1. The Toronto Circus Riot broke out 169 years ago this weekend.

It was sparked by a brawl between circus clowns & firefighters at a Victorian brothel.

So, here's a thread about one of the strangest stories in Canadian history... 2. It was the summer of 1855 and S.B Howes' Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus had come to town.

They pitched their tents on the big Fair Green by the lake, where they planned to perform twice a day for the next two days.

There were acrobats! Trick riders! Exotic Animals! Clowns!

1. On this morning 120 years ago, Toronto woke to find its downtown in ruins.

Here's my annual thread about The Great Fire of 1904 — and the strange, grisly tale of the one life it claimed... 2. It had been a miserably cold April night, with bitter gusts of wind and a light snow.

The flames were first spotted a little after 8 o’clock — a constable walking his beat noticed them on Wellington St near Bay.

1. Doctor Who was created by a Canadian. The first episode aired 60 years ago today, so here's my long & wild annual thread about the guy from Toronto who created one of the most quintessentially British shows.

And how he ended up as a possible target for kidnapping by the FLQ. 2. His name was Sydney Newman. He was born in Toronto, went to Central Tech, and developed a passion for film.

His timing was perfect. In 1939, when Newman was just 21 years old, the National Film Board of Canada was created.

1. On this night 69 years ago, Toronto was ravaged by a terrible hurricane.

Here's my annual thread about the horrors unleashed by Hurricane Hazel... 2. The storm arrived in the darkness of a Friday night in 1954.

All week it had been raining, a miserably grey October that was about to turn deadly.

1. This is Joseph Bloore. You might know the street named after him in Toronto. Or have even seen this disturbing photo before. But you probably don't know much about the man in it.

So here's a thread about the guy in the most infamously unsettling portrait in Toronto history... 2. Joseph Bloore was born in England in the late 1700s. But as a young man, he left, sailing across the ocean to start a new life in the Canadian colonies.

He arrived in Toronto in 1818, back when our city was still the muddy little town of York...

1. Today is Simcoe Day in Toronto. So let's talk about John Graves Simcoe & his strange, complicated relationship with slavery.

The founder of Toronto was an avowed abolitionist... who also once fought a war to *preserve* slavery.

Here's my annual thread... 2. Simcoe was a soldier, a hero of the British side of the American Revolution.

After the war, the Brits created a colony for Loyalist American refugees — on land already home to First Nations for thousands of years.

They called it Upper Canada. And they chose Simcoe to run it.

1. Clowns & firefighters got into a brawl at a Toronto brothel on this night 168 years ago.

It sparked the strangest riot in the city's history.

So, here's a thread about the Toronto Circus Riot… 2. It was the summer of 1855 and S.B Howes' Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus had come to town.

They pitched their tents on the big Fair Green at Front & Berkeley, where they planned to perform twice a day for two days.

There were acrobats! Trick riders! Exotic Animals! Clowns!

1. Decades after the sinking of the Titanic, a Soviet submarine descended to the ocean floor to explore the wreck.

It found something surprising down there: 12 tickets for the Toronto streetcar.

Here's the story of how they got there… 2. Meet Major Arthur Peuchen: a Toronto entrepreneur.

He did lots of business in Europe, so he was used to crossing the Atlantic. He'd done it 40 times; once on his own yacht.

And in 1912, he decided to head home from a meeting in London by booking a trip on the Titanic.

1. Toronto helped create baseball's colour barrier.

So here, 76 years after Jackie Robinson finally broke it, is a thread about the leading role Toronto played in making it. 2. The story begins in 1887. The Toronto Baseball Club was fighting for the pennant, playing at the city's new stadium.

Sunlight Park stood on Queen Street overlooking the Don Valley.

1. Toronto banned the St. Patrick’s Day Parade for more than a century.

Why? Religious hatred & sectarian violence.

Here’s my annual thread about the bloody riots that rocked our city in the days when Toronto was known as "The Belfast of Canada." 2. If you’d prefer to read this thread in another format, @Torontoverse has published a new & very nifty map-based version, too: tinyurl.com/2bndbre7

1. On this day 2,066 years ago, Julius Caesar was murdered. This is the spot where it happened, now in ruins in the heart of Rome.

It's also a place with a small & bizarre connection to Margaret Atwood — a disturbing little story I can't resist sharing on this Ides of March... 2. This is the Largo di Torre Argentina, a site that includes the ruins of an ancient theatre.

That theatre briefly played host to the Roman senate — after the Romans accidentally burned down the original senate during a cremation ceremony.

1. Today we celebrate Toronto’s 189th birthday. Which is pretty weird. Because Toronto isn’t 189 years old. And it wasn’t founded in March.

Here goes my annual rant… 2. July 1793. The first British soldiers sail into a bay on the northern shore of Lake Ontario & begin chopping down trees, making way for a town that will become a city of millions.

(pic: C.W. Jeffreys)

1. This is the story of Ursula Franklin — the badass Toronto scientist who used hundreds of thousands of human teeth to fight nuclear weapons. 2. Franklin was born in Germany, still a child when Hitler came to power. As WWII got underway, she was just starting out at university.

She studied science — a subversive act, she thought, in a dictatorship filled with propaganda and lies.

1. It's 1929. Ernest Hemingway is in Paris. And he’s about to get his ass kicked by an author from Toronto. 2. Hemingway originally went to Paris as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star.

And in 1923, he’d gone back to Toronto for a while — that way, his wife Hadley could have their baby with the city’s well-respected doctors.

1. A red-hot rumour was sweeping through Toronto over the holidays in 1799. It was so outrageous that it ended with a duel at dawn — killing one of the city's most powerful men.

Here's story of the sordid scandal that had our town buzzing during this week 223 years ago… 2. Back then, Toronto was just a muddy little frontier town called York.

It was a tiny colonial capital founded a few years earlier, home to a few hundred setters living on Indigenous land seized in a fraudulent treaty with the Mississaugas.

1. Meet Beatrice White.

A century ago, this Toronto teenager was hailed as "The Angel of Death."

Here's the story of how she killed half a million flies — and why she did it... 2. In short: Beatrice White had a dream.

The 14-year-old wanted piano lessons. But her parents couldn’t afford them; they were a big family with 10 kids, living in Regent Park.

And so, she would have to pay for them herself. That’s how she decided to become a merchant of death.

1. Toronto City Hall began to receive some very gruesome mail during the winter of 1946:

Packages filled with rat tails chopped off dozens of dead rodents.

Here's a thread about one of the most bizarrely grisly chapters in our city's history… 2. Rats were a relatively new problem in North America.

When Toronto was founded in the late 1700s, rats are thought to have only been living on the continent for about 20 years, having come over on ships during the American Revolution.

1. One spring day 76 years ago, a Canadian medic leapt out of a plane high above Nazi Germany and began floating toward the ground.

This is the story of Toppy Topham — and how he died. 2. This was March 1945. WWII was nearly over.

It had been 9 months since D-Day. Topham's 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion had been there...

Students, shopkeepers & dentists from places like Calgary, Saskatoon & Toronto dropping behind enemy lines to secure bridges & roads.

1. It was 150 years ago that thousands of Torontonians marched to Queen's Park during an illegal strike.

They won the right for Canadians to form unions — and inspired the creation of Labour Day.

Here's a thread about the Toronto Printers' Strike & how it changed Canada… 2. It was the late 1800s. The industrial revolution had, well, uh, revolutionized industry.

But workers had yet to win a lot of the rights & protections we consider fundamental today.

The printers who worked for Toronto's big newspapers were about to help change that.

1. Doctor Who was created by a Canadian. Here's a big long wild thread about the guy from Toronto who created one of the most quintessentially British shows.

And how he ended up as a possible target for kidnapping by the FLQ. 2. His name was Sydney Newman. He was born in Toronto, went to Central Tech, and developed a passion for film.

His timing was perfect.

In 1939, when Newman was just 21 years old, the National Film Board of Canada was created.

1. On this day 68 years ago, the people of Toronto woke up to find the city had been ravaged by a terrible hurricane... 2. The storm arrived in the darkness of a Friday night in 1954.

All week it had been raining, a miserably grey October that was about to turn deadly.