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| GIVE THE GIFT OF TORONTO HISTORY! | ||||||||||||||
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You can pick the course you want to give from those below, or let the recipient choose the one they're most interested in themselves. (In which case they'll also be able to pick from any of new four- or five-week courses I create.) 
Toronto has a bloody past. It's filled with stories of chilling crimes stretching back to the days when the city was founded. And while these tales may send shivers up our spines, they also have a lot to teach us about the place we call home. In this online course, we'll explore the history of the city through the stories of its most infamous homicides. From gangsters and serial killers to housemaids and schoolchildren, we'll meet the murderers who've been terrorizing Toronto for more than 200 years. 
Baseball was being played in Toronto more than a century before the Blue Jays were born. In this 4-week online course, we'll explore the game's evolution in our city — from the days when it was a working class sport played by "undesirables" to Joe Carter jumping for joy in front of 50,000 screaming fans. Along the way, we'll meet everyone from con artists and kidnappers to eccentric millionaires and feminist icons — the people who've made Toronto baseball what it is… and helped transform our city in the process. 
You can learn a lot about a city through the stories of the strange things said to lurk in its shadows. In four online lectures, we'll explore Toronto's past through tales of phantoms, monsters and mythical beasts. Whether it's the terrifying creature spotted in the tunnels beneath Cabbagetown, the sea serpent rumoured to live in the depths of Lake Ontario, or the unicorns hidden all over town, the supernatural stories told about our city illuminate the history of the place we call home. 
Alcohol has always been a dramatic part of life in Toronto — from the days of colonial treachery to modern debates over drinking in parks. In this four-week online course, we'll meet drunken rebels, beer-bashing mayors, notorious bootleggers, and alcoholic politicians. We'll witness booze-soaked murders, prohibition-era shootouts, and the kidnapping of one Canada's wealthiest brewers — plus, the bitter fight over whether drinking should be allowed at all. To truly understand Toronto, it helps to understand how this city has been shaped by centuries of people getting drunk. 
Ewww. Sure, Toronto has a reputation for being a remarkably clean city. But it also has a long history of being a filthy, disgusting mess. From its days as a muddy frontier town with mysteriously green puddles collecting in its streets to hordes of rats swarming the slopes of the Don Valley, we'll spend four lectures digging into some of the ickiest, smelliest, slimiest stories Toronto history has to offer. And we'll learn a lot about our city and how it works in the process. Each course includes 4–5 weekly lectures on Zoom with a chance to interact and ask questions, as well as a list of recommended readings & links. Each class will last approximately 1 to 1.5 hours. Every lecture will also be available to stream online later for anyone who has to miss a class. DATES: All courses will be offered in 2023. And while the exact dates are TBD, all the lectures are recorded and posted to a private YouTube page — so even if they end up having a conflict, they can watch the lectures whenever they like. PRICE: Each of the above courses is available to give as a gift for $75 (plus tax). If you'd like to give the course to a couple or to a family, that's great — you only need to pay one fee per screen. And if you're a paid subscriber to my Toronto History Weekly newsletter, you'll get 10% off! (My big overview of the entire history of the city, From Hogtown To Downtown: A History of Toronto in 10 Weeks, is also available for $195 + tax). HOW TO MAKE YOUR PURCHASE: Just email me at adam@torontodreamsproject.com and I'll follow up to arrange payment by e-transfer or cheque, whichever you prefer. (I can also email you a card that you can print and give to the recipient yourself, or I can notify them directly if you'd like.) If you have any other questions, feel free to email me at: adam@torontodreamsproject.com and I'll be very happy to answer them. | ||||||||||||||
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