Harry Crerar (1888–1965) was a Canadian Army officer who was the country's senior field commander in the Second World War as the commander of the First Canadian Army in the campaign in North West Europe in 1944–1945. A graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, he was commissioned in the Non-Permanent Active Militia in 1909. He saw action in the First World War, for which he was mentioned in despatches and made a companion of the Distinguished Service Order. After the war, he attended the Staff College, Camberley, and the Imperial Defence College. In March 1944, he assumed command of the First Canadian Army, which also contained British, Polish and Czech troops. Under his command, it fought in the Battle of Normandy, cleared the Channel Coast, and liberated the western Netherlands in April 1945. He was promoted to full general on 16 November 1944, becoming the first Canadian officer to hold that rank in the field.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Crerar

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1830:

Tom Thumb (replica pictured), the first American-built steam locomotive, took part in an impromptu race against a horse-drawn car in Maryland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Thumb_%28locomotive%29

1950:

American tennis player Althea Gibson became the first African- American woman to compete at the U.S. National Championships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althea_Gibson

1955:

African-American teenager Emmett Till was lynched near Money, Mississippi, for allegedly flirting with a white woman, energizing the nascent American civil rights movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till

1973:

Swedish police used gas bombs to end a seven-day hostage situation in Stockholm; the hostages had bonded with their captors during the incident, leading to the term Stockholm syndrome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norrmalmstorg_robbery

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

be one's own worst enemy: (intransitive, idiomatic) To act contrary to one's own interests; to cause problems for oneself; to self-sabotage. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/be_one%27s_own_worst_enemy

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.   --Martin Luther King, Jr. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.