November 30: Free Press first published; Stanley Knowles elected; Francis Roy Brown, war ace.

November 30, 1872 – Volume 1 Number 1 of the Manitoba Free Press rolls off the presses in a small building located at present-day James Avenue and Main Street. An annual subscription to the paper cost $2.50. 

Its first owner and editor was William F. Luxton who came to Winnipeg in 1871 to be the city’s first public school teacher. Luxton School on Polson Avenue is named for him.  

The paper’s name was changed to the WINNIPEG Free Press in 1931.

Read the entire first edition at Manitobia.

November 30, 1952 – The Winnipeg Electric Company Co. divvies up its natural gas and transit operations into new companies: Greater Winnipeg Gas and Greater Winnipeg Transit Company.

November 30, 1960 - Francis Roy Brown dies.

Brown, a champion cyclist from Stockton MB, enlisted in the army cycling corps in World War I at the age of 17. He would soon transfer to the Air Force and began a distinguished career as a bush pilot and test pilot.

In 37 years Brown amassed 15,000 flying hours and in a four year period during WWII he tested 2,575 planes before use by pilots-in-training around the province. He is a member of Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame.

November 30, 1942 - Winnipeg city councillor Stanley Knowles is elected Member of Parliament for Winnipeg North Centre in a by-election that followed the death of J. S. Woodsworth.

Knowles served for 37 years under the CCF, then NDP. Upon his retirement in 1984 Pierre Trudeau made him an honourary officer of Parliament which allowed him to sit at the clerk's table in the centre aisle whenever the House was in session.

Though he never held power, he was a well-respected statesman, earning the nickname the "the Conscience of Parliament".