The University of Toronto history department has never been very good at publicizing the annual Donald Creighton lecture generously endowed for it long ago; they don't even manage to get one organized every year.
But let's help them out. The lecture is tomorrow Friday, 4.00 pm at the George Ignatieff Theatre 15 Devonshire Place on the UT Campus. Free admission.
The speaker tomorrow is David Cannadine, the British historian of practically anything about British history that interests him. Tomorrow it's Winston Churchill and the Anglo-American Relationship.
I learned about this by attending the rather-thinly attended Margaret MacMillan lecture in International Affairs today, also at the Ignatieff, where the speaker was the other British historian of anything about British history that interest her: Linda Colley... who is married to Cannadine. Twofer!
Update, April 7: Pretty much a full house, actually, not that I'm claiming credit at all. Best line from the speaker: Apparently Churchill met an American prohibitionist who said he never drank because alcohol combined the kick of an antelope and the venom of a viper. To which Churchill replied: Now that's the drink I've been searching for all my life. (Until then, I had been sure it was impossible to say anything new about Churchill.)
A line you would not hear many other places, from the reception afterwards: "I was reading The Federalist Papers on my Kobo on the TTC down here, and..." Ah, historians.
