The outputs of many OCR technologies were developed for training LLMs, but that are frequently of little use in the humanities. They can be used by people with specific data mining and data science…

Karen Dubinsky, Professor Emerita of History and Global Development Studies at Queen’s University, brilliant scholar and generous friend to so many, passed away on 4 September 2026 after a br…

By Scott Berthelette On August 27, 2026, President of the United States Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. federal government to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.” The order…

By Jim Clifford It is never fun to watch friends argue. Generative AI has created multiple fractures across our universities and the community of historians. The stakes are high and we are all deal…

It is never fun to watch friends argue. Generative AI has created multiple fractures across our universities and the community of historians. The stakes are high and we are all dealing with the rep…

Cynthia Wright and Franca Iacovetta In November 1926, Emma Goldman, then 57 and beginning a first period of exile in Toronto, enthused over a “radiant” young Italian woman seated at a welcoming din…

Rosemarie Forsberg In 1979, lesbians in Fredericton, New Brunswick, found community not in a dedicated gay bar or a visible neighbourhood, but on the dance floor of the Cosmopolitan Club. On Thursd…

Edward Dunsworth While a small but vocal minority of historians have embraced the use of generative artificial intelligence in their research and teaching,[1] many of us find ourselves trying to ho…

Framing Canada's Indian Act as the insatiable Wendigo exposes its predatory nature, shifting the focus from policy reform to starvation-based refusal.

talkie’s poor representation of history is a side effect of a larger problem. The model was conceptually built as an experimental tool to see if language models can accurately predict the future, a…

Nastasha Sartore Earlier this year, over forty people logged in to Zoom to attend a CHA webinar titled “Generative AI and the Practice of History.” Introduced as a “show and tell” for AI tools and …

A federal appeals court reversed a lower court’s order requiring the National Park Service (NPS) to restore signs and exhibits that were removed by the Trump administration. The 1st Circuit Court o…

By Amelia Palacios, Molly Blake, Jenny McBurney and Kirsten Delegard; co-founders of Save Our Signs On the corner of Sixth and Market streets in Philadelphia sits a contested site at the heart of t…

Felicia Gabriele The expression, “May you live in interesting times,” seems on its face, pleasant enough. Resembling a well-wish, its sunny exterior deftly cloaks the dark, cavernous depths within.…

James Cullingham Canada and Mexico approach an historic juncture in their relations with the United States. Both countries face a July 1 deadline over the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUS…

Michael Dawson Today’s visitors to Venice are hard-pressed to ignore the locals’ frustration with their presence. In 2025, CNN lamented the impact of overtourism on this popular destination “hollow…

Peter L. Twohig On 16 April 2026, five thousand long-term care (LTC) workers in 56 facilities throughout Nova Scotia began a strike. A tentative agreement ended the labour action after eight weeks,…

Peter L. Twohig On 16 April 2026, five thousand long-term care (LTC) workers in 56 facilities throughout Nova Scotia began a strike. A tentative agreement ended the labour action after eight weeks,…

Stéphane Castonguay and Colin Coates This is the ninth post in a series about the Great Acceleration as a framework and reconnaissance for Canadian environmental history. The posts in this series a…

Thomas Stroyan In February 1968, the Quebec government agreed to loan Chile two Canadair CL-215s (also known as the CANSO). The CL-215 was an amphibious flying boat built for the purpose of perform…

Dani K. Inkpen “History should make you feel weird.” So proclaims a widely touted slogan of history nerds. While there is much in the world foisting weirdness upon us today, too rarely do we intent…

Jim Clifford When did the Great Acceleration start? Saskatchewan might hold the answer. Between the 1890s and the 1930s, the settler population exploded, and these newcomers broke 20 million acres …

Thomas Stroyan In February 1968, the Quebec government agreed to loan Chile two Canadair CL-215s (also known as the CANSO). The CL-215 was an amphibious flying boat built for the purpose of perform…

Walter T. Cassidy The Windsor Star reported an incident on May 28th, 1954—as did papers all over North America—about a Port Colborne, Ontario woman being arrested in Buffalo, New York, for trying t…

Amy Swiffen, Keith Charry, Hannah Wyile and Kris Millett This post is part of the Indian Act 150 series There is a harmful provision of the Indian Act that, until recently, has never been…

By Erin Isaac and Cady Berardi In the weeks after a sudden February announcement that twelve provincial museums were slated to close in Nova Scotia, murmurs began to circulate that some of these si…

Daniyal Elahi and Harris Elahi In December 2025, ActiveHistory.ca published our first piece on Private Hasan Amat, a soldier of the 1st Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, killed at the Battle…

Centering Canadian environmental history on the Great Acceleration and the Canada Lands Survey System reveals how administrative tools evolved during rapid change.

Bilingual & Bicultural Press Conference with A. Davidson Dunton and Jean Louis Gagnon. Library and Archives Canada item 5101609. Daniel R. Meister Recent stories in the CBC revisit the controve…

Shannon Stunden Bower This is the sixth post in a series about the Great Acceleration as a framework and reconnaissance for Canadian environmental history. The posts in this series are cross-posted…

Alicia Carefoote This is the fifth post in a series about the Great Acceleration as a framework and reconnaissance for Canadian environmental history. The posts in this series are cross-p…

Daniel Sims This post is part of the Indian Act 150 series In May 2024, I attended a meeting of Parks Canada’s Indigenous Cultural Heritage Advisory Council in Sydney, British Columbia. O…

By Sean Graham This week, I’m joined by Jamie Jelinski, author of Needle Work: A History of Commercial Tatooing in Canada. We talk about Jamie’s interest in the history of tattoos, the …

Historical mineral tables illustrate Canada’s Great Acceleration, highlighting explosive economic growth alongside devastating environmental pollution, worker mortality, and future transition challeng...

Lake Diefenbaker unified postwar engineering, agricultural expansion, ecological transformation, and colonial authority, embedding the Great Acceleration within a state-managed prairie watershed.

The Great Acceleration provides a unifying framework to analyze Canadian environmental history through interdisciplinary study, settler-colonialism, and global planetary changes.

Canada’s hydroelectric history suggests its "Great Acceleration" began in the early 1900s, driven by symbiotic energy growth rather than transitions.

Daniel Macfarlane This is the second post in a series exploring the potential of the Great Acceleration as a framework and reconnaissance of Canadian environmental history. The posts in t…

Andrew Watson This is the first post in a series exploring the potential of the Great Acceleration as a framework and reconnaissance of Canadian environmental history. The posts in this s…

Michael Egan Somewhere, I’ve forgotten where, I remember César Aira writing that “monsters manage to escape from the net that brings humans to the surface.” It’s a compelling image, but I don’t thi…

We, at Active History, were saddened to learn about the passing of Danielle Terbenche. Her academic work and community involvement leaves a lasting impact. Danielle Terbenche completed her PhD at t…

Kristen C. Howard In today’s increasingly online world, historians, researchers, and students want and expect online access to historical documents offered by galleries, libraries, archives, and mu…

Shannon Stettner As a child, on Friday nights just before 9:00 pm, I’d tuck myself under a living room end table. If I was quiet and hidden, I could usually get away with watching at least part of …

By Andrew Nurse This post is part of the Indian Act 150 series. On March 11, 2026, Saskatchewan Court of King’s Bench Justice D.E. Labach issued a summary judgement against Darryl Leroux.…

By Katie Carson, Sarah Kittilsen, and Sean Carleton Canada 150—the sesquicentennial celebration of the country’s confederation—was marked with pomp and circumstance, as the Federal Government encou…