(1867–73, 1878–91). The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation,
he had a political career which spanned almost half a century. His
family immigrated from Scotland to Kingston in the colony of Upper
Canada (today in eastern Ontario) when he was a boy. He became a lawyer,
and was involved in several high-profile cases, quickly becoming
prominent in Kingston. Seeking and obtaining a legislative seat in 1844,
he served in the legislature of the colonial United Province of Canada
and by 1857 had become premier under the colony's unstable political
system. When in 1864 no party proved capable of governing for long,
Macdonald agreed to a proposal from his political rival, George Brown,
that the parties unite in a Great Coalition to seek federation and
political reform. Macdonald was the leading figure in the subsequent
discussions and conferences, which resulted in the British North America
Act and the birth of Canada as a nation on 1 July 1867. Macdonald is
credited with creating a Canadian Confederation despite many obstacles,
and expanding what was a relatively small country to cover the northern
half of North America. By the time of his death in 1891, Canada had
secured most of the territory it occupies today.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Macdonald>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1693:
An intensity XI earthquake, the most powerful in Italian
history, struck the island of Sicily.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1693_Sicily_earthquake>
1787:
German-born British composer and astronomer William Herschel
discovered two Uranian moons, later named, by his son, after characters
from the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon and Titania.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titania_(moon)>
1923:
Troops from France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr Area to force
the German Weimar Republic to pay its reparations in the aftermath of
World War I.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Ruhr>
1946:
Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania,
declared the People's Republic of Albania with himself as head of state.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha>
2013:
French special forces failed in an attempted rescue of a DGSE
agent who had been taken hostage in July 2009 by Al-Shabaab in Bulo
Marer, Somalia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulo_Marer_hostage_rescue_attempt>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
superannuated:
Obsolete, antiquated.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/superannuated>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
There is but one unconditional commandment, which is that we
should seek incessantly, with fear and trembling, so to vote and to act
as to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can
see. Abstract rules indeed can help; but they help the less in
proportion as our intuitions are more piercing, and our vocation is the
stronger for the moral life. For every real dilemma is in literal
strictness a unique situation; and the exact combination of ideals
realized and ideals disappointed which each decision creates is always a
universe without a precedent, and for which no adequate previous rule
exists.
--William James
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_James>
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