He was a man of great compassion, ingenuity and philanthropy, particularly during difficult times. Can you or your business do the same?
Milton Hershey had a couple of failed attempts at business before he founded and built the empire of Hershey Chocolate Co. If the story of Milton Hershey ended there, he would have been seen as a success and an inspiration to many. However, there’s much more to Hershey than just a successful business, because he…
Thoreau, Gandhi and King understood that going to jail was a reasonable price to pay for protest. Why don’t we accept that today?
In 1849, American philosopher Henry David Thoreau was angry at his government’s actions in the Mexican-American War and at the continued legality of slavery in the United States. He published an essay entitled Civil Disobedience, in which he stated that that the evils of war and slavery should be confronted by citizens through withholding their…
An estimated 500 million people contracted the Spanish flu, and the death toll was between 17 million and 50 million
As our world deals with the coronavirus pandemic, a couple of interesting personal stories came out of Europe on March 29. The Guardian reported that Hilda Churchill, a 108-year-old woman in Salford, England, became (quite likely) the oldest British person to die from COVID-19 symptoms. And Turkey’s Anadolu Agency and Fox News reported that a…
You may never know the outcome of your actions. But you can know with certainty the results of doing nothing
In studying the history of social change, I’m moved by the number of great people who died never knowing the full extent of their contribution to a better world. Three examples from the 20th century are Raphael Lemkin, Peter Bryce and Viola Desmond. Lemkin was a brilliant lawyer and professor. He was also a Polish…
One hundred years ago, a flu pandemic swept across the world, killing tens of millions of people, particularly those in the prime of life
From the wet and windswept northwest of Ireland to rural southwestern Ontario, the flu pandemic of 1918 to 1920 was remorseless. My mother and my wife’s father lost siblings to an illness where death might come within 24 hours of first symptoms. And sometimes it was particularly brutal. Historian John Barry has described it this…
Surprisingly, post-Black Death populations tended to live longer and enjoy better health and standards of living
Bubonic plague came to England in the summer of 1348. Popularly known as the Black Death, the disease arrived via a French ship that docked in what is now Weymouth on the south coast. From there, it spread rapidly inland and westwards over the water to Ireland. It was also transmitted across the North Sea…
Corporate Democrats don’t seem to realize they’ve lost the trust of American people disillusioned by the lack of progress
Pierre Trudeau once said to an American audience, “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant … one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” The United States has built one of the most powerful empires the world has ever known. The founders created an ingenious system to allow for…
The mayor is misreading the events of the Northwest Rebellion and romanticizing a nasty moment in our country’s history
“The red coats we know, but who are those little black devils?” This was the question posed by a Métis prisoner after the Battle of Fish Creek. Thus was born the nickname of the military unit that would later be known as the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, one that had been sent west to help crush…
The new book Becoming Ronald Reagan details the unlikely emergence of the most consequential Republican conservative of the 20th century
American liberals always had a problem with Ronald Reagan. He was, they thought, no more than an “amiable dunce,” a mouthpiece for someone pulling the strings behind the scenes. Yet through the hurly-burly of political contests over the span of a quarter-century, the dunce cleaned up on a regular basis. He was elected California governor…
In addition to displaying the Stuart propensity for absolutism, James II publicly converted to Catholicism. The die was cast
Of the world’s failed causes, one of the most enduring is the romantic tale of the House of Stuart. Who hasn’t heard of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his tragic-heroic attempt to recover the three crowns lost by his grandfather? Let’s back up a bit. The Stuarts were originally French, having crossed over from Brittany in…
Milton Hershey had a couple of failed attempts at business before he founded and built the empire of Hershey Chocolate Co. If the story of Milton Hershey ended there, he would have been seen as a success and an inspiration to many. However, there’s much more to Hershey than just a successful business, because he…
