Wow. 2022 is nearly over, which means the inaugural year of this newsletter is drawing to a close. I can’t thank you enough for all the support you’ve given The Toronto History Weekly since I launched it back in January. Somehow, this little local history newsletter is now ranked as one of the top 20 history Substacks in the entire world. (What?!) And that’s entirely thanks to all the love you’ve shown it over the last 12 months, reading, sharing and spreading the word.
There are nearly 1,500 of you now, with more joining all the time. Toronto is a city that has earned its reputation as a place that doesn’t always appreciate its past, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re all proof that people here really do care about their city and its history. I’m especially grateful to those of you who’ve made the switch to a paid subscription. My hope is to keep this newsletter free for everyone forever, and that can only happen thanks to those of you willing to keep it going with a few dollars a month. It’s thank to your support that everyone gets to read these stories.
As the year comes to an end, I thought I’d share my own personal Top Ten favourite tales that have appeared in The Toronto History Weekly this year — from riots and rebellion to aliens, demons and superheroes. I hope you all have a wonderful New Year and I’ll see you in 2023 with more even stories from our city’s fascinating past.
And if you’d to make that switch to a paid subscription yourself, you can do that by clicking right here:
Rebellion & The Real De Grassi Kids
“In the winter of 1837, former mayor William Lyon Mackenzie launched an ill-fated revolution. And when he heard about the rebel plan, Filippo De Grassi refused to stand idly by. The old soldier rushed off to defend the colonial government, riding out from the Don Valley toward the governor’s residence (which stood where Roy Thompson Hall is now). And he took his two teenage daughters with him…”
Bill Murray Could Have Been Batman
“Ivan’s mother bribed a tugboat captain to smuggle them out of the city. The family hid beneath the floorboards, which were nailed into place above them as the boat chugged up the Danube toward Vienna. Little Ivan was given sleeping pills to keep him quiet. ‘I was so knocked out that I slept with my eyes open,’ he’d later remember. ‘My parents were afraid I was dead.’ It was five long days later that they finally arrived in the Austrian capital. The floorboards were pried back up. The family was free. That’s how Ivan Reitman ended up in Toronto, as a refugee…”
Why Toronto Banned The St. Patrick’s Day Parade
“Big Protestant vs. Catholic riots became almost an annual tradition in Toronto. Street battles broke out after political meetings and elections, when the Prince of Wales came to visit, on Guy Fawkes Day... Religious processions were attacked, St. Michael’s Cathedral besieged, the bishop pelted with stones... When a famous Irish Fenian revolutionary leader came to town, Orangemen rioted for two days. They smashed the windows of St. Lawrence Hall, destroyed a Fenian tavern and trashed stores on Queen Street. When Catholics celebrated the Papal Jubilee, stones rained down on them at Queen & Spadina. Thousands joined the fight. By the time it was all over, gunshots had been fired on Simcoe Street…”
The Torontonian Roots of Doctor Who
“[Doctor Who] is nearly 60 years old now, the longest-running science-fiction series of all-time. And while it’s an icon of British culture — the London Times has called it “quintessential to being British” — it has some surprisingly Canadian roots. If you want to trace Doctor Who back to the very, very beginning, to the person who more than any other is credited with its creation, well, then you have to travel back to Canada during the First World War, back to downtown Toronto, back to a brand new baby boy born in our city during this week in 1917…”
The Night Toronto Burned (Ft. The Oldest Film of Our City)
“No one is entirely sure what caused The Great Fire of 1904. It might have been faulty wiring. Or a stove. But around 8 o’clock on that terrible night of April 19, a constable walking his beat downtown spotted the first flames rising out of a necktie factory on Wellington Street just west of Bay (where the black towers of the Toronto-Dominion Centre stand now). As the officer rushed to sound the alarm, the flames began to spread. And they spread quickly…”
Amelia Earhart Falls In Love With Flying
“It was during this week in 1932, exactly 90 years ago, that Amelia Earhart took off from a runway in Newfoundland, beginning a flight that would make her the very first woman ever to fly solo across the Atlantic. But in a way, that journey had really begun two decades earlier, when the idea of flying first snuck its way into Earhart’s heart. And that happened in Toronto…”
The King of the Bootleggers & His Mysterious Disappearance
“By then, Perri had already gotten his start in the underworld. He had ties to the mob and appeared on the witness stand during the infamous murder trial that first brought Italian organized crime into the public consciousness in Toronto. He’d even contracted out an arson while working in a northern mining town. But it was with Bessie that his career took off. Together, they would build an empire of crime…”
The Blue Jays Are Named After The Blue Bombers
“April 7, 1977. Exhibition Stadium. As a zamboni clears the snow and Anne Murray sings ‘O Canada,’ Toronto’s brand new Major League Baseball team prepares to take the field for the very first time. In blue letters across the chests of their white uniforms, the players wear the team's name: BLUE JAYS. It’s a pretty straightforward moniker. But the story of how the Blue Jays became the Blue Jays is a much more epic tale than you might think — it’s a story tied to booze, gangsters, and one of the most infamous kidnappings in Canadian history….”
The Demonic Possession of Bruce Cockburn’s Wife
“It all began one evening in 1968, as a young couple strolled through the grounds of an old church. St. Patrick’s has been standing on McCaul Street since the early 1900s, serving one of the oldest Catholic parishes in the city. It’s how the St. Patrick subway station got its name. Like any church, the imposing stone building is a spiritual place, somewhere many people feel connected to things unseen. But what Kitty Macaulay sensed that night in the old churchyard was far from comforting. She would later come to suspect it was where the horrors originated — the herald of a living nightmare that would end with her and her boyfriend fleeing their home in terror.”
The Great Toronto Manure Strike
“Our story begins in 1917, back when Toronto was still filled with horses. The city had relied on them ever since it was founded. For more than a century, they drew carriages and sleighs, hauled freight, even pulled our early streetcars and fire engines. There were thousands of them working in the city. Now there were thousands of cars and trucks, too, but the era of the horse wasn't quite over yet. And that meant the streets of Toronto were still filled with their poop…”