C. 1900 - Breakup of Ottoman Empire
1917 - Russian Revolution
1918-1965 - De-colonization of Italian, French and English Empires
1930s-40s - Hitler and National Socialism (populism) on the right, communism on the left, leaving a compressed middle for the political spectrum.
I was born in 1933
` 1942 - Family moved to Sheridan Road, entered Hawken School ,age 9
1947 - Helsinki Accords
1948 - Communist Govt elected in Czech (Klement Gottwald)
1948-51: high school, graduated WRA, age 18
1950's - McCarthy era and anti-communist extremism I do not recall any discussion or debate about McCarthy and anti-communism either at Hawken School or Western Reserve Academy, or subsequently. Perhaps that was because it was a non-issue for ‘my’ class.
Economy of the USA was booming, with post-war rebuilding and expansion. With Cold War, rearmament was in full swing. Summer jobs were plentiful. Post graduation employment was not an issue either.
1951-55: Cornell University
1953 - Death of Stalin
June 1950 – July 1953 Korean War
1953-1964 Nikita Khrushchev First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Premier of the Soviet Union 1958-1964
1955 - Graduated, Cornell University, entered US Naval Reserve as junior officer
1955-57: US Navy, officer training corps, posted to Japan
February 1956
Khrushchev delivered a speech to an unofficial, closed session of the Twentieth Party Congress in which he attacked the crimes committed by Stalin and his closest associates
Oct – Nov 1956
Hungarian revolt, Soviet occupation
1957 Finished Navy, started New College, Edinburgh (Sept. 1957-June 1958)
1958 - 3 weeks in Yugoslavia at work camp (in Slovenia) - hitch-hiked through Greece, Italy, France, then 5 weeks in London before returning to USA in October. Tried to sell vacuum cleaners, worked in hardware factory.
Jan 1959
Cuban dictator Batista overthrown,
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. . . This government later reformed along communist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.
1959-1961 - Started Union Theological Seminary, 2nd term ( two more academic years, 1959-60, 60-61) - reading NYTimes back to front for background/context at end of articles, much more than just reporting.
June-September 1959 - “Winant Volunteer”, East London, working with young people in Dock area
1960 - First sit-in by four black students in Greensboro, NC, Woolworth’s lunch counter. Then we UTS students picketed Woolworth’s on 125th St in Harlem every Saturday for months.
Nov 1960
John F. Kennedy elected - campaigned on “missile gap” with Soviets
1960-61 Part-time staff, F.O.R.
Aug 1961
Berlin Wall built
1961-64 - Student Secretary, F.O.R., living in Nyack, NY; member, Grace Episcopal Church, Nyack
Began involvement with Christian Peace Conference
Jan 1962
The Bomb – awaits a command, induces fear and helplessness – teenagers frozen in fear, dread.
The US blockades Cuba to force withdrawal of Soviet missiles.
Algeria gains independence from France.
Feb 1962
3000-5000 students from all over the USA staged the biggest student peace demonstration – focussed on the issue of nuclear testing – on Washington in 20 years – on the day (Feb. 17) that Washington had its heaviest snowfall of the winter. After we agreed to accept it, Pres. Kennedy sent out an urn of coffee. “This is the first time in recent memory that so massive a project has taken place without the Communists playing some very direct role in it.” - Dave McReynolds
1962 Port Huron Statement published
Jan 1963
President John Kennedy is assassinated
Civil Rights March in Washington draws 250,000 people to hear Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech
May 1963: Nyack meeting of young & old, peace and civil rights, pacifists and socialists .... and Cathleen
1964 - Brazil Military coup; 1968 - 1979/80 Dictatorship
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May 20, 1964 - Married Cathleen Rosenberg
By ship to Rotterdam, train to Prague, June 20-28th,
Second All-Christian Peace Assembly and Youth Commission.
17-day ‘tour’ to Soviet Union, July 4- 21, then to Vienna and on to Rieka, Yugoslavia , July 25
Barry Goldwater nominated as Republican candidate for president of the USA. “Extremism is no sin if you are engaged in defense of freedom” Asked to define extremism, Goldwater said, “Extremism in politics is either fascism on one side or communism on the other.” (Newsweek, 27/7/64) Goldwater also vowed to fight crime and lawlessness on the streets.
From Yugoslavia to Vienna and on to Warsaw by train. Aug 16, train to Hook of Holland and boat to Harwich and London, Aug 17, 1964. Bought Honda 125cc motorcycle two days later.
21 Dec 1964 - Christmas in Prague - Jan 6, 1965
1964-65: London School of Economics
Jan 1965 - The USA deploys 75,000 troops to boost South Vietnam's army.
1965-71: Toronto
1965 - Toronto: SCM Cuba-USA-Canada project leader
1966 Jamie b. August 8
1966 - China, the Cultural Revolution begins.
1966 - Argentina, military coup - 1983 elections, turmoil to 1991
1966, July:
Week-long Latin America conference on Grindstone Is. (30 participants)
LAWG was characteristic of the time: focus on political situation elsewhere, assuming own government can be part of ‘solution’, not seen as integrated in systemic cause of Third World problems. LAWG followed the peace movement and picked up much of its leadership.
Jan 1967 - Israel defeats its Arab neighbours in the Six Day War and gains control of East Jerusalem and areas of Jordan, Egypt and Syria.
1967, May: Dick Shaull comment after Grindstone event:
“I am more and more convinced that the hope for the future of the church depends upon this sort of informal nucleus of people living in the new world and open and responsive to it in dialogue with the Christian heritage.”
1967, Dec.
It seems to us that the deepest problem of 1968 is the conflict between the desperate need for love and reconciliation on the one hand, and the increasing gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, both at home and in the world, on the other hand. How can there be love and reconciliation without equality, and how can there be equality without violent upheaval and death? If America is willing to destroy Vietnam to save her face, what will she do if her material superiority is threatened?” (Collins’ Christmas letter, 1967)
Jan 1968 - The “Prague Spring”
Draft refusers/dodgers coming to Canada from USA
Nigerian troops invade breakaway region of Biafra – a devastating two-year civil war begins.
Martin Luther King assassinated.
March, 1968 - Third All-Christian Peace Assembly - Youth Commission
May 1968 - Conference on Church and Society, Montreal
BK letter to friends: “I am, as of May 30, THROUGH with all such ecclesiastical functions. I simply will not waste my time in working with such authoritarian personalities and with such incompetent people.”
Church bureaucrats. . . comments on Methodist Conference by Rachel Faggeter Chambers: “for two weeks they dillied around with idiotic, irrelevant, insane, boring and incompetent measures. . . Sue has always raved against the Canadian incompetence on the CCC... a bunch of nongs... but what frightens me is that they surely haven’t always been like that . . . what canker got to them?”
1968 Rebecca b.June 25
Aug. 20, 1968 - Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia
1969, correspondence:
“The radical movement here, and elsewhere too, I think, is going through a period of profound depression, partly because of the defeat of the radical student president, but also because there is no real feeling of community in the movement, and very little creative input, just struggle, confrontation and reports from various fronts. There is a very serious need for some clarification of goals (if that is still the realistic word to use in view of the need for constant change in the future) and of development of some consensus about the ethical framework within which the revolution occurs – also, of course, for concrete strategies. It seems to me people are afraid to do anything constructive – or even seriously destructive (dismantling an institution as opposed to threatening to napalm a dog) for fear of being co-opted.” (Marg Dyment to BK, 12/68)
“I share your concern about the New Left. Theology is my response. Despair and nihilism, resignation and political defeatism: these are major problems, which theology of hope must find a way of speaking to.” (BK to Rachel Chambers, 5/69)
“Mid-year (1969) I spent two months remodelling a friend’s house. I did the design and all the real work, except for the plumbing and plastering. We did a fair bit of structural alteration and this was hard. But the experience was good and gave me a better insight into the Chinese way. I am quite convinced now of the necessity of manual labour for the clarification of thought. . .” (BK to Bas, 1/69)
“Socialist man and his successful formation...” (-in a letter from BK to Petr Horak, Philosophical Inst, Prague, 9/69)
“We leave the 60s with few regrets. Personally they were wonderful years . . . but the scars of assassinations and Vietnam have changed us all and ‘it doth not yet appear what we shall be.’ The growing repression of white dissent and black militancy lead inevitably to comparisons with the rise of fascism in the 1930s. Whatever the 70' may hold, it is clear that they will test the depth of our personal commitment to the humanization of the world.” (John Collins, 12/69)
1971 - The People’s Republic of China recognized by the UN as the sole and legitimate representative of the real China - replacing the KMT in China’s seat in the Security Council of the UN after 24 years
1971-86: farming, Nova Scotia
1972: Canadian citizenship
Jan 1973 - Egypt and Syria invade Israel, Egypt and Israel go to war
Sep 1973 - Chile’s military coup
1965-75
Vietnam: U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. US involvement in the war peaked in 1968, at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were gradually withdrawn as part of a policy known as Vietnamization. U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973. The capture of Saigon by the Vietnam People's Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.
1973 - Chile, overthrow of Allende - 1990 Pinochet dictatorship ended
1973 - Uruguay, military rule to 1985
Jan 1980 - Marshal Josip Broz Tito, leader of Yugoslavia, dies.
Mar 1985 - Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the USSR
1986-95: Toronto
Jun 1989 - The Chinese authorities shoot students campaigning for democracy in Tiananmen Square.
Nov. 1989 - The Berlin Wall is opened and subsequently torn down. Re-emergence of old states, the highwater mark of European state building, as opposed to post-colonial states in Africa
Dec 1990 - Lech Walesa becomes President of Poland.
GDR ‘acceded’ to the Federal Republic of Germany and ceased to exist.
1991 - The 10-day war between Slovenia and the Yugoslav People’s Army begins the war in the Balkans.
In Somalia, President Mohamed Siad Barre is ousted by rebel forces and flees the country. Conflict continues and leads to killings, starvation and displacement of thousands.
The Soviet Union morphs into Russia
1 Jan 1994 - In Rwanda, Hutus massacre over half a million Tutsi over 100 days.
1995-98: Mission, B.C.
1998-2006: Sorrento B.C.
Sept. 11, 2001 - World Trade Centre destroyed
March 2008 - Dunblane, Scotland, Opocensky memorial conference -
2006 - 2024 - Ottawa, Britannia
2016, 21 Feb. Cathleen died (pancreatic cancer)
2024 - moved to Villagia in the Glebe
2025 - moved to Colonel By Residence
Dec 1, 2025, Brewster died.