Anecdotes of The Ages

(Pic: A view of the St Lawrence River from Montmorency Falls, Quebec taken by the author on 1 August 2023)  On a recent trip to the Quebec region of Canada, I was captivated by a piece of history that had long remained overshadowed by the cataclysmic events of its time. In the annals of maritime tragedies, it found itself sandwiched between two momentous events in the early 20th century – the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, which triggered World War I, and the heart-wrenching sinking of the Titanic just two years prior. As the world grappled with the spectre of war and the indelible memory of the 'unsinkable' ship's demise, a maritime disaster of massive proportions occurred, its significance quietly lost amid the cacophony of these world-altering events. This is the untold story of the " SS Empress of Ireland" , a grand ocean liner whose fate was sealed on the fateful night of May 29, 1914, in the fog-shrouded waters of the St. L...