John A. Macdonald (1815–1891) was the first Prime Minister of Canada (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