A cast of nearly 1,000 people – including bagpipers, drummers and Mounties – staged a show called “Spectacle Canadien” at the Coliseum as part of Canada Week at Expo ’74.
According to The Spokesman-Review, it was “two and a half hours of pomp and pageantry.”
A large band of 120 bagpipers played “Scotland the Brave” and 32 members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police “performed complicated cavalry exercises on horseback, not missing a step.”
“Their infamous attack lasted only a few seconds because of the small arena of the Colosseum, and that is not something you want to stand in the way of,” the referee said.
From 100 years ago: Spokane was making strenuous efforts to establish a transcontinental airmail route in the region, but there were two competing plans.
One of these was the establishment of a feeder line from Elko (Nevada) to Pasco. Elko was on the existing route from New York to San Francisco.
The other goal was to establish a direct northern airmail route with a stop in Spokane on the way to the coast. The Spokane Chamber of Commerce announced that it would support this northern route.
“We have worked for the northern route for three years and must not give it up,” said a chamber spokesman.
Also on this day
(From onthisday.com)
1949: The USSR conducts its first nuclear test in Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR.
2005: Hurricane Katrina makes landfall for the second and third time as a Category 3 hurricane, devastating large parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast.
