I Need Your Help!

Hi there! The bar where I used to host trivia went out of business, so I don’t get the answer sheets anymore, and thus can’t really do this blog. Alas. But I am keeping busy, fear not, and that’s where you come in. I need your help (hence the cross-post with my other blog).

2017 will see the release of something called Sesquicentennial. It’s not an album, exactly. It’s 15 albums. A collection of 150 songs on a single theme: the upcoming sesquicentennial.

Each song is about an event from a unique year since Canadian Confederation. So a song about something from 1868, something from 1932, something from 1987, you get the idea. And these aren’t “inspired by” events, or “about” them in the vaguest possible sense. No! Each song is on-the-nose about the event in question (which can be damned hard), although I have allowed for some speculation and invention of characters to flesh out certain happenings. But don’t worry, I’m not trying to pick the most Historically Significant thing from that year. God that would be boring. Instead, my only criterion is that the story be somehow interesting. Here’s an example, the annotated lyrics to a song about a sea lion who escaped from an amusement park in London, in 1958:

I have completed around 80 songs so far, and it should all be done on time… if you help me! You see, I’m starting to run out of good stories, and I need assistance filling out many years. I have asked the National Archives, the Canadian Encyclopedia, and some academics, and they’ve all blown me off, probably because they think I’m a crank or that I want some extensive research done. But I’m dead serious, and this is a damned cool project, and all I really need is a tattered thread of information to follow on my own. And so, motivated by desperation, here is my list of subjects, and resultant holes.

What I’d like is for anyone out there to suggest any subject at all for any year where I have a blank. As you can see I love disasters, crimes, murders, hauntings, craziness, any type of spectacular failure, or any outsider either triumphing or being crushed. What is out of bounds? X invents the (whatever). Or Y becomes the first (man/woman/Canadian/ethnic anything) to do (anything). These are generally boring unless there is a story to it. So without further ado, here it is. Suggest away! Leave your ideas in the comments, and pass it on to all your friends. Please.

Year	Subject
1867	Confederation
1868	Republic of Manitobah – a drunk megalomaniac tries to make his own country
1869	Hanging of Patrick Whelan
1870	The Battle of Belly River – a Cree band makes a desperate play to take the territory of another, with disastrous results
1871	Phoebe Campbell, manipulative murderess, goads her lover into killing her husband
1872
1873	Cypress Hills Massacre
1874
1875
1876
1877	Crowfoot signs Treaty 7 in an attempt to save his people
1878	Esther Cox is haunted by the Amherst Poltergeist
1879	Swift Runner murders and eats his family
1880	The Queen’s daughter is nearly killed in a sleigh accident
1881	Steamship Victoria Disaster
1882
1883
1884	Discovery of dinosaur bones in alberta by Tyrrell
1885	Jumbo the elephant
1886	Vancouver is destroyed by fire
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891	McGreevy is kicked out of Parliament
1892
1893	Founding of Algonquin Park
1894
1895
1896	Manitoba Schools Crisis
1897	Klondike Gold Rush
1898
1899
1900
1901	Death of Queen Victoria
1902	Oil discovered in Lethbridge
1903	Alaska Boundary Dispute
1904	Etienne Desmarteau absconds from his job and becomes an Olympic Champion
1905	Barton Murder, maybe
1906
1907	Anti Asian riot in Vancouver
1908
1909	Border Waters Treaty (I rapped about it)
1910
1911
1912	Regulation 17, concerned English education in Ontario
1913
1914	The great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster
1915	Vanceboro bridge bombing, a halfwit German agent blows up a bridge
1916
1917	Death of Tom Thomson
1918	End of The War
1919	Ambrose Small Disappears
1920	William Red Hill Saves Bobby Leach again at Niagara Falls
1921
1922
1923	Home Bank fails
1924
1925
1926	Hornby goes north (my personal favourite Canadian story ever)
1927	Newfoundland gets Labrador
1928
1929	Aquarian foundation dissolved. Brother XII.
1930	Canadian Martyrs recognized by the Catholic Church
1931
1932	The Mad Trapper
1933	Newfoundland ends its government
1934	Kidnapping of John Labbat
1935	On to Ottawa Trek
1936	Red Ryan dies in a hail of bullets
1937
1938
1939	Mackenzie Papineau Battalion returns in defeat
1940
1941	Voyage of the St Roch
1942	Death of LM Montgomery
1943
1944	Smokey Smith kicks ass. A classic.
1945	The Gouzenko Affair
1946
1947
1948	Newfoundland Referendums
1949	Asbestos Strike
1950
1951	Leo Major in Korea. Ultimate bad ass.
1952	Kurelek hospitalized
1953	Stanley Park Babes in the Woods bodies discovered
1954	Hurricane Hazel lays waste to Toronto
1955	Richard Riots
1956	The Coffin Affair
1957	Collapse of peace river bridge / CNE airshow crash
1958	Slippery the Sea Lion
1959	Completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway
1960	L’anse aux Meadows discovered
1961	The Coyne Affair
1962
1963	FLQ First wave of terrorist attacks and robberies
1964	Glenn Gould gives up live performance
1965	The Rivard Affair, which is funny
1966	Munsinger Affair: the defence minister had an affair with an East German spy at the height of the Cold War
1967	Expo 67
1968
1969
1970	FLQ Crisis
1971	Kingston Pen Riot
1972	Summit Series
1973
1974	Moe Norman wins the Canadian PGA
1975
1976
1977	The great Antonio is beaten to a pulp
1978
1979	Terry Fox begins the Marathon of Hope
1980
1981	Kent Cochrane becomes an amnesiac
1982
1983	The Gimli Glider
1984
1985	Tunagate or vicki keith
1986	Death of Claude Jutra
1987
1988	Ben Johnson national disgrace
1989	Kids in the Hall debuts on CBC
1990	Oka
1991
1992	Failure of the Charlottetown Accord
1993	Somalia Affair
1994	Tom Green starts his first public access TV show
1995	Referendum
1996	The Shawinigan Handshake
1997	Bre X fraud
1998	Dionne quints settle for cash
1999
2000
2001
2002	Lanark Firebug
2003
2004	Dave Sim completes Cerebus
2005	Stronach crosses the floor
2006
2007	First BC severed foot appears
2008	Hershey plant closes
2009
2010
2011
2012	Ikea Monkey
2013	Rob Ford
2014
2015
2016