It was on this day in 1980 that an American President picked up the telephone and called his Canadian counterpart – in this case Prime Minister Joe Clark – with a simple message: "Thank you, Canada!" The president was Jimmy Carter and he called PM Clark to extend the gratitude of himself and the America people for the courageous role Canada’s Ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor, played -- along with his wife and the rest of Canada’s embassy staff -- in hiding six American diplomats who had escaped capture when the U.S. Embassy was attacked and overrun by revolutionaries. President Carter called reporters into the Oval Office to let them listen-in to his call to Prime Minister Clark. “I wanted to call,” Carter said, “now that our six Americans are back in this country and safe, publicly and on behalf of all the American people, Joe, to thank you and Ambassador Taylor and the Canadian government and people for a tremendous exhibition of friendship and support and, I think personal and political courage.” Years later, in Plains, Georgia for the launch of my book, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: A Canadian Tribute, myself and a group of about 100 Canadians witnessed the emotion and gratitude President Carter still felt over what is known to this day as the Canadian Caper.  During his address that day, delivered at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site’s Boyhood Farm, President Carter choked up when he described to the visiting Canadians his feelings over what Canada had done. He called it “one of the high points of my life.” You can listen to President Carter’s words of gratitude here. caption id="attachment_537304" align="alignnone" width="500" President Jimmy Carter - Official portrait, 1977/caption Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.