Halifax

 

Today Halifax is the capital of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. with a population of 373,000.

The first permanent European settlement in the area was the establishment of the Town of Halifax, named after the British Earl of Halifax, in 1749 when the colonial capital was transferred from Annapolis Royal. The British founding of Halifax initiated Father Le Loutre's War and the capital region was raided during the war 13 times by the Acadians and Mi'kmaq Indians.

The 1917 catastrophe.

With it's deep water harbor, shipbuilding capacity, and strategic location the first world war was seen as a blessing for the city's economy, until ,in 1917, a French munitions ship, the Mont Blanc, collided with a Belgian relief ship, the Imo.

December 6, 1917 had dawned clear and sunny in Halifax. Before darkness fell, more than 11,000 people would be killed or injured. 

The Collision sparked a fire on the munitions ship which was filled with 2,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid 200 tons of TNT, 10 tons of gun cotton, with drums of High Octane fuel stacked on her deck. The munitions ship exploded in what was the largest man-made explosion before the first testing of an atomic bomb, and is still one of the largest non-nuclear man-made explosions. Items from the exploding ship landed five kilometres away.

The Halifax Explosion decimated the city's north end, killing roughly 2,000 inhabitants, injuring 9,000, and leaving tens of thousands homeless and without shelter.

The following day a blizzard hit the city, hindering recovery efforts. Immediate help rushed in from the rest of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. In the following week more relief from other parts of North America arrived and donations were sent from around the world. The most celebrated effort came from the Boston Red Cross and the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee; as an enduring thank-you, since 1971 the province of Nova Scotia has donated the annual Christmas tree lit at the Boston Common in Boston.

The Halifax North Memorial Library was built as in 1966 to commemorate the victims of the explosion.

 

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