Fresh from the Boer War and his escape while a POW from a South African prison, Winston Churchill was in Toronto on this date in 1901. He addressed a sold-out audience gathered at Massey Hall.The Toronto Globe provided readers with extensive coverage of his address. “The best blood in the Empire, he said, had been poured out in South Africa, but not in vain,” the paper reported, quoting Winston. “He considered it the sacred duty of the statesman of the Empire to carry their policy in regard to South Africa to a logical and triumphant conclusion …. He spoke next of the sacrifices made by Canada in the struggle. Canada had drawn her maiden sword in a righteous cause, gaining thereby a dignity and standing which many years of commercial progress and advancement in the arts of peace might not have gained for her.”This 1900-1901 lecture tour was the first of Churchill's nine visits to Canada.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.