Lesions identified as lion bite marks are shown on the left iliac spine of the gladiator 6DT19.
[T.J.U. Thompson et al]

Bites on Roman gladiator’s skeleton first hard proof of combat with lion

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Archeologists say puncture wounds and other bite marks on an 1,800-year-old skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in England are the first hard evidence that gladiators fought animals—in this case a lion—in Europe.

The evidence suggests the man was killed during a gladiator show or execution, and that the big cat gnawed on his pelvis or was dragging him across the arena about the time he died. The hapless gladiator was also decapitated, indicating he was put “out of his misery at the point of death.”

His skeleton, found in a roadside cemetery called Driffield Terrace, is believed to have been buried between 200-300 AD near the Roman city of Eboracum, now York. He was 26-35 years old.

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Author Bonnie Sitter was searching through old family photographs when she found a black-and-white image of a group of young women, with the caption, “Farmerettes 1946.” [welendahand.ca/]

Documentary highlights Canada’s WW II farmerettes

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

For Bonnie Sitter, it began with two old photos; for Colin Field, a banjo.

After her husband passed away in 2016, Sitter had been sifting through items when she unearthed black-and-white images of three girls. Scrawled on the back of each was “Farmerettes,” the name bestowed upon Canadian teenagers who, throughout much of the Second World War and beyond, worked in market gardens, orchards and canneries to help maintain food production for the broader Allied war effort.

The pictured farmerettes, three of an estimated 40,000 in Ontario alone, had served on her late spouse’s family farm. Inspired to uncover more, Sitter collaborated on a book with Shirleyan English—herself a postwar-era farmerette—leading to Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: Memories of Ontario Farmerettes, published in 2019.

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A small boat rescues a seaman from the 31,800-ton USS West Virginia. Smoke rolling out amidships shows where the most extensive damage occurred.
[U.S. Library of Congress/fsa.8e00810]

When trade and resources turn to war

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

A bitter war between Japan and China, with vague similarities to the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, had been simmering and boiling over for a decade when the United States and the aggressor, Japan, began talks in early 1941 to try to end it.

Europe was already under Hitler’s thumb. In June, the Nazi dictator sent his forces east into Soviet Russia. The Allies’ supply lines were suffering unsettling losses to German U-boats in the North Atlantic, while Erwin Rommel was notching up victories and laying siege to the key port of Tobruk in oil-rich North Africa.

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Sergeant Bill Byers (left) and his identical twin, Sergeant George Byers, took part in one of the Second World Wars deadlier raids staged by No. 6 Group RCAF. [Commonwealth War Graves Commission]

British historian James Holland highlights Canada’s WW II contributions

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“We underestimate the Canadians” said British military historian James Holland in a 2022 episode of his podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk, “they don’t get the credit they deserve for their part in the Second World War.”

The author of various non-fiction books, including Normandy ’44: D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France (2019) and the most recent Cassino ’44: Five Months of Hell in Italy (2024), has long respected Canada and Newfoundland for their tendency of “punching massively above their weight whether it be in the air forces, whether it be in the Battle of the Atlantic, whether it be on land.”

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