May 29, 1929: The day that manhole covers rained down on Ottawa

Witnesses say the detonations sounded like cannon blasts, as manhole covers were blown “sky high” — at least one of them still hadn’t been found a day later. People were injured as windows around them shattered, walls crumbled and fires ignited.
E.C. Sparrow, a former caretaker at St. Martin’s Reformed Episcopal Church in New Edinburgh, was sitting on the veranda of his home on Sussex Street when he heard an explosion. “It seemed right under my house,” h