011. What was Immanuel Velikovsky’s Canadian connection?
Immanuel Velikovsky (1895–1979) was the principal, modern-day proponent of the theory of catastrophism — the notion that major changes on the Earth’s surface are the result of global cataclysms. Scientists recognize that cosmic catastrophes have occurred in the distant past, but they dismiss the theory that they have taken place during the historical period by noting that the geological and cultural records do not support the theory of catastrophism.
Velikovsky was a Russian-born physician and psychoanalyst who studied these records in Palestine, in France, and in his later years in Princeton, New Jersey. He came to public attention with a highly readable book, titled Worlds in Collision (1950). It was followed by such bestsellers as Ages in Chaos (1952) and Earth in Upheaval (1955), in which he marshalled what evidence he could find — geological and cultural as well as psychological — to support his notion that mankind suffered from “cultural amnesia” when “the sky fell down.” This perspective allowed him to offer an original account of such mysteries as the parting of the Red Sea, the collision of parts of the planet Jupiter with Earth, the origin of Oedipus, the birth of Christianity and Islam, etc.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was among the earliest of public organizations to take an interest in his theories and to subject them to critical analysis in various radio and television programs, including some in CBC Ideas, produced by Robert Zend in the early 1970s. The CBC programs examined the reactions of scientists to such claims.
Velikovsky received an honorary doctorate from the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, which on May 9 and 10, 1974, sponsored an academic conference on his findings and influence. “Velikovsky and Cultural Amnesia” was a multi-disciplinary endeavour with the conference organizers, representing such disparate disciplines as physics, biology, English, and psychology. Its organizer was the physicist Earl R. Milton, who edited the proceedings published as Recollections of a Fallen Sky: Velikovsky and Cultural Amnesia (Lethbridge: Unileth Press, 1978). The guest of honour delivered an address with the arresting title, “Cultural Amnesia: The Submergence of Terrifying Events in the Racial Memory and Their Later Emergence.”
So it might be said that Canadians “led the way” not so much in espousing Velikovsky’s theory of catastrophism as in exposing it to public and academic scrutiny. As the astronomer and writer Carl Sagan noted, scientists are impressed with Velikovsky’s cultural evidence, whereas humanists are impressed with his scientific evidence. (Sagan went on to dismiss the latter.) Some of Velikovsky’s predictions about planetary atmospheres have been proven true; others, false. His dramatically written books retain a measure of their popularity to this day.
012. Who is “Mussolini of Montreal”?
There have been many bossy mayors of Montreal, including Camillien Houde, but the title “Mussolini of Montreal” belongs to Italy’s wartime dictator Benito Mussolini. A full-length, uniformed portrait of him aside a brown horse appears in the fresco painted high above the altar of the Church of the Madonna della Difesa. Il Duce is up there with the angels, cardinals, altar boys, prophets, and carabinieri.
This parish church was the first Roman Catholic church to be built in the Little Italy area of Montreal in 1919, at the expense of the city’s Italian immigrant community. The fresco was painted by Guido Nincheri, an Italian-born church artist. It commemorates “the signing of the Lateran Pact of 1929, the agreement between Mussolini and the Vatican that created the Vatican City State,” according to Ingrid Peritz, in “The Mussolini of Montreal,” the Globe and Mail, August 27, 2002. At the time, Mussolini was a hero in the eyes of the Catholic church. During the Second World War, Nincheri was interned for three months as a fascist sympathizer at Camp Petawawa, Ontario.
The image on the fresco became a national news story during a $4 million restoration program aimed at obtaining recognition for the church as a national historic site. There is no thought of expunging it.
013. What are Babe Ruth’s Canadian connections?
The American baseball star hit his first home run in a minor league game at Toronto’s Hanlan’s Point Stadium, September 5, 1914. Legend has it the ball disappeared into Lake Ontario, an incident described in Jerry Amernic’s novel Gift of the Bambino (2002).
Baseball historian William Humber, writing in “The Canada Connection,” Maclean’s, September 2, 2002, says, “Ruth’s life is a veritable treasure house of Canadiana.” He was taught to play baseball by an Xaverian Brother named Matthias, born in Lingan, Nova Scotia. His first wife was Helen Woodford from Halifax, and a Quebec City-born Red Sox owner brought him to Boston. His longest home run was 600 feet at Montreal’s Guybourg Ground in an exhibition game in 1926.
Humber has many more tidbits in his column. But these are enough to prove him right when he wrote, “The Sultan of Swat had a lot of the Canuck of Clout in him.”
014. Who designed the World Cup of Hockey trophy?
The World Cup of Hockey trophy, so named in 1996, is the victory cup awarded to the winning team in a series of invitational international hockey tournaments. Intermittently scheduled, the World Cup of Hockey replaced the Canada Cup for hockey supremacy, which was first awarded in 1966. The original cup was a bronze affair with a spiky appearance. It consisted of the right half of an upright maple leaf.
The World Cup of Hockey trophy, its replacement, was specially fabricated from a composite alloy of copper and nickel, as well as solid cast urethane plastic. It was designed in 2004 by Frank Gehry, the postmodern architect. He was long a fan of the game and played it in his youth in downtown Toronto near the Art Gallery of Ontario, which he redesigned in November 2008.
015. Was Pierre Elliott Trudeau a serious contender for the position of secretary general of the United Nations?
No. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was a man of numerous achievements and notable accomplishments, but he was never a serious contender for the position of secretary general of the United Nations. The fact that an intensely private, left-leaning law professor was able to attain the office of prime minister of Canada and hold on (with one hiatus) from 1968 to 1984, the year he opted to resign from public life, is perhaps accomplishment enough.
Trudeau’s final year in office was played out on the international stage in terms of his well-meaning but hastily conceived world peace initiative. To many observers it appeared that Trudeau was less interested in advocating his peculiar peace plan than he was in promoting himself as a candidate for the highest office of the United Nation — secretary general. How seriously Trudeau sought this office is an open question, but it is generally admitted by U.N. observers that Trudeau was not a serious contender for the position, being distrusted by both the communists and the capitalists. He was also regarded as something of a loose cannon and a social gadfly by the representatives of the unaligned countries. Kurt Waldheim was succeeded as secretary general by Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru. It is likely, one would imagine, that Trudeau would have had greater impact on the world stage as secretary general than did the lack-lustre Perez de Cueller.
016. What did Lester B. Pearson not say was his greatest disappointment?
Many honours came the way of Lester B. Pearson, including becoming prime minister of Canada between 1963 and 1968. It is an open secret that Pearson, the career diplomat, wanted to be elected to the highest office of the United Nations — secretary general — not to the prime ministership of Canada.
He was a serious candidate for that office on two occasions. In 1946 he was defeated by Trygve Lie of Norway, and in 1953 by Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden. Pearson’s sympathies were too pro-American for the Soviets, who much preferred neutralist Scandinavians. Yet, between 1952 and 1956, Pearson served with distinction as president of the United Nations General Assembly, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts in defusing the Suez Crisis.
It was something of an anti-climax for him to contest the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, to endure the taunts of Prime Minister and then