FreeLatest Today's Old News
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West’s week of disasters claims hundreds of lives
One hundred years ago, from the newspapers of March 5, 1910.
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holy urine cure
March 3, 1812. Taken as a drink or applied externally, urine has been called the world’s oldest medicine. A 5,000-year-old religious Sanskrit text, the Damar Tantra, extolled its benefits.
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The world’s most murderous country
Clippings from the newspapers of February 26, 1929.
London Free Press. “The United States is, among all the civilized nations of the world, the country in which the crime of murder is most frequently committed and least frequently punished,” former Cornell University president Andrew D. White tells Cornell students in a speech at Ithaca, New York. Five hundred murders are said to be committed each year. White condemned “over-wrought sentimentality in favour of the criminals. Germs of maudlin sentimentality are widespread. On every hand we hear of sympathy; the criminal called ‘plucky,’ ‘nervy,’ ‘fighting against fearful odds for his life.’.. I have no sympathy for the criminal.”
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My broken heart climbs the CN Tower
Every year, thousands of people, from eight to 85, climb the 1,776 steps up Toronto's CN Tower in fund-raising events for worthy causes. In April, more than 6,200 climbed for the World Wildlife Fund. On October 24 and 25, Saturday and Sunday, 12,000 climbed for Toronto's United Way.
People who are blind, who are paraplegics, who have cancer or diabetes, have climbed to the top. Plus at least one person with an impaired heart - me - and undoubtedly many other troubled hearts. In 2002, World Champion Paralympian Jeff Adams climbed the Tower in a wheelchair. (In 1988, two men hauled a stove and a refrigerator to the top; in 1989, a crew from General Motors hauled up a car, piece by piece).
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Canadians flocked in large crowds to witness public hangings in Canada in the early 19th century. When hangings were no longer public, eager spectators climbed telephone poles and lined rooftops to peer over prison walls. At a double hanging of lovers found guilty of murdering the wife's husband, a mob of 2,000 rioters tried to break down the prison gates to see the hanging.