Canadian government stepped up actions against Canadians of Japanese descent. At first Japanese Canadians were ordered to register with the government, but on August 12, 1941 they were required to carry photo registration cards complete with thumbprint. The paranoia and prejudice continued to escalate with Privy Council Order 1486 giving the government the right to...
February 25, 1922 - Molly Lamb Bobak
February 25, 2018 07:01 - 1 minuteCanada’s first woman war artist, Molly Lamb Bobak, is born. Molly Bobak was born Molly Lamb on February 25, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The daughter of a geologist and an art critic and amateur photographer, Bobak futhered her natural artistic abilities at the Vancouver School of Art between 1938 and 1941. In late 1942, she enlisted as a draughtsman in the Canadian Women Army Corps (CWAC), where her work in using art to record the CWAC’s activities soon won her a promotion to lieuten...
February 24, 2000 - Ujjal Dosanjh
February 24, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesUjjal Dosanjh is Canada’s first Indo Canadian to be named premier. Ujjal Dosanjh was born in India in 1947, then moved to England before settling in Canada in 1968. In British Columbia, he earned a BA from Simon Fraser University and a law degree from the University of British Columbia before setting up his own law practice in Vancouver. He got involved with human rights work through the Civil Liberties Association, multicultural support organizations and the Farm Workers' Union. Although a m...
February 23, 1944 - Agnes Macphail
February 23, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesAgnes Macphail becomes first woman sworn in to the Ontario legislature. Agnes Macphail was born in Proton Township, Ontario on March 24, 1890. As a teacher in rural Ontario schools, she joined the United Farm Women of Ontario, attended meetings of the United Farmers Ontario, wrote articles for the Farmers’ Sun and discovered a bent for politics. Her activism was timely in that women had just been granted the federal vote (1918) and the ability to run for federal office (1919). This undoubtedl...
February 22, 1967 - Mohamed Suharto
February 22, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesbut title. When Indonesia won independence from the Dutch, Achmed Sukarno became the country’s first president in 1945. Twenty years later, when Indonesian communists tried to overthrow the president and his government, the Army’s chief of staff, General Mohamed Suharto, suppressed the coup. From then on, Suharto took ever more control of government operations until on February 22, 1967, President Sukarno relinquished all executive powers to Suharto, saving only his title. Once “elected” pres...
February 21, 1965 - Malcolm X
February 21, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesAmerican black leader Malcolm X assassinated. Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, one of eight children. After years of family tragedy and a troubled youth, Malcolm found himself in prison, where he proceeded to educate himself. His reading influenced him to begin following the Nation of Islam’s (NOI) leader Elijah Muhammad. By the time Malcolm left prison in 1952, he was a devoted Muslim and member of the NOI who’d discarded what he called his “slave” name for the nam...
February 20, 1808 - Ezekiel Hart
February 20, 2018 17:01 - 2 minutesCanada’s first Jewish legislator, Ezekiel Hart, is denied his seat. Imagine gaining a seat in which you are never allowed to sit. Ezekiel Hart, Canada’s first Jewish legislator, encountered precisely that situation. Born on May 15, 1770 in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Hart studied in the United States before returning to Canada and launching numerous successful business ventures with his father and brothers. When he turned his hand to politics, he was swiftly elected to a seat in the legislative ...
February 19, 1897 - Adelaide Hoodless
February 19, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesFirst university for rural women opened by “domestic science” advocate Adelaide Hoodless. When one of her four sons died at 18 months from drinking impure milk, a young Ontario mother named Adelaide Hunter became an advocate for pasteurizing milk. For Hunter, who was born near St. George in 1857 and married John Hoodless in 1881, this grew into a campaign to educate women about child-rearing and household management. Hoodless’ passion for “domestic science” led her to other significant pursui...
February 18, 1954 - Joseph McCarthy
February 18, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesJoseph McCarthy’s search for “Army communists” begins his downfall. Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy was infamous for seeking out and destroying the lives of supposed “communist sympathizers.” While the House of Representatives’ Un-American Activities committee had inflicted damage to the reputations of many people shortly after World War II, McCarthy took it to new heights. He was quick to accuse anyone who’d supported Roosevelt’s New Deal, especially Democrats, of being communis...
February 17, 2002 - Kuwaiti Women
February 17, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesKuwaiti women demand the right to vote. Formal attempts to grant Kuwaiti women the vote began in 1971, following a conference on women’s issues. That bill to the legislative assembly failed as did other bills introduced in 1981, 1986, 1992 and 1996. A coalition of 22 non-governmental organizations made up the Women’s Issues Network, a group that organized various campaigns to put pressure on the government. After years of failed attempts, coalition members gathered by the hundreds on Sunday...
February 16, 1959 - Fidel Castro
February 16, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesFidel Castro sworn in as Cuba’s prime minister, becomes country's youngest leader. In 1951, Cubans were denied democratic elections when right-wing dictator General Fulgencio Batista seized power. Three years later, on July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro – who had sought office in the 1951 election – led an attack on the Cuban government. Unfortunately for Castro, more than half his men were either captured or killed, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for conspiring to overthrow the governme...
February 15, 1930 - Cairine Wilson
February 15, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesCairine Wilson is sworn in as Canada’s first woman senator. In October 1929, Canada paved the way for women to enter real politics. It came about because Canada’s “Famous Five” women (Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby) won the “Persons Case” before the British Privy Council of the House of Lords. This allowed women to be considered “persons” for appointment to the bench and Senate, as per Canada’s constitution. Less than five months later, ...
February 14, 1989 - Salman Rushdie
February 14, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesIranian Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini issues death threat against British author Salman Rushdie. British author Salman Rushdie published his book Satanic Verses in September 1988, to critical acclaim and sales of more than 100,000 within a few months. It didn’t take long, however, for Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, to take revenge on the Bombay-born author of the controversial satirical novel, which Khomeini felt cast the Muslim faith in a less than flattering light. On Febr...
February 13, 1974 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
February 13, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesDissident Nobel writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn expelled from USSR. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, Russia on December 11, 1918. There, he pursued a university education in physics and mathematics, even though his real passion was writing. When Soviet authorities discovered his writing criticizing Joseph Stalin, he was imprisoned, first for eight years, then for another two. He used his prison time to write, and much to the dismay of the Soviet leadership, managed to publish his ...
February 12, 1994 - Victoria Matthews
February 12, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesAnglican Church of Canada appoints first female bishop: Reverend Victoria Matthews. The Anglican church has allowed women priests since November 30, 1976. However, 1993 was a breakthrough year when Rev. Victoria Matthews became the first woman to be elected to the post of an Anglican bishop in Canada. The following year, on February 12, 1994, Matthews was consecrated as bishop at a service at St. Paul’s church in Toronto. Matthews was a distinguished choice. She’d graduated from Trinity Colle...
February 11, 1975 - Margaret Thatcher
February 11, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesBritish Conservative Party chooses Margaret Thatcher as leader. The British Conservative Party was not known for being the most progressive. However, on February 11, 1975 the Tories made what was considered great strides for the equality of the sexes by choosing their first woman leader, Margaret Thatcher. In Britain, party leaders are chosen by a vote of the members of Parliament and in 1975 the Conservatives were her Majesty’s Official Opposition party. Thatcher, who was known for showing ...
February 10, 1988 - U.S. Army's Homosexual Ban
February 10, 2018 07:01 - 2 minutesU.S. Court of Appeals overturns Army’s ban on homosexuals. The United States Army had a policy of banning gay men from its ranks. The Army took its lead from the British Articles of War of 1775 and felt no need to update it. Many Americans felt the ban was a throwback to the days of paranoia and misinformation about gay men’s abilities. When women were allowed into the combat ranks of the military, many assumed they were lesbians. It was not until February 10, 1988 that a federal appeals cour...