On October 30, a violent confrontation occurred between picketers and law enforcement officials. That morning, Chief Long had several men stationed near the entrance of the Phoenix Mill, where strikers were picketing. Tensions rose as the picketers refused to clear away to allow workers to enter the mill. As a result, a physical confrontation unfolded between the strikers and the officers. Mounted police officers began to attack strikers with their clubs, with several beaten unconscious. The strikers by comparison were almost all unarmed. During the resulting riot, one officer was shot, while a private police officer from the Humphrey Detective Agency of Albany was stabbed. Shortly after this, the strike committee met with strikers at the Slovak Hall, a building located across the Mohawk River from the mills in the immigrant part of town that was used as the headquarters for the strike. Police chased picketers across the river and to the hall, where they beat the doors down and assaulted the building and its occupants. Cases of liquor and beer were confiscated by the police, who also destroyed musical instruments and the framed IWW charter that the union had displayed in the hall. Many people who resisted were beaten, and the police arrested the entire strike committee, as well as several other strikers and sympathizers, including Schloss. Legere had managed to escape arrest and went to Utica, where he sent off several letters before he returned to Little Falls the following day and was promptly arrested. The night after the raid, strikers gathered at the hall and cleaned it before singing "La Marseillaise" and "The Internationale".
Following the attack, the IWW sent more organizers to help with the strike effort, including Bill Haywood, Matilda Rabinowitz, and several people from Schenectady to help with relief efforts. Following the arrests, Rabinowitz helped to reorganize the strike committee with new members, while Mayor Lunn and other socialists from Schenectady operated the soup kitchen. Rabinowitz would serve as the IWW's primary organizer for the remainder of the strike, as Haywood was suffering from diabetes-related illness. Additionally, the IWW brought attorney Jessie Ashley to Little Falls to help prepare for the legal matters that those arrested would be facing. The following day, the strikers published a handbill condemning the action as a police riot, stating, "It was the most brutal, cold blooded act ever done in these parts. Nothing under heaven can ever justify it, and the soul of the degenerate brute who started it will shrivel in hell long, long before the workers will ever forget this day". In response, members of Little Falls' clergy, politicians, and businessmen held a town meeting where they voiced their approval of the actions taken by the police. By November 16, the strike had idled about 800 workers who remained at the mills. On November 19, activist Helen Keller sent a letter to the strikers commending them for their determination and expressing her support for their cause and included about $87 to help with the strike fund. Keller was an advocate for socialist causes and had joined the IWW after their work in Lawrence earlier that year. Donations were also sent by many supporters of the strike, including the IWW local union in Columbus, Ohio, which raised $40 for the strike. During this time, Rabinowitz and Schloss traveled throughout the Northeastern United States to gather additional support for the strike.

Confrontation between police and strikers


Almost as soon as the strike began, the New York State Department of Labor's Bureau of Mediation and Arbitration arrive in Little Falls to attempt to broker an agreement between the strikers and the mills. Before the strike had spread to the Gilbert Mill, the bureau interviewed the owner of the Phoenix Mill, who said he would not negotiate any change in pay with the strikers until they returned to work. Meanwhile, after the strike had spread to the Gilbert Mill, representatives of that enterprise agreed to meet with strikers, but refused to have an IWW interpreter present, causing the negotiations to falter. For several weeks thereafter, neither mill would agree to negotiate in any way with IWW representatives. Around this time, the United Textile Workers of America (UTW), an AFL-affiliated union, began to organize some of the strikers into their union and negotiated with the mills on their behalf. The UTW presence in Little Falls, led by AFL organizer Charles A. Miles of Auburn, had arrived after the IWW had established its role in the strike and began to directly compete with the IWW to control the strike. According to reporting from the International Socialist Review, which was sympathetic to the IWW over the UTW, some members of the private police that had been involved in the October 30 confrontation had been members of the UTW. Miles partnered with business interests, clergy members, and law enforcement to portray the IWW as a violent anarchist group that was not able to effectively negotiate on the behalf of their members. Miles and the UTW succeeded in recruiting some strikers to the organization, claiming an initial membership of 52 mill workers, and while the mill owners refused to negotiate with the IWW, Miles managed to negotiate a settlement for his group with the millworkers, announcing an end to the strike on December 2. The settlement included an increase in day wages and piece work pay to make up for the loss of hours. However, the IWW local at this time claimed a membership of 400 workers who remained on strike. Concerning the competition between the two unions during the strike, historian James S. Pula has said, "In the end, the IWW proved more influential, possibly because of the egregious actions of local officials that called forth a stronger response from the workers".

Mediation and the United Textile Workers


On December 17, in a move similar to what the IWW had done in Lawrence, the strikers began to send their children to temporarily live in the homes of strike sympathizers in cities such as Amsterdam, Schenectady, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with 18 of a planned 50 leaving that day. Strikers were harassed by law enforcement officials during an accompanying march held to the train station, garnering significant media attention and public sympathy for the strike. On December 24, due to the protractedness of the strike, the State Department of Labor ordered an official inquiry into the causes and nature of the strike. The department held hearings in the city on December 27, 28, and 30, in total interviewing 47 witnesses, including numerous strikers and the mill owners. The investigators determined conclusively that the decrease in wages was the primary cause of and continued reason for the strike, though mill owners also contended that the intervention of the IWW had prolonged the strike. Following the hearings, the investigators created a multi-point plan that they submitted to the mill owners, who agreed to it. The terms, as written by the investigators, stated:


"There will be no discrimination against individual strikers.
The companies to reinstate all former employees as soon as possible.
All men and women working 54 hours to receive pay formerly received for 60 hours.
Piece work rates to be adjusted to compensate for reduction of time caused by fifty-four hour law.
Night lunch to be adjusted by the workers directly involved.
Winding schedules: Cop yarn in most sizes is raised 5 cents per 100 pounds. Mule spun yarn is increased from 9 per cent on the largest size to 16 per cent on the smallest size. 10 per cent additional is paid on latch needle knitting. Other piece work prices affected by the fifty-four hour law to be adjusted on the same plan."
On January 2, Rabinowitz called a mass meeting of the strikers where the terms of the proposal were read with the help of interpreters, including Carlo Tresca. The state mediator was also present to answer questions or provide clarifications for the strikers. Also during the meeting, attorney Fred Moore spoke to the crowd, calling on them to continue to fight for better conditions if they approved of the proposal. Ultimately, the strikers unanimously agreed to accept the terms of the contract, with the meeting ending with a playing of "La Marseillaise". The strikers agreed to return to work that Monday, January 6, thus ending the strike. The IWW viewed the settlement as a success.


Concerning the strike, Pula stated in a 1995 book that the "dispute [was] characterized by physical and emotional bitterness that more than matched the inclement weather of a brutal winter". The strike was the longest to occur as a result of the Jackson bill, and the employees involved lost a cumulative 68,379 work days. It was the largest strike led by the IWW in the state of New York and represented one of several instances during this time of cooperation on the local level between Wobblies and members of the Socialist Party, despite disputes among higher-ups in both organizations. It was one of many in a wave of strikes in the northeastern United States that followed the Lawrence strike, with other textile labor disputes occurring around the same time in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Passaic, New Jersey, as well as part of a wave of labor disputes led by the IWW in the northeast and Midwest. As a result of the strike, mill workers saw wage increases of between 6 and 15 percent, and the state government launched an investigation into the state of living conditions among the immigrant laborers in Little Falls. Additionally, the city government launched a "clean-up week" in an attempt to improve living conditions in the immigrant part of town, the Phoenix Mill constructed a few new houses for workers, and a loan company was established to aid immigrants.


Following the strike, the IWW focused on the legal issues concerning 14 strikers who remained arrested. Moore served as the attorney for those involved, with trials taking place from March to May 1913. In the end, many were found not guilty or received fines, but Bochino and Legere were found guilty of assault. The two Wobblies were sentenced to a year in Auburn Prison, where they were interred until July 1914. According to historian Robert E. Snyder in a 1979 article in the journal New York History, the court cases drained money and resources from the local union, and with two of the union's organizers in prison, the local struggled and eventually fell into a state of disorder. This time period also coincided with the IWW's 1913 Paterson silk strike, which ended in disaster for the union. According to historian Philip S. Foner, after the Paterson strike, "the bright hopes of the IWW in the textile industry lay shattered", further stating, "The IWW suffered a setback in Paterson from which it never completely recovered. Its prestige in the East, which had been at a high point following the victory at Lawrence, underwent a tremendous decline, and there was no longer talk about the IWW's infallibility in strikes". Coming as it did between the Lawrence and Paterson strike, Snyder states that the Little Falls strike "has been neglected by labor historians".
Following the IWW's decline, the more conservative AFL remained and recruited workers in the area, and over the next few years the labor organization recruited heavily from immigrant laborers in the region. The AFL and IWW would continue to compete to recruit workers for the next several years, such as in the Bayonne refinery strikes of 1915–1916, which also involved many Polish immigrants. However, by the 1920s, the IWW had declined significantly in size and power. Unionization amongst Polish immigrants in the northeast continued to increase over the next several years and is highlighted by a number of strikes, such as a 1916 labor dispute with the New York Mills Corporation in New York Mills. Later labor disputes in Herkimer County include the Remington Rand strike of 1936–1937 and several disputes led by dairy farmers in the 1930s.
The city of Little Falls held events to commemorate the centennial of the strike in 2012. Events were also held elsewhere in the Mohawk Valley: in Ilion, home to Remington Rand, a dramatic play based on the strike was performed, and in Utica the Unitarian Universalist church had a Wobbly give a speech about the strike on Labor Day.


The 1916–1917 northern Minnesota lumber strike was a labor strike involving several thousand sawmill workers and lumberjacks in the northern part of the U.S. state of Minnesota, primarily along the Mesabi Range. The lumber workers were organized by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and primarily worked for the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company, whose sawmill plant was located in Virginia, Minnesota. Additional lumberjacks and mill workers from the International Lumber Company were also involved. The strike first began with the Virginia and Rainy Lake mill workers on December 28, 1916, and among the lumberjacks on January 1, 1917. The strike lasted for a little over a month before it was officially called off by the union on February 1, 1917. Though the strike faltered by late January and had resulted in many arrests and the suppression of the IWW's local union in the region, the union claimed a partial victory, as the lumber companies instituted some improvements for the lumberjacks' working conditions.
The roots of this strike stemmed from a previous strike involving miners on the Mesabi Range that ended in a partial victory for the workers. During this strike, the IWW became involved and established a local union in the region called the Metal Mine Workers' Industrial Union No. 490, which was based in Virginia. Following the end of the miners' strike, Local 490 began to organize lumber workers in the region. At the time, the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company operated the world's largest white pine sawmill plant in Virginia, which employed about 1,200 workers, and they had roughly 2,000 lumberjacks on their payroll at any given time. Through late 1916, Local 490 continued to organize these workers, working alongside the Agricultural Workers Organization No. 400, a subgroup of the IWW that had been trying to organize lumberjacks in the region for the past year. By December 1916, more militant individuals within the union were calling for a strike against the company, though IWW higherups such as General Secretary-Treasurer Bill Haywood were wary of this, thinking that there had not been enough time to adequately plan and organize a successful strike. Nonetheless, on December 24, 1916, about 700 workers met to create a list of demands for both the mill workers and the lumberjacks that included reduced working hours, higher pay, better working conditions, and changes to scheduling. On the morning of December 28, with the company refusing to institute these changes, up to 1,000 workers, representing a majority of the mill's 1,200-person workforce, went on strike and began picketing outside the plant. At the same time, messengers were sent to the logging camps throughout the area to convince the lumberjacks to strike, and over 2,000 did so between January 1 and 2.
In its first few days, the strike was successful in partially shutting down Virginia and Rainy Lake's plant and several logging camps in the region, while a sawmill owned by the International Lumber Company in International Falls was also affected by a walkout. However, early on, lumber management began to work with local law enforcement agencies and public officials to break the strike. Strikebreakers were brought in from other areas of the state, while police arrested dozens of strikers and IWW leaders on questionable charges. Additionally, many local municipalities began to enact laws that outright banned the IWW from their jurisdictions, with members facing either expulsion or imprisonment. By mid-January, many of the local IWW leaders had been arrested, while striking lumberjacks began to abandon the strike. With the help of deputized sheriffs acting for the companies, many logging camps began to resume operations within a week of the initial lumberjack walkouts, and many mill workers began to return to work due to low strike pay. Finally, on February 1, the remaining leadership of Local 490 met in Duluth and declared the strike over.
The IWW was able to claim a partial victory in the strike, as lumber companies instituted some changes to address the lumberjacks' poor working conditions and low pay. However, the strike had severely damaged Local 490's presence on the Mesabi Range, and while the IWW had planned to launch another organizing drive in the area, U.S. involvement in World War I and the accompanying suppression of the IWW by state and federal governments hurt these plans. In 1917, Minnesota enacted a criminal syndicalism law aimed in part at the IWW, and in September of that year, an IWW individual in Minnesota became the first person in the U.S. to be convicted under such a law. During the 1920s and 1930s, organizing efforts among lumber workers in the area would be taken over by the affiliate unions of the American Federation of Labor and the Committee for Industrial Organization. Discussing the strike in a 1971 article, historian John E. Haynes said, "The resolution of that strike helped redefine the boundaries of permissible political and economic dissent in Minnesota, virtually erased the specter of strong IWW influence on the iron range, and served as a precedent for the state's treatment of dissenters during World War I".


In mid-1916, miners on the Mesabi Range in northern Minnesota launched a spontaneous labor strike. The range, situated about 75 miles (121 km) north of the city of Duluth, was a major iron ore mining region and part of the larger Iron Range. This strike began with a walkout led by Joe Greeni, a Czech immigrant, on June 2, and at its peak it involved several thousand miners, primarily immigrants. The labor dispute lasted for several months, but by September, with strike funds running low, numerous instances of violent confrontations between strikers and law enforcement officials, and many of the strike leaders imprisoned, miners began to return to work, and the strike officially ended on September 17. Despite the strike ending without a labor contract in place between the miners and the mining companies on the range, many of the companies began instituting changes to address the causes of the strike, such as increased pay and an eight-hour workday.


During the strike, union organizers from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) helped to organize the miners. The IWW, whose members are known as Wobblies, had been established in Chicago in 1905 at a meeting of socialists and miners from the Western United States. The organization was a radical anti-capitalist union that advocated for industrial unionism and the concept of the One Big Union. Over the next decade, the union had established a presence in Minnesota, organizing a local union of lumberjacks in Deer River in 1910 and participating in free speech fights in Duluth and Minneapolis in the early 1910s. However, the miners' dispute had caught the union off guard. Despite this, shortly after it began, the IWW established a local union in Virginia, a city of slightly over 10,000 people on the range, and helped the miners to coordinate strike actions and write a list of demands to the mining companies. The local union, Metal Mine Workers' Industrial Union No. 490, was based out of the Finnish Socialist Hall, a meeting hall for socialists among Virginia's community of Finnish immigrants. Many Finns in the area had been involved in the strike and were supportive of socialist ideals and the IWW in particular, and socialist halls such as the one in Virginia existed in many of the towns along the Mesabi Range, serving as centers for community life. During this time, Local 490 established many branches in cities throughout the range. Following the end of the strike, Local 490 remained as the largest IWW organization in northern Minnesota, with about 2,000 of the 10,000 to 15,000 miners who participated in the strike remaining members. The local union was led by secretary-treasurer Charles Jacobson, a long-time native of Virginia who worked as a miner.


With the collapse of the miners' strike, many miners went to work in the area's lumber industry. Many lumber workers in the area also worked in mining during the summer months, and in late 1916, a significant number of lumberjacks had been involved in the miners' strike and were subsequently blacklisted by those companies. During their early years, the IWW had focused on organizing lumber workers primarily in the Western and Southern United States, and they had seen tremendous success in the Pacific Northwest, but they had only minor progress in organizing the industry in Minnesota and the larger Great Lakes region. However, starting in September 1916, Local 490 began to focus on organizing the 1,200 workers of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company. The company was a concern, combining the Weyerhaeuser company's holdings in northern Minnesota, the Edward Hines Lumber Company's holdings in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the Cook and O'Brien Company's processing facilities in Virginia. The Virginia plant was at the time the largest producer of white pine wood in the world, producing an average of 1 million board feet of lumber per day.
Mill workers were receptive to labor organizing due to the long hours and low pay they experienced on the job. At the Virginia plant, the mill workers' schedules included 12-hour days and 7-day weeks, with an average pay of between $2.50 and $3 per day (equivalent to between $72 and $87 in 2024). These workers made on average about 25 percent less than mill workers in the Pacific Northwest, which had already largely been organized by the IWW, and their hourly pay was significantly less than the average Virginia laborer's during this time. In an 84-hour week, the average Virginia and Rainy Lake mill worker made about what an average Virginia laborer earned in 50 to 54 hours of work, and many worked 6 days per week. While there had been several sporadic strikes and attempts at largescale labor organization among mill workers in the Great Lakes region since the late 1800s, such as efforts from the Knights of Labor, the region remained relatively unorganized and with lower pay than in other regions.


As an industrial union—as opposed to a craft union—the IWW sought to organize all workers in the area's lumber industry, which would include both the mill workers and the lumberjacks. Lumberjacks in northern Minnesota worked in poor conditions and during their employment lived in company-owned bunkhouses on logging camps. The typical bunkhouse measured 80 feet (24 m) by 30 feet (9.1 m) in area and housed between 60 and 90 men. Lumberjacks shared beds in these close quarters, which were often lice-infested, and in 1914, investigators for Minnesota's Department of Labor reported that "the conditions under which the men were housed ... made it impossible for men to keep their bodies free from vermin". Additionally, the houses were poorly ventilated and insulated, toilet facilities at the camps were often extremely primitive, and there were no first aid facilities despite the high injury rate among lumberjacks. In 1914, two state investigators stated in a report after visiting a camp, "Both of us regretted that we did not have the authority to order all the men out of the camp and burn the place to the ground". Men worked six- or seven-day weeks at the camps, though their isolation from many nearby towns meant that they often remained at their camps even on their days off, and the typical lumber season lasted between 3 and 6 months. Many earned between $35 and $40 per month (equivalent to between $1,011 and $1,156 in 2024). These camps had an extremely high turnover rate, with the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company employing a total of 22,000 people in lumberjack positions in 1916, but only ever having about 2,000 employed at one time. The average worker left after 74 days, resulting in an entirely new crew about once every month for many camps. Additionally, lumberjacks were often looked down upon by town residents and other members of society, who derogatorily called them "timber beasts". Lumberjacks were drawn to the IWW as a way to improve both their working conditions and stance in society. In many of the towns in northern Minnesota, lumberjacks were welcomed in IWW halls, where they could sleep, socialize, and discuss organizing plans with others.


In 1915, a new branch of the IWW was established: the Agricultural Workers Organization (AWO) No. 400. The AWO focused on organizing workers in the agricultural industry in the Midwestern United States, doing so by sending "job delegates" to work alongside other workers and introduce them covertly organize them. By 1916, due to a series of small-scale but effective strikes and an increase in demand for grain in Europe caused by World War I, the AWO successfully helped workers achieve higher wages, and their membership grew to about 20,000 by year's end. In late 1916, the AWO (which at the time was headquartered along Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis) sent job delegates into the lumber camps in northern Minnesota. The IWW offices in Bemidji served as the AWO's local headquarters for these efforts, while other IWW offices in Duluth, Gemmell, Minneapolis, and Virginia also helped with the drive. The AWO planned for the organizing effort to last through 1917, at which point they felt they would have enough support among the lumberjacks to call for a strike.


Through late 1916, IWW organizers discussed working conditions and organizing with millworkers and began to plan a strike action. One of the most vocal advocates for a strike was Jack "Timber Beast" Beaton, an IWW member and long-time lumberjack from Wisconsin. Beaton was a popular leading member of Local 490 due to his fiery oratory and militant stance on issues regarding strike action. This put him in disagreement with Jacobson and other IWW organizers, who were more cautious about the prospects of a strike. In December 1916, tensions between these two sides were exacerbated after five nationally known IWW organizers who had been arrested during the miners' strike on charges of murder were released as part of a deal that saw several rank and file union members charged with manslaughter. Some of the more militant unionists such as Beaton viewed the deal as a sellout by the IWW, and acting without direct approval from the national union, they began to prepare for a strike.
On December 24, several dozen organized millworkers met with Beaton at the Finnish Socialist Hall and drafted a list of demands to be submitted to the mill operators. The demands included a flat pay increase for all workers of 25 cents per day, eight-hour shifts on Sundays and Saturdays, an end to Sunday night shifts, shift changes every week, and an end to union suppression. The workers then elected a committee of six individuals to present these demands on December 26, with a deadline of noon on December 27. Jacobson was opposed to the idea and telegraphed IWW General Secretary-Treasurer Bill Haywood, who told Jacobson, "a successful strike at the present time in the Virginia mills would be hopeless. Must wait until better organized. Continue with organization work". Despite this, the meeting with mill management went as planned on December 26, and Jacobson reluctantly agreed to officially sanction the possible strike action. The demands were submitted to Chester R. Rogers, the manufacturing superintendent for the company, who rejected them. During their meeting, Beaton also stated that, if their demands were not met, lumberjacks would also go on strike in an act of solidarity, though Rogers dismissed that possibility. Shortly after the meeting, Rogers hired a large number of guards for the mill and requested St. Louis County Sheriff John R. Meining to deputize them, which he did. Additionally, Sheriff Meining deputized Rogers and placed him in charge of the guards.
As December 27 passed with no official response from the company by noon, the workers began to prepare for the strike. That night, Beaton oversaw a meeting of about 700 workers at the Finnish Socialist Hall, where a strike resolution was passed. At the same time, Beaton and Jacobson organized a "flying squad" of about a dozen men to go to the logging camps throughout the area to spread the word of the strike to the AWO job delegates and convince the lumberjacks to stop working as well. The IWW organizers had worked with individuals who were familiar with the conditions on the logging camps and had created a list of demands for the lumberjacks as well, which included no discrimination against union members, a 9-hour workday, a $10 per month pay increase (equivalent to $290 in 2024), a minimum wage of $40 per month (equivalent to $1,200 in 2024), negotiable salaries, better food, and improved sleeping, toilet, and cleaning facilities. Three lumberjacks from each camp were to submit these demands to the camp foreman. The demands from both the mill workers and the lumberjacks stipulated that both groups would remain on strike until both sets of demands were satisfied.


On the morning of December 28, several hundred strikers began to picket outside the main gates to the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company plant in Virginia. The total number of workers on strike constituted a majority of the 1,200 workers and may have been as high as 1,000. As a result, one of the plant's two sawmills closed, while the other continued to operate only on a sporadic and reduced basis. That same day, men from the flying squad left Virginia en route to International Falls to attempt to recruit the lumberjacks, with many of the camps lying between these two cities along the logging railroads. Meanwhile, another group was sent from Bemidji to International Falls to recruit lumberjacks in the camps operated by the International Lumber Company. At the same time, Beaton left Virginia to go to Wisconsin, a state where he had previously done some work with labor organizing, where he hoped to recruit more lumberjacks to go on strike and possibly lead to a general strike of the lumber industry in the region.
The flying squads urged the lumberjacks to begin their strikes with a walkout on January 1, 1917. As the AWO organizers began to generate support for the strike, camp foremen notified company officials, who in turn notified sheriffs and requested deputies, though they were unable to send men before January 1. After several days of rallying support for the strike, on January 1, about 1,000 lumberjacks left their camps, with about 1,000 more joining the strike the following day and more throughout the rest of the week. Of the lumberjacks, over 1,000 came from 6 camps operated by the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company, while another 1,000 came from 9 camps operated by International Lumber. Exact figures regarding the total number of lumberjacks involved in the strike are difficult to substantiate, though the IWW reported at the time that about 4,000 were involved. The men boarded trains along the logging railroads and traveled to nearby towns, such as Bemidji, Gemmell, International Falls, and Virginia. Most of the affected camps were located in St. Louis and Koochiching Counties. In addition to the roughly 1,000 Virginia millworkers and 2,000 lumberjacks mentioned above, several smaller mills and independent logging operations, such as the Backus-Brooks Company, were affected by the strike, and International Lumber's sawmill in International Falls was hit by a partial walkout of millworkers. Both Virginia and Rainy Lake and International Lumber were forced to cease logging operations during the early days of the strike, and while the overall lumber industry in northern Minnesota was hard-hit, the industry in central Minnesota was relatively untroubled by the strike. Local newspapers were highly critical of the strike and the IWW in particular, with the Daily Virginian calling the Wobblies' actions a "reign of terrorism" and the Minneapolis Tribune reporting on alleged criminal acts committed by the Wobblies, such as well poisoning and crippling horses.


During the early part of the strike, Rogers contacted other mills in the area and was able to gather enough replacement workers to keep one of his sawmills in operation for the duration of the strike. While the Virginia and Rainy Lake plant was located within Virginia city limits and therefore outside the jurisdiction of Rogers's deputies, the Virginia police department cooperated with Rogers and helped disperse large crowds of protesters away from the plant's gates. On the first day of the strike, picketing was pushed back to an area three city blocks away from the plant, and police arrested six picketers for distributing flyers. The next day, after police were notified by a court that there was no law against the distribution of flyers, the Virginia city council passed an ordinance banning the distribution of any flyer that had an "unsightly appearance". Over the next several days, police made many more arrests, including of six IWW leaders for disturbing the peace, intimidating strikebreakers, and distributing IWW literature. In one case, two of the men were given a $100 fine (equivalent to $2,500 in 2024) or 60 days of hard labor for disturbing the peace by using the word "scab". On January 1, 53 men were arrested at a camp near Cusson, Minnesota, for allegedly taking over a bunkhouse there, while a group of 40 picketers were arrested in mid-January for distributing flyers outside of the Virginia and Rainy Lake company's employment office in Duluth. Over the course of the strike, hundreds of people were deputized by the sheriffs of St. Louis, Koochiching, Beltrami, Carlton, and Itasca counties to prevent the strike from spreading. In many cases, these deputies were paid $2 per day (equivalent to $49 in 2024) by the sheriff's departments and another $3 per day (equivalent to $74 in 2024) by the lumber companies they were assisting, in addition to receiving room and board. In Koochiching County, public opinion against the lumber companies was so negative that the sheriff had to transport in people from the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area to be deputized, which included two undercover spies from the IWW's Minneapolis office.
In Koochiching County, the sheriff led a raid on the IWW hall in Gemmell, arresting many of the leaders and telling the striking lumberjacks to either return to work or leave the town. While the leaders were released a week later due to a lack of charges against them, the raid had the effect of scattering the strikers and disrupting the strike in the county. Similar arrests of IWW leaders in other parts of the state further damaged the strike, and local municipalities began to pass laws specifically targeting the strikers and banning IWW members. In the mining city of Eveleth, the city government outright banned IWW members from the city, ordering all active members to leave or face arrest. On January 2, Virginia passed a similar law ordering all Wobblies to leave the city by 4 p.m. the next day or face arrest. Faced with the prospect of arrest, many lumberjacks in the city left that day, departing by train to either Duluth or Minneapolis–Saint Paul, with some others leaving Minnesota entirely. Of the remaining IWW members who stayed, many were arrested and given a choice between leaving the city or paying a $100 fine (equivalent to $2,500 in 2024), with many choosing the former. On January 4, Jacobson was arrested, and his successor was also arrested on January 15. The next day, Beaton was arrested in Park Falls, Wisconsin, on a concealed carry charge. At the state level, Minnesota Governor Joseph A. A. Burnquist sided with local law enforcement and the lumber companies by ordering that those arrested on charges of rioting during the strike be charged in Duluth instead of the city in which the offense allegedly took place. While many newspapers continued to write approvingly of the actions taken by law enforcement, the Saint Paul Dispatch was one of the only in the region to criticize the actions against the IWW as unconstitutional.


Within a week of the strike's beginning, several logging camps began to resume operations at a reduced output. Many strikers struggled to subsist off of the small strike pay offered by the IWW, and many began to find work elsewhere as the labor dispute continued. By the last week of January, many mill workers had returned to their jobs, and while lumberjacks held out longer, logging operations returned to prestrike levels by the beginning of February. On February 1, what was left of the IWW leadership in northern Minnesota met in Duluth and officially announced an end to the strike.


Discussing the strike in a 1950 journal article, historian George B. Engberg calls it "one of the most serious strikes that the lumber industry of northern Minnesota has ever experienced". While the strike was primarily a failure for the IWW, Local 490 was able to claim a partial victory based on improved conditions for lumberjacks on logging camps. International Lumber bought new blankets for the bunkhouses and raised the base pay for lumberjacks slightly, while Virginia and Rainy Lake spent 20 percent more on food for the lumberjacks in the year following the strike. While the lumberjacks demanded a $40 per month minimum wage (equivalent to $980 in 2024), the companies instead instituted a $45 minimum monthly wage (equivalent to $1,100 in 2024). However, the IWW's presence on the Mesabi Range was all but destroyed by the strike as Local 490's operations were suppressed by law enforcement. Starting in January 1917, the Minnesota Legislature began to hold hearings regarding IWW activities in the state, inviting many mining and lumber industrialists, labor activists, and IWW leaders such as Joseph James Ettor to give testimony. According to academic Ahmed White in a 2022 book, these hearings showed that the IWW had not been engaged in violent activities in the time preceding the strike actions and exposed corruption and use of violence by the lumber and mining companies and local public officials. The report on the hearings also highlighted the poor working conditions experienced by the miners and lumberjacks, but offered little in the way of addressing these issues.
While the IWW had plans to launch another organizing drive among the mining and lumber industry in the area, the U.S. involvement in World War I soured these plans. In March 1917, a criminal syndicalism bill was proposed by a Minnesota senator from International Falls, and after passing both the Senate and House of Representatives with only one vote against in both chambers (both cast by Socialists), the bill was signed into law by Governor Burnquist in April. Minnesota was among a number of U.S. states and territories to pass criminal syndicalism laws that primarily targeted the IWW around this time, and in September 1917, Jesse Dunning, a former secretary of the IWW local office in Bemidji, became the first person in the United States to be convicted under such a law. That same month, agents from the United States Department of Justice launched several raids on IWW offices, including those in Duluth, Minneapolis, and other cities in the Mesabi Range, to gather evidence for use against the organization. Despite this, the IWW maintained a presence in the area into 1920, but by that time, their power had all but been broken. Additionally, during World War I, the Minnesota Public Safety Commission, a government commission established in 1917 with broad powers to ensure public safety during the war, had infiltrated the organization and succeeded in damaging it from the inside. Law enforcement agencies in the state later used similar techniques that they had applied to the IWW to target war dissenters and pacifists, as well as other left-leaning groups such as the Nonpartisan League. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, organized labor activities in northern Minnesota was primarily driven by the affiliated unions of the American Federation of Labor and the Committee for Industrial Organization. Discussing the impact of the strike in a 1971 article, historian John E. Haynes wrote that, "The resolution of that strike helped redefine the boundaries of permissible political and economic dissent in Minnesota, virtually erased the specter of strong IWW influence on the iron range, and served as a precedent for the state's treatment of dissenters during World War I".


A commemorative crown coin of the New Zealand pound was produced for a planned visit by King George VI in 1949. Having first visited the country in 1927 in his duties as the Duke of York, proposals for a visit by the monarch to New Zealand in 1940 were postponed by the outbreak of World War II. A 1949 tour by the king and queen to Australia and New Zealand was announced in early 1948, the first visit of a reigning monarch to the dominion.
A Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand proposal to issue a commemorative coin into circulation was supported by Minister of Finance Walter Nash. Sketches by New Zealand artist James Berry were modelled by Royal Mint designer Percy Metcalfe, and the coin entered production in late 1948. Citing declining health, the king indefinitely postponed the tour in November 1948, sparking fears by the Royal Numismatic Society that the coins may be melted down. The New Zealand government responded positively to calls to continue with the issue of the coinage. Made available at face value at local banks throughout New Zealand in November, the coins were additionally distributed to collectors overseas via consulates-general in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.


In the decades following the introduction of a domestic pound coinage in favour of the previous British pound sterling coinage, New Zealand produced several commemorative coins. In 1935, the Waitangi crown, of a previously nonexistent five-shilling denomination, was produced in extremely limited numbers and sold to collectors, without entering circulation. With the Waitangi crown's release largely regarded as a failure, the 1940 Centennial half-crown was produced in far larger quantities and entered circulation at face value. Due to considerable demand from collectors, the coin quickly fell out of circulation.


Albert, Duke of York, visited New Zealand in a 1927 royal tour, the fifth visit of a British prince to New Zealand. Following his ascension as George VI, another visit to New Zealand (corresponding to the New Zealand centennial celebrations of 1940) was considered, but disrupted due to the outbreak of World War II. A visit by George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Australia and New Zealand the following year was announced in March 1948, planned as the first visit of a sitting monarch to the dominion. A travel itinerary formed over the following days, with the King and Queen planned to sail to New Zealand in late February after sailing across the Pacific, before departing to Australia 16 days later.


In April 1948, the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand moved to suggest the creation of a commemorative crown coin in preparation for the royal visit. Following Australian consideration of a commemorative coin in a four-shilling denomination, Minister of Finance Walter Nash moved in May to support the Royal Numismatic Society's proposal of a circulating commemorative coin.
Following delays due to design conflicts, an obverse design was agreed upon by October 1948, and the coins entered production at the Royal Mint. New Zealand stamp designer James Berry, who had previously submitted unsuccessful designs for the Waitangi crown and the 1940 coinage series, designed a reverse featuring a silver fern (an endemic plant symbolic of New Zealand) surrounded by the four stars of the Southern Cross. Sketches of Berry's design were sent to Royal Mint designer Percy Metcalfe to be modelled. The obverse of the coin, like other New Zealand coinage of the period, shows an uncrowned bust of George VI designed by Humphrey Paget. Struck in .500 fineness, the 1949 crown was the sole circulating silver coin in New Zealand following the abandonment of silver coinage in favour of cupronickel in 1947.


In November 1948, the king indefinitely postponed the planned royal visit to New Zealand and Australia, citing poor health. Due to the possibility of the issue being melted down, the Royal Numismatic Society issued a statement urging the continued distribution of the commemorative coinage despite the cancellation, citing the lack of any iconography specific to the royal visit on the coinage, alongside precedent for periodic circulating crown issues in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Nash responded in early December that no plans were in place to melt the coinage.


By late February 1949, originally planned as the date for the royal tour, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand communicated to the Royal Numismatic Society plans to collaborate with other trading banks in distributing the coins later in that year. By early November the majority of the issue had arrived in New Zealand, and the coins were made available to the public for face value at local banks on 17 November. Smaller amounts were made available to overseas collectors at New Zealand trade commissions and consulates-general at various cities in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In Dunedin, large queues formed outside banks in anticipation for the coins on 17 November. The Royal Numismatic Society provided one coin to all members, available at face value plus the cost of postage. A total of 200,020 crowns were produced in 1949, alongside an estimated three proofs. Two of the proof coins, certified by PCGS, reportedly sold in excess of US$15,000 at auction.


The 1957 Farsinaj earthquake struck Hamadan province, Iran on 13 December at 05:15. The moment magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck at a depth of 15 km (9.3 mi). The epicenter of the earthquake was located in the seismically active Zagros Mountains. The mountain range was also the location for several historic earthquakes. The earthquake occurred near two segments of the active strike-slip Main Recent Fault. At least 1,130 people died, including over 700 in the village of Farsinaj. Additional deaths also occurred in Dehasiyab, Sarab, and other villages. The earthquake left an estimated 15,000 homeless; poor weather conditions including a winter storm on 21 December killed another 20 people. Several deadly and damaging aftershocks in that month killed a total of 38 people.


The Zagros Mountains extends for more than 1,500 km (930 mi); from Turkey to the Gulf of Oman, and through Iran and Iraq. It was formed by continental collision involving the Arabian plate and Central Iran. Its formation occurred during the late-Triassic, late-Jurassic, late-Cretaceous, Oligocene and Pliocene. During its early formation, some extensional tectonics may have occurred. The mountain range is still accommodating deformation, evident from present-day seismicity. Deformation is accommodated by thrust and strike-slip faulting within the range. Parallel to major thrust faults of the mountains is the Main Recent Fault, an active right-lateral strike-slip fault. Convergence between the Arabian plate and Iran occurs obliquely along the Zagros Mountains, and approximately 30–50 percent of the ~25 cm (9.8 in) per year convergence between the two plates is accommodated along the range.
The Zagros Mountains is seismically active while in the Iranian plateau; to the northeast, seismicity is nearly absent. The Main Recent Fault delineates the northeastern boundary of the Zagros Mountains, forming between 3 and 5 million years ago. It runs parallel to the Main Zagros Reverse Fault, a suture zone separating the Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone from the fold and thrust belt. The fault comprises several segments with lengths of more than 100 km (62 mi). Southwest of the Main Recent Fault lies the continental margin of Arabia while the rocks to the northeast are of metamorphic and volcanic origin. Its southeastern segments ends in a zone of north–northwest trending strike-slip faults. The strike-slip component of this oblique convergence is accommodated along the Main Recent Fault. The southeastern segments are more seismically active in contrast to the northwestern segments.


Three historical earthquakes were documented near the Main Recent Fault. Two earthquakes in May 912 and April 1008 occurred near the former settlement of Dinavar while a third occurred to the southeast of Dorud before 1889. The first two earthquakes brought heavy damage and casualties in Dinawar. During an earthquake in 912, a "mountain split open" and water ejected from the fissure, sinking many settlements. Ground cracks, possibly associated with tectonic origins, were documented during a 1008 earthquake. The Main Recent Fault was also the source of a Ms  7.4 earthquake in 1909 that produced over 40 km (25 mi) of surface rupture. Seismicity along the Main Recent Fault was nearly absent since 1909. In December 1955, an earthquake near Razan caused rockfalls and three deaths.


The earthquake occurred at 05:15 on 13 December with a magnitude of 6.5. One foreshock was felt 26 hours before the mainshock and 32 aftershocks occurred within a month later. Its epicenters were instrumentally recorded and located, revealing a northeast—southwest trend intersecting the Main Recent Fault. The earthquake caused ground deformation such as rockfalls and fractures. There were six reports of northeast-trending ground fractures, and some extended for several kilometers. Some of these fractures were caused by landslides and rockfalls. Villagers reported a vertical rupture located along the Main Recent Fault resulting in the northeastern side subsiding by 1 m (3 ft 3 in).
The meizoseismal area had a generally northwest–southeast trend along the Main Recent Fault. The heaviest damage extended northeast of the fault, in an area where aftershocks were also distributed. The degree of damage decreased sharply towards the southwest of the trend. Most villages southwest of the fault were situated on bedrock and sustained minimal to no damage. Northeast of the fault, devastation extended up to 55 km (34 mi) away, impacting villages such as Farsinaj and Gerareh. Along this section of the Main Recent Fault, called the Sahneh and Dinevar segments, the structure dips towards the northeast. Greater damage to the northeast with respect to the meizoseismal trend may indicate the earthquake ruptured along faults buried beneath the region at greater depth.


At least 1,130 people died, 900 were injured, and 15,000 became homeless. Twenty thousand animals also died, and 211 villages were destroyed. Twenty additional deaths and more livestock were lost due to the cold weather including a winter storm on 21 December. Serious damage was distributed over a 2,800 km2 (1,100 sq mi) area while the shock was felt for 180,000 km2 (69,000 sq mi). The mainshock and its aftershocks heavily damaged 5,000 of the 9,000 homes in the area. Most of these homes were characterised by their single-storey adobe or masonry materials held together by mud. These homes also had heavy roofs made from tampered earth. Government properties in the area were double-storey adobe and single-storey brick construction with jack arches or iron sheets as the roofing.
In the epicenter area, the seismic intensity was assigned VII (Very strong) on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale. The area of maximum damage was between Kangavar and Farsinaj, and the most affected areas were north of Sahneh. The severity of damage became inconsistent and rapidly fell to the south. At Farsinaj, 702 people, or about half the population, perished, and only 30 homes were left intact. The village was reconstructed 1 km (0.62 mi) away from the ruins. At Dehasiyab, 34 people died and 23 were injured—the village was razed and reconstructed several hundred meters away. Six people died, 20 were injured and two-thirds of homes in Sollantaher were destroyed. The entire village of Kalbikhani was levelled and 22 died. At Sarab, 53 residents died, whereas at Sahneh, Gakul and Bisitun, damage was moderate. In Sarab Bidsorkh, 46 residents of the nearly-razed town perished. Sixty-three people died in the ruins of Cheqa-Bala and Cheqa-Pay, while at Khariz, 11 people died. No serious damage or high fatalities occurred within a 15 km (9.3 mi) radius around Farsinaj, and at Sonqor, only cracks appeared in some buildings. Two people died, some adobe homes, and old shops at a marketplace were damaged in Kangavar.


Aftershocks on 13 and 18 December near Kangavar and Firuzabad on 28 December caused further damage. An aftershock on 14 December in Kangavar caused over 20 deaths, 50 injuries and devastated 15 villages. Another aftershock on the same day at Najafabad and Gurveh killed one, injured four, and destroyed more buildings. Three villages including Sarab sustained major damage during a 16 December aftershock. Fourteen people died in an aftershock on 18 December at Fash. On 31 December, another aftershock killed three at Kangavar and ruined some homes that had been restored following previous shocks. On 16 August 1958, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck the same area affected by the mainshock. This earthquake was the largest since the 1957 Farsinaj earthquake, and killed over 130 people.


The Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick held a leadership election on June 14, 1969, in Saint John, New Brunswick, to elect a new leader for the party. The position had been vacant since former leader Charles Van Horne's resignation in early 1968; Van Horne previously vowed to do so in the likelihood of his defeat in the 1967 provincial election, which he lost to the Liberal Party led by Louis Robichaud.
The front-running candidates for the leadership election were Richard Hatfield, a legislative member for Carleton who had been serving as house leader ever since Van Horne's resignation, as well as Van Horne himself, who decided to run for leadership again. Of three other candidates, only Mathilda Blanchard opted not to withdraw. Hatfield won the leadership election with 799 votes, or 58.5 percent of the votes cast. After securing leadership for the party, Hatfield went on to defeat Robichaud in the 1970 provincial election and further led the party through three re-elections, becoming the longest-served premier in the province. His leadership collapsed after a string of controversies led to his party losing every seat in his 1987 provincial re-election, leading to his immediate resignation. The next leadership election was not held until 1989, two decades after this one.

1969 Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick leadership election


On February 8, 1968, then-Progressive Conservative leader Charles Van Horne announced his resignation through a letter sent to president George E. McInerney. Having been confident that he would win the 1967 provincial election, Van Horne had previously vowed to resign his leadership in the likelihood of his defeat; he was not only defeated in the election by Liberal leader Louis Robichaud but also in his home electoral district of Restigouche. Up until his resignation, it had been previously decided on November 9, 1967, that he would remain as leader, even though he would not have a seat in the legislature — rumors hinting towards the potential resignation of Lewis C. Ayles of Campbellton to allow for Van Horne to have a seat were shut down. Through his resignation letter, Van Horne reiterated his intentions to resign upon the party's defeat.
On the same day as Van Horne's resignation, five ballots were cast among the caucus to elect one of their own as a house leader. Richard Hatfield, a 37-year-old Carleton legislative member who had been defeated by Van Horne during the previous leadership convention, was elected. According to a Financial Post report from later that month, it had been under the impression that a leadership convention would be called that spring.


On September 9, 1968, a seat was made vacant in Van Horne's home riding of Restigouche following the death of then-Youth Minister Joffre Daigle; nine days later, Robichaud announced a by-election for November 4 to fill the vacancy. The following month, Van Horne returned to the province and announced his candidacy on October 17. As speculation was being made earlier that month on the likelihood of Van Horne making a political return, Hatfield opposed the idea of Van Horne joining the by-election, viewing it as being "a distraction" to party progress. On the other hand, Tory president McInerney supported it; he expressed having "the greatest respect for Mr. Van Horne". Van Horne ultimately won the by-election on November 4, defeating single opponent and Liberal candidate O. R. M. Brimsacle by 186 votes. An editorial published by The Gazette on November 6 stated that Van Horne's victory "might do more to aid the Liberal Government there, than if the Liberal candidate had won".
A scheduled party meeting in Fredericton for November 23 emerged along with the topic of a new potential leadership election. Van Horne was also speculated to be a candidate for it, though the meeting concluded with no definite plan to call for a leadership convention yet. It was highlighted that Hatfield and Van Horne were both fighting for leadership around this time; Van Horne was reportedly showing interest in being leader again, though many Conservatives also showed disinterest towards the idea.


In early April 1969, the Progressive Conservative party called for a leadership convention to be held at Saint John on June 14. Although his candidacy was not specifically announced, Hatfield made it clear that he would seek candidacy. It was also expected that Van Horne would emerge as a contender. Another speculated candidate at the time was also Paul Creaghan, a lawyer from Moncton. Although it had already been well-established that caucus members preferred Hatfield, it was also clear that this did not indicate his victory, given that this also happened during the last leadership election which Van Horne carried by a three-to-one margin.
Ian R. Ferguson, a 21-year-old University of New Brunswick (UNB) student from Grand Falls who served as the editor-in-chief of UNB's student newspaper The Brunswickan, was the first to declare candidacy for the leadership election on April 15; the reasons he gave for running were because of the "lack in representation of [his] age group in provincial affairs, the lack of government communication with the people of New Brunswick, and specifically because of the sad state of higher education in the province in general". Ferguson, however, never ultimately ended up becoming a candidate at the convention, as evidenced by his name having not appeared in the election results. It was also reported at this point that Van Horne was considering seeking candidacy.
Hatfield officially declared his candidacy for leadership on April 24. Van Horne—who was in Phoenix, Arizona, at the time—was still undecided though also gave a "soon" deadline for his decision. During a news conference, Hatfield proposed "a new approach to leadership and policies to meet our province's needs". Additionally, J. Roger Pichette, Alfred Landry, Creaghan and William Cockburn were all speculated by the Montreal Star as being "potential candidates", though they ultimately likely decided against running. In early May, Van Horne unexpectedly decided against running, adding that "my position regarding the leadership remains unchanged". Up until this point, Van Horne was anticipated as the primary contender against Hatfield. As early as almost a week later, however, Van Horne hinted towards changing his mind.
On May 16, Van Horne changed his mind and officially announced his candidacy for leadership, stating that he was urged from all ridings "that [he] should be a candidate for leader". The upcoming convention, which was to have 1,600 Tory delegates in attendance, was described by James Ferrabee of The Gazette as a "re-run of 1966" though now, as described by Ferrabee, with more credibility towards Hatfield. Ferrabee described Hatfield as being "quiet-spoken and low-key" in contrast to the "flamboyant and loud" Van Horne. Ferrabee further wrote that the 1966 delegates had been "persuaded that Van Horne was the only man who could beat Louis Robichaud in an election which they knew then wasn't far off", though Van Horne, on the other hand—being from the northern and majority Francophone part of the province—had the advantage of potentially having the stronger vote from Acadian delegates due to being a much stronger French speaker than the Anglophone-originating Hatfield.
Mathilda Blanchard, a labour leader from Caraquet who served as the provincial fish handlers' union president, also announced her candidacy for leadership on May 26, stating that "I think there are so many things unsaid and undone", though her candidacy was not generally taken seriously and was considered as being one that "really doesn't count". Other considered candidates at this point included Joseph MacDougall, who shortly afterwards lost his bid to retain his position of Mayor of Saint John; Leonard C. Jones, the Mayor of Moncton; the earlier-considered Creaghan, who reportedly "considered entering the race"; and Jean-Maurice Simard.
In the days leading up to the convention, Hatfield was considered as being the victor. Van Horne stated that the Liberal victory in 1967 was "by the skin of their teeth", adding that "he has the best chance to lead the party to victory in the next provincial election". On June 10, a legal petition for bankruptcy was filed against Van Horne; it was related to a consent decree from December 1968 in which Van Horne was ordered to pay $17,586. Those who filed the action alleged that Van Horne was bankrupt because he had not paid the debt, despite a writ being issued to do so on December 20, 1968. No assets in his name which could've been used to seize and satisfy the debt were able to be found by the sheriff of Restigouche County, who returned the writ marked "nulla bona". Van Horne was described as being a free spender who substantially indebted the party during his 1967 provincial campaign; the upcoming convention was blacklisted by the American Federation of Musicians from allowing for work to be serviced by its members, as the party hadn't paid a $12,500 bill signed by Van Horne for Don Messer and His Islanders to perform at the time. Hatfield was also described by opponents, per The Toronto Star, as a "wealthy businessman" who "can't speak for the majority of New Brunswick's people". Van Horne would additionally attack Hatfield, labelling him as a "mama's boy".
Hatfield and Van Horne filed for nomination on June 11, 1969. That same day, William T. Walker, who had just lost his over decade-long mayoral position in Fredericton earlier that week, declared that he was "definitely in the running", adding that he had "a good chance" of winning in the first ballot. Jones, who had been earlier considered as being a candidate, announced having "very serious consideration" for a candidacy run based on "personal matters", though he later chose not to run. The next day, Blanchard, Walker, and MacDougall filed for nomination in the final hour before the deadline.


The leadership election for the party took place on June 14, 1969. It was held in Saint John for 1,600 Tory delegates to vote between Hatfield or Van Horne, both considered front-runners, or Blanchard. Robert Stanfield, then-leader of the national Progressive Conservative party, served as the convention's keynote speaker. The day prior, Van Horne attacked Hatfield for "lacking frankness and guts" while also saying that "people resent leadership that is devious and uncourageous". Hatfield's response made no mention of Van Horne, saying that he was "running for the party, not against anyone".
The result of the election was publicized on June 16; Hatfield secured an overall majority during the first ballot with 799 votes, or 58.5 percent of the vote, to Van Horne's 554 votes, which amounted to 40.5 percent of the votes cast. Blanchard, the only other candidate, received 13 votes, or about one percent of the votes cast. Walker and McDougall, the two other registered candidates, each withdrew after offering a speech before the casting of votes.


Hatfield, as the newly elected party leader, went on to defeat Robichaud in the 1970 provincial election. That same year, he appointed Van Horne as the Minister of Tourism following pressure accumulated as a result of Van Horne's popularity. Hatfield continued to lead the Progressive Conservatives through three victorious re-elections, ultimately having the longest term served by a premier in the province. His 17-year leadership started going downhill when, on September 25, 1984, he was found in possession of marijuana during a security check that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police conducted before a flight from Fredericton to Moncton during a royal visit by Queen Elizabeth II. This incident and the ensuing scandals led to a number of other Tories turning against him, with the party going on to lose all 58 legislative seats in his 1987 provincial re-election to the Frank McKenna–led Liberal Party. Hatfield and his party's defeat marked one of the worst in Canadian history; the only other time a majority-led party lost all of its seats in Canada was in Prince Edward Island during its 1935 election. The loss led to Hatfield's immediate resignation. The next leadership convention, held in 1989, saw Barbara Baird Filliter emerge as the first woman to become leader of a Conservative party in Canada.
Another leadership convention for a provincial political party would not be held in Saint John for nearly three decades, after which it held the 1998 New Brunswick Liberal Association leadership election.


On July 31, 1976, heavy rainfall caused the Big Thompson River in Colorado to flood, causing at least 144 deaths, more than 250 injuries, and at least 5 others to be missing. The flood was caused by a stalled thunderstorm complex that produced rainfall totals of 12–14 inches (300–360 mm) near Estes Park, Colorado, including 7.5 inches (190 mm) of rain that fell in one hour. Cresting at 30 feet (9.1 m), the flood caused widespread damage along the river totaling almost $40 million ($150 million in 2016 USD). It is considered one of the deadliest floods in the state's history.


The Big Thompson River is a tributary of the South Platte River, approximately 78 miles (126 km) long, in the U.S. state of Colorado. Originating in Forest Canyon in Rocky Mountain National Park, the river flows into Lake Estes in the town of Estes Park, and then through Big Thompson Canyon.
Before the flood, 600 people lived in Big Thompson Canyon. In addition, between 2,500 and 3,500 people were there on July 31 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Colorado's statehood on August 1.


On July 31, a thunderstorm complex developed alongside the Front Range of the southern Rocky Mountains near Estes Park. The development was caused by a number of meteorological factors, including a shortwave trough, a polar front that moved across southeastern Colorado with the main polar airmass northeast of the Front Range, and moisture and unstable air behind a cold front extending across the Big Thompson River valley. Upper-atmospheric light winds caused the thunderstorm complex to remain stationary, which produced heavy rainfall across portions of the Big Thompson Canyon, including up to 7.5 inches (190 mm) of rain falling in one hour. Over four hours near Estes Park, 12–14 inches (300–360 mm) of rain fell, causing the Big Thompson River to overflow its banks and triggering a flood surge that moved along the river and into Big Thompson Canyon. The flood moved at an average speed of 15 miles per hour (24 km/h), and crested at 30 feet (9.1 m). A flash flood warning was issued at 23:00 CDT, but the timing of this was criticized because it was issued several hours after the floods began.


A portion of U.S. Route 34 was washed out by floodwaters, sustaining significant damage as visibility on the highway dropped to zero miles. The flood impacted most of Cedar Cove, Drake, and Midway, and causing extensive damage to buildings in Glen Haven. The floods caused more than $40 million in damage in 1976 USD, equivalent to nearly $150 million in 2016 USD, including 418 homes, more than 400 vehicles, and 152 businesses being destroyed, along with a further 138 buildings damaged. The flood swept people as far east as Interstate 25 and areas 25 miles (40 km) away. Mudslides caused by heavy rainfall also closed Poudre Canyon. It is considered one of the deadliest floods in the history of Colorado, causing at least 144 deaths and 250 injuries, along with at least 5 missing.
On August 1, over 800 people were evacuated from flood-impacted areas via helicopter, and were taken to a high school in Loveland, Colorado that was established as a rescue center by the American Red Cross. U.S. Route 34 was reopened 86 days after it was closed after portions of the highway were washed out. United States President Gerald Ford designated Larimer County, Colorado a disaster area. For 25 years after the flood, until 2001, a ceremony was held annually to remember the disaster. It was held at a memorial constructed off U.S. Route 34, several miles from Drake, containing a list of people killed during the flood; this memorial was constructed in 1978, two years after the tragedy.


The Colorado country music singer Chuck Pyle wrote a song titled "Here Comes the Water" celebrating the actions of Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Willis Hugh Purdy, who raced the flood down the canyon warning residents. On October 2, 2016, an episode of Colorado Experience premiered on PBS regarding the disaster.


The 1978 Avon International Marathon was the first edition of the Avon International Marathon, and took place on March 19, 1978, in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. It was a women-only marathon which had been put on to showcase female talent over the distance (26 miles 385 yards (42.195 km)), which at the time did not feature for women at the Olympic Games. The race was sponsored by Avon Products, who had covered the traveling expenses for some of the world's best female marathon runners to take part. The race was won by Marty Cooksey of the United States, a relative unknown, in a time of 2:46:16.


Although the men's marathon had featured at the Olympic Games since its modern inception in 1896, the women's marathon was not an established event at an international level in the 1970s. Some experts claimed that running the marathon distance, 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 km), was dangerous for women's health. Women began unofficially running in the Boston Marathon in the late 1960s, and one of the pioneers of the sport was Kathrine Switzer, who ran Boston in 1967. She spent the subsequent years campaigning for the recognition of the women's marathon. In 1972, Boston officially allowed women to participate, and two years later the United States held a women's national marathon championship for the first time. As it gained prominence through the early 1970s, there were calls for it to be added to the Olympics, but there remained significant opposition, and the longest distance included for women at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal was 1,500 meters.
Switzer established the Avon International Marathon in 1978, a women only marathon, aiming to both create a pseudo women's marathon world championship, and highlight the growth in women's marathon running. The event was sponsored by Avon Products, and licensed by the Atlanta Track Club.

Inception of the Avon International Marathon


The race took place in the northern suburbs of Atlanta on a two-lap course which started from the Avon Products building on Cotillion Drive, Chamblee. The route, which was described as hilly and not conducive to record setting, headed north up North Peachtree Road and Tilly Milly Road to Mount Vernon Place before turning west along Mount Vernon Road, reaching Perimeter Center. The course then weaved south and north, along Peachtree–Dunwood Road, Ashford–Dunwood Road and Chamblee–Dunwoody road before returning to the start and finish area.


Switzer had initially hoped for a field of around 500 runners, but it eventually attracted around 200 entrants. In order to ensure a high-quality field Avon, the race sponsor, covered the traveling expenses of the top twenty female marathon runners from around the world. The world record prior to the race was 2:34:47, held by Christa Vahlensieck of West Germany, who it had been hoped would take part, but she was committed to take part in the 1978 IAAF World Cross Country Championships. The second-fastest woman, Chantal Langlacé also missed the race, as she had an Achilles tendon injury. Nonetheless, fourteen of the fastest twenty-four female marathon runners took part, four of whom had personal bests quicker than 2 hours 40 minutes – Kim Merritt, Manuela Angenvoorth, Jacqueline Hansen and Miki Gorman.


The race began at 1:00 pm (EST). A field of 186 runners started the race, which took place in warm and dry conditions, around 75 °F (24 °C), possibly peaking to 90 °F (32 °C). A group of five runners broke away near the beginning of the race; Kim Merritt, Leal-Ann Reinhart, Sarolta Monspart, Manuela Angenvoorth and Julie Brown. Merritt was forced to drop out roughly quarter of the way through the race due to an inflamed Achilles tendon. At the halfway stage, Brown, who was described by Sports Illustrated's Kenny Moore as "the most controlled of the leaders", took the lead and opened up a gap from the pack.
After 15 miles (24 km) Marty Cooksey, who had run a more conservative first half, moved into second place, around 200 yards (180 m) behind Brown, with Monspart and Angenvoorth behind her. Cooksey gradually closed the gap to Brown over the next 8 miles (13 km) and passed her around 3 miles (4.8 km) from the end. Cooksey held on to win the race in 2:46:16, a personal best by over seven minutes. Brown collapsed before the end and had to receive medical attention, leaving Monspart and Angenvoorth to battle for second place; the pair finished just over five minutes behind Cooksey, the former taking second place by thirteen seconds. Cooksey was a surprise winner; at the finish line, one of the race officials said "I don't know anything about her."
Roads were not closed for the race, and the traffic was heavy in places. Brown was forced off the road at least once because of the amount of traffic, despite attempts by the police on motorcycles to clear the traffic ahead of the runners. The Atlanta Constitution said that "Cars were bumper-to-bumper for miles around the Dunwoody area." This, along with the hilly nature of the course, was provided as part of the reason that the finishing times did not get close the world record.


The 1986 João Câmara earthquake (Portuguese: Sismo de João Câmara de 1986) struck on 30 November 1986 at 02:19 Brasília Time with a moment magnitude of 5.1 near the town of João Câmara, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The event was felt over a large area of northeastern Brazil, including the cities of Natal and Mossoró. It took place in a more seismically active part of Brazil, where deformation of land at the Brasiliano orogeny between the São Francisco and São Luís cratons formed a series of fault zones in between 1 billion to 538.8 million years ago. The 1986 João Câmara earthquake occurred on one of these fault zones while accompanied by a lengthy series of earthquakes which consisted more than 1,000 recorded events. This mainshock was preceded by a series of foreshocks that began in August and was followed by a series of aftershocks which continued until 1990. Widespread damage to buildings at João Câmara occurred and thousands of people were displaced. The earthquake is widely remembered as one of the most significant events in Brazil's history.


Brazil is geologically dominated by three major sedimentary basins; the Amazon, Paraná and Parnaíba basins. These basins of Paleozoic-Mesozoic age are the drainage systems of the South American continent. The rest of the country consists of metamorphic rocks of the Brazilian Shield, a geologic province which consists of four cratons of Archean to Mesoproterozoic age. These cratons are connected by Neoproterozoic collisions which formed the Brasiliano orogeny. The Brasiliano orogeny can be found on the east and northeastern coast of Brazil. Also in this region can be found some remnant aulacogens and rifts from the South America-Africa breakup period.
In the Brasiliano orogeny can be found a group of provinces and belts which make up the Brasiliano orogeny. The one the João Câmara earthquake is involved with is the Borborema Province, a structurally complex wide exposure of Precambrian rocks that cover an area of roughly 400,000 square kilometres (150,000 sq mi) in northeastern Brazil. The Borborema Province consists of five sub-provinces which are separated by shear zones which vary in scale. Deformation in these shear zones are still continuing, therefore seismicity can take place.


The Mw 5.1 earthquake which occurred near João Câmara, a town with a population of 22,000, was the part of an earthquake swarm which started on 5 August 1986, when a magnitude 3.3 earthquake was strongly felt in the town of João Câmara. This, in the next days was followed by multiple 3.0+ quakes until 11 September, with the largest quake being a MR  4.2. Later, the sequence was reactivated when the largest earthquake of the sequence, the João Câmara mainshock, struck with a magnitude of MR  5.1. This triggered a heavy frequency of aftershocks of 3.0+ quakes throughout December and January until the end of January, with the largest aftershock being a MR  4.4. The amount of aftershocks over the magnitude of 3 continued to decrease in frequency until it ended in the later months of 1988. On 10 March 1989, the sequence got reignited when a Mm 5.0 struck near the first mainshock, causing additional minor damage at João Câmara. Thousands of events with a magnitude of 0+ were recorded, including 15 earthquakes with a magnitude of 4.0+. The fault plane solutions for the mainshock and the other events have a mutual agreement which indicates southwest–northeast directed strike-slip faulting with a slight normal component in a linear manner along the Samambaia Fault.
Before the 1986 earthquake in the region's history, the last seismic activity had occurred in 1952 and 1983 which was also a small sequence of earthquakes. Six years earlier, a mb 5.2 earthquake had also struck nearby, in Ceará; hence why the northeast of Brazil is considered to be the most seismically active region of the country.


Property damage from the 5.1 was widespread mostly near João Câmara; although in the same place minor damage was caused in the August–September 1986 events as well. More than 4,000 homes were destroyed or damaged; 500 of those were rebuilt using a typical design made by the Brazilian Army, which consists of timber panels with concrete infill. Multiple buildings other than homes made of brick or stone suffered extensive amounts of cracks. In some cases including the church of the city suffered collapsing of walls. A seriously damaged hospital and a few schools were completely rebuilt of reinforced concrete. Out of the brick buildings, buildings made of poor quality brick were mostly damaged. Cracks or wall collapses usually happened on buildings with poor mortars or sun-dried bricks with poor quality. Collapses of tiled roofs were also widespread. Newer buildings and buildings made of concrete received little to no damage. More than 10,000 people were displaced as a result of the earthquakes, mostly in fear of landslides.
As a response to the earthquake, four vertical component short period seismometers were deployed in the area in order to locate events in a more easier way and understand the characteristics of the earthquakes. José Sarney, the president of Brazil, as well as several other ministers, visited the area which was hit by the earthquake. Camps were also set-up to shelter displaced residents.


1989 (Taylor's Version) is the fourth re-recorded album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on October 27, 2023, by Republic Records, as part of Swift's re-recording project following the 2019 dispute over the master recordings of her back catalog. The album is a re-recording of Swift's fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). She announced the re-recording at the final Los Angeles show of her sixth concert tour, the Eras Tour, on August 9, 2023.
A 1980s-inspired synth-pop album, 1989 (Taylor's Version) is characterized by upbeat arrangements of synthesizers and percussion. It contains re-recorded versions of the 16 songs from 1989's deluxe edition and five previously unreleased "From the Vault" tracks. Swift, Jack Antonoff, and Christopher Rowe produced the majority of the album; Ryan Tedder, Noel Zancanella, Shellback, and Imogen Heap reprised their production roles. Extended editions of the album additionally feature the re-recorded versions of the One Chance soundtrack song "Sweeter than Fiction" (2013) and the Kendrick Lamar remix of "Bad Blood" (2015).
Music critics praised 1989 (Taylor's Version), with emphasis on the production, Swift's vocals, and the vault tracks. The album topped record charts in Australia, Canada, and European territories including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In the United States, 1989 (Taylor's Version) marked Swift's 13th number-one album on the Billboard 200 and record-extending sixth album to sell over one million first-week copies. Seven of its songs concurrently became top-10 entries on the Billboard Hot 100, with the vault tracks "Is It Over Now?", "Now That We Don't Talk", and "'Slut!'" occupying the top three spots. In 2024, Apple Music placed the album at number 18 on its list of the 100 Best Albums.


Taylor Swift released her fifth studio album, 1989, on October 27, 2014, under Big Machine Records. Inspired by 1980s synth-pop, Swift conceived 1989 to recalibrate her artistry to pop after promoting her first four albums to country radio. The album received generally positive critical reviews and sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood"—reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, 1989 made Swift the first female musician to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year twice—her first win was for Fearless in 2010.
Swift's contract with Big Machine expired in November 2018. She then withdrew from Big Machine and signed a new deal with Republic Records, which secured her the rights to own the masters of any new music she would release. In 2019, American music executive Scooter Braun acquired Big Machine; the ownership of the masters to Swift's first six studio albums, including 1989, was transferred to him. In August 2019, Swift spoke against Braun's purchase and announced that she would re-record her first six studio albums so as to own their masters herself. Swift began the re-recording process in November 2020. Fearless (Taylor's Version), the first of her six re-recorded albums, was released on April 9, 2021, followed by Red (Taylor's Version) on November 12, 2021, and Speak Now (Taylor's Version) on July 7, 2023; all three peaked atop the US Billboard 200 chart.
Swift released re-recordings of some 1989 tracks prior to the re-recorded album; all songs feature the additional "Taylor's Version" moniker in their titles. The re-recording of "Wildest Dreams" was released on September 17, 2021, after the original version went viral on TikTok. Other tracks were used in films and series: "This Love" was released on May 6, 2022, after its snippet featured in the trailer for the series The Summer I Turned Pretty; a snippet of "Bad Blood" appeared in the animated film DC League of Super-Pets, and "Out of the Woods" featured in a trailer for Migration. On August 9, 2023, at the final Los Angeles show at SoFi Stadium as part of Swift's Eras Tour, she performed in five new blue outfits, representing the color that Swift's fans associated 1989 with; during the half-show acoustic set, she announced 1989 (Taylor's Version) as her next re-recorded album, set for release on October 27, 2023, exactly nine years after the original release of 1989.


The standard edition of 1989 (Taylor's Version) comprises 21 tracks: re-recordings of the 13 songs from the standard edition of 1989, as well as the three bonus tracks from the original deluxe edition, and five previously unreleased "From the Vault" songs that were written for the 2014 album but excluded from the final track list. Re-recordings of the "Bad Blood" remix (2015) featuring American rapper Kendrick Lamar and "Sweeter than Fiction" (2013), a song Swift and Jack Antonoff contributed to the soundtrack of One Chance (2013), were included on extended editions of 1989 (Taylor's Version) as bonus tracks.
Most re-recorded tracks were produced by Swift and Christopher Rowe. The remaining were co-produced by their original producers—Antonoff, Ryan Tedder, Noel Zancanella and Imogen Heap. Swedish producer Shellback, who produced multiple songs on 1989 alongside Max Martin, only produced "Wildest Dreams (Taylor's Version)" with Swift and Rowe, while Martin was not involved in the production of the re-recording. All of the vault tracks were written and produced by Swift and Antonoff, except "Say Don't Go", which was co-written by the American songwriter Diane Warren.


1989 (Taylor's Version) is a synth-pop record. Its sound is driven by sinuous melodies, burbling synthesizers, and heavy percussions. According to NME, the album has a 1980s-inspired synth-pop sound, but is "an evolution of Swift's own sound" rather than a "kitschy pastiche" of retro influences. Various critics have opined that the only sonic difference between 1989 and 1989 (Taylor's Version) is Swift's vocals, which have become technically stronger and richer. According to Clash's Alex Berry, the re-recording has a "cleaner" instrumentation. Slant Magazine's Jonathan Keefe identified minor changes: the clicking pen noise on "Blank Space" sounds less like the spring action of a ballpoint pen, the "ah-ah-ah" vocal hook of "New Romantics" is more staccato, the reverb on "Out of the Woods" is more prominent, and the guitar's tone on "Style" is altered.


Various critics opined that the sonics of the five vault songs were pertinent to the 1980s-inspired sound of the original 1989. Their production incorporates reverb and keyboards that AllMusic's Fred Thomas found reminiscent of late-1980s radio. According to The Line of Best Fit's Kelsey Barnes, the vault tracks are of different pop subgenres similar to the 2014 recording. Variety's Chris Willman, meanwhile, felt that some production elements of the vault tracks were influenced by the music of Swift's tenth original studio album, Midnights (2022).
The title of "'Slut!'" refers to the slut-shaming Swift experienced as a public figure; in its lyrics, Swift describes a relationship that she is proud of and does not care how the outside world views. It is a mid-tempo synth-pop song, featuring synthesizers and soft backing vocals. "Say Don't Go" is about hanging on to an unfruitful relationship; it has a pop rock production consisting of isolated vocal patterns and 1980s-inspired drums. The disco song "Now That We Don't Talk" incorporates disco grooves and falsetto vocals in the chorus, and its lyrics see Swift moving on from an ex-lover while making fun of his lifestyle and tastes.
"Suburban Legends" depicts Swift yearning for a hopeful but unfruitful romance. It features an insistent disco groove and an outro of dissipating synthesizers in a production that People's Jeff Nelson described as "driving, sometimes wind chime-y". "Is It Over Now?" chronicles the end of a relationship, with lyrics about mistakes committed by both partners and the mixed feelings that ensued. Musically, the song is an electropop and synth-pop power ballad that features dense reverb, synthesizers, and echoing drum machines.


On September 19, 2023, Swift posted a short visual on social media that depicted the characters "T-S-!-U-L" emerging from a blue vault, which fans and journalists considered to be a teaser for one of the five "From the Vault" tracks. She also partnered with Google Search to launch a feature for solving word puzzles to uncover the album's "From the Vault" track titles. Searching for "Taylor Swift" gave rise to an animated graphic of a blue vault, which, upon being clicked, produced one of 89 puzzles with or without an accompanying hint. The track titles were set to be officially revealed once 33 million puzzles had been solved globally. Although the feature crashed hours after launching, it reached the 33-million mark in less than one day. Four of the five vault track titles were revealed: "Is It Over Now?", "Now That We Don't Talk", "Say Don't Go", and "Suburban Legends". Swift unveiled the back covers of the album, which featured the full track list, confirming "'Slut!'" as the remaining vault track.
Republic Records released 1989 (Taylor's Version) on October 27, 2023, as Swift's fourth re-recorded album. The album was made available for streaming, download, vinyl LP, cassette, and CD. The standard edition contains 21 tracks—16 are re-recorded versions of the tracks on the original album and five are vault tracks. A deluxe edition containing the re-recorded remix of "Bad Blood" featuring Lamar was released onto streaming and digital download platforms hours after the standard album. The album was sold in 14 physical variants, including five vinyl editions (one of which, the Tangerine Edition, being a Target exclusive containing the re-recording of "Sweeter than Fiction"), eight CD editions (each with folded posters or photographs), and a multi-colored cassette. The standard cover is a photograph of Swift in red lipstick with a background of a blue sky and seagulls flying in the distance. Exclaim! listed the album cover as 15th worst of the year, saying that Swift "could afford to hire a professional graphic designer" to design the cover, and that the cover looks like a fan design on Canva. Universal Music released "'Slut!'" to Italian radio on October 27, and Republic Records released "Is It Over Now?" as a single to US contemporary hit radio on October 31.


1989 (Taylor's Version) was met with widespread acclaim from critics. On the review aggregator Metacritic, it received a weighted mean score of 90 out of 100 based on 15 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The review aggregator site AnyDecentMusic? complied 14 reviews and gave the album a 8.1 out of 10.
Most critics appreciated the production for remaining faithful to the original. NME's Hollie Geraghty, The Daily Telegraph's Neil McCormick, and Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of Financial Times regarded 1989 (Taylor's Version) as Swift's best record; the lattermost said that the album showcased "the highly engineered setting of the perfect pop song". Will Hodgkinson of The Times dubbed the album a "pop masterclass", and Ed Power of the i described it as "bright, brash, smart and catchy". Rolling Stone's Angie Martoccio, American Songwriter's Alex Hopper, and Pitchfork's Shaad D'Souza opined that the re-recorded album proved the timeless quality of the original. Mark Sutherland from Rolling Stone UK said 1989 (Taylor's Version) "could well be the greatest pop album of 2023".
Critics were also fond of Swift's vocals. Barnes said they were "more powerful and punchy than ever", and The Guardian's Rachel Aroesti described them as "richer and more mature yet hardly distractingly so". Berry admired how Swift sang with "crystal clear pronunciation and a powerful impact". Keefe and Hopper said her matured vocals made the tracks more impactful and resonant. By contrast, Adam White of The Independent wrote that Swift's improved vocals losing 2014's raw "strain" made the re-recording a "diminished" pop classic. However, White added the album was still "untouchable greatness".
The vault tracks were similarly well received. Aroesti, Martoccio, Power, and Hopper regarded them as worthwhile additions with more depth and a showcase of Swift's songwriting talents. Berry admired the "exquisite" vault tracks that showcased strong writing and production. Paste's Elizabeth Braaten proclaimed that the vault tracks made 1989 (Taylor's Version) Swift's best re-recorded album yet, and Thomas said they consolidated Swift's status as a "timeless songwriter". Keefe was less enthusiastic, saying that the vault tracks were solid but not valuable "as a true thematic and aesthetic extension". D'Souza wrote that they lacked "the wallop and precision of the album proper" but added more depth and context.


On Spotify, 1989 (Taylor's Version) registered the highest single-day streams globally for an album in 2023, with 176 million reported streams. Swift also broke her own record for the most single-day Spotify streams for an artist. The album also broke the records for the most single-day and single-week streams on Amazon Music. Republic Records reported global opening-week sales of over 3.5 million units, making it the third best selling female album in its debut week ever. In terms of pure sales, the album sold 2.8 million copies worldwide in 2023, becoming the year's sixth-best-selling album overall and best-selling album by a solo artist. It was also the best-selling vinyl album of 2023 with 1.4 million copies sold. Its songs occupied the top six of the Billboard Global 200 the same week, making Swift the first artist to achieve this feat.
In the United States, 1989 (Taylor's Version) became Swift's record-extending 11th album to sell 500,000 copies and sixth to sell one million copies in a single week. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 1.653 million units (including 1.359 million pure sales), surpassing the original 1989's figure by 400,000 units. It marked Swift's 13th chart-topper. The album topped the Billboard 200 for six non-consecutive weeks; its fifth week at number one helped Swift accumulate 68 weeks in total atop the Billboard 200, surpassing Elvis Presley's record for the most number-one weeks for a soloist. As of January 2024, it had reached two million in pure sales. 1989 (Taylor's Version) was the first album to sell over one million copies on vinyl in a single calendar year since Luminate began tracking US music sales in 1991. All 21 tracks on the standard edition of the re-recording charted on the Billboard Hot 100, with "Is It Over Now?", "Now That We Don't Talk", and "'Slut!'" in the top three. This marked the fifth time Swift had both a song and an album debut atop the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 simultaneously, extending an all-time record.
1989 (Taylor's Version) also reached number one on the album charts of many European territories, including Austria, Belgium (both Flanders and Wallonia), Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. In Germany, 1989 (Taylor's Version) helped Swift become the artist with the most vinyl records sold of 2023. In the United Kingdom, it earned 148,000 units within three days to claim the biggest opening sales week of the year. It debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart with 184,000 units, more than doubling the opening of its 2014 counterpart, and became Swift's 11th number one. It sold 62,000 vinyl LPs in its first week, becoming the fastest-selling vinyl album of 2023. The album stayed at the top for three consecutive weeks, becoming 2023's longest-running number-one album, and was the most purchased physical album of 2023, with sales of 185,000 units. In Australia, 1989 (Taylor's Version) debuted atop the ARIA Albums Chart as Swift's 12th number-one album. It marked a career-best opening week for Swift and possibly the largest vinyl sales week in Australian chart history. The album spent fourteen non-consecutive weeks at number one, was the longest-running number-one album of 2023, and had eight of its songs debut simultaneously at the top 10 of the ARIA Singles Chart, completely occupying the top four. Seven tracks from the album debuted on the Billboard Brasil Hot 100.


1989 (Taylor's Version) was nominated for International Album of the Year at the Gaffa Awards in Denmark and the Juno Awards in Canada. It was also nominated for Top Global 200 Album at the 2024 Billboard Music Awards. In 2024, the album was placed at number 18 on Apple Music's list of the 100 Best Albums.


On 22 March 1997, five members of the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) committed mass suicide in Saint-Casimir, Quebec, setting their house on fire with them inside. Among the dead were two couples: Didier and Chantal Quèze and Bruno Klaus and Pauline Riou, as well as Chantal's mother Suzanne Druau. The three children of the Quèzes had initially been included in the suicide plan, but the first attempt to initiate the suicide failed. After the failure of the first attempt, they confronted their parents, and convinced them that they wanted to live and were let go. Following two more unsuccessful attempts to orchestrate the suicide, the final attempt, with help from the children, was successful.
This followed two prior mass suicides by the group in 1994 and 1995; the group had the theological doctrine that by committing suicide, one would not die, but "transit"; they conceptualized the transit as a ritual involving magic fire, where they would undergo a spiritual voyage to the star Sirius, where they would continue their lives. The two leaders of the group, Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret, had both died in the 1994 transit, but a second mass suicide was orchestrated the next year by the remaining members. Following these past suicides, the group was believed dissolved and was officially banned in Quebec, but it was believed that they may have continued to operate secretly.
On March 20, the Quèzes, as well as Klaus and Riou, all former members of the OTS group, began attempting to orchestrate the suicides; they mailed a suicide letter to two Canadian media outlets, outlining their reasons for committing the act. They then drugged their children and attempted to burn the house down. The attempts repeatedly failed, due to both mechanical error and the intervention of the couple's children. Following three unsuccessful attempts to orchestrate the suicide, two days later the children finally helped their parents burn the house down.
Four died of smoke inhalation, while a fifth was separately suffocated by another. While the children were directly involved, they were ultimately not charged with any crime, as the Ministry of Justice deemed their responsibility lessened by their ingestion of drugs and their influence by the sect. After the incident, the OTS is widely believed to have effectively dissolved. The incident provoked widespread media interest and commentary in Quebec, particularly on religious freedom.