Origins
Davis Day originated in memory of William Davis, a coal miner who was killed during a protest near the town of New Waterford by striking miners. The protest was in response to a decision by the mining company, British Empire Steel and Coal Company (BESCO), to shut down the drinking water supply and electricity to the town as a result of the strike, while miners were attempting to shut down electricity to the mine's surface workings and pumps for removing seawater.
Davis was shot and killed at approximately 11:00 AM on June 11, 1925 and many other miners were injured, when striking miners were charged by the company police force, whose officers fired over 300 shots. In the weeks and months following Davis' shooting, company facilities were looted and/or vandalized, despite the deployment of the provincial police force and 2,000 soldiers in what remains Canada's second-largest military deployment for an internal conflict (after the Northwest Rebellion).
Read more about this topic: William Davis Miners' Memorial Day
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)