The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding
schools for Indigenous children who were removed from their families and
culture to be assimilated into Canadian culture. It was funded by the
government's Department of Indian Affairs, in keeping with the Indian
Act of 1876, and administered by various churches. Over more than a
century about 30 percent of Indigenous children (roughly 150,000) were
placed in residential schools, where at least 6,000 of them died. The
schools were intentionally located far away from home communities, and
parental visits were further restricted by a pass system that confined
Indigenous peoples to reserves. Students often graduated unable to fit
into either their home communities or Canadian society, and impacted
families have suffered disproportionately from post-traumatic stress,
alcoholism, substance abuse, and suicide. The last federally operated
residential school closed in 1996. The 2015 findings of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission concluded that the system amounted to cultural
genocide.
Read more:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1606:
The first known performance of the play King Lear, a tragedy by
William Shakespeare based on the legendary King Lear of the Britons, was
held.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear>
1898:
At the French Academy of Sciences, physicists Pierre and Marie
Curie announced the discovery of a new element, naming it radium.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium>
1900:
A relief crew arrived at the Flannan Isles Lighthouse of
Scotland and discovered that the previous crew had disappeared without a
trace.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannan_Isles_Lighthouse>
1919:
American baseball player Babe Ruth was sold by the Boston Red
Sox to their rivals, the New York Yankees, starting the 84-year-long
"Curse of the Bambino".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_Ruth>
1996:
The Federation of Korean Trade Unions called upon its 1.2
million members to walk off the job, beginning the largest organized
strike in South Korea's history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996%E2%80%9397_strikes_in_South_Korea>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
St. Stephen's Day:
(Christianity) A Christian holiday commemorating Saint Stephen the
protomartyr (first Christian martyr; died 34 C.E.), falling immediately
after Christmas Day (on December 26 in the Western Church and on
December 27 in the Eastern Orthodox Church).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/St._Stephen%27s_Day>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again
to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.
--Henry Miller
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Miller>