Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier was on official business in the American capital on this date in 1898. But it was not all work he was engaged in while in Washington. American President William McKinley invited his Canadian counterpart to the White House for that year’s New Year’s Levee, one of the hottest tickets in Washington. One account of the event described the festive-looking Executive Mansion the following way: “The blue room was a fairyland, with green vines, twinkling with red, white and blue electric lights, stretching from wall to wall. The bouquet at the top of the center divan was entirely of maidenhair fern, dotted with the lights. The mantels were banked in red and white camelias. No festive scene had ever a prettier setting than all this afforded.”