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In July and August, more than five million foreigners will come to Canada on their summer vacation. For the rest of the summer, theNational Postpresents this series on the revolutionaries, luminaries and criminals who have taken time out from shaping world events to pay us a visit — and how that visit shaped them. Today, the time a Soviet leader got beat up on Parliament Hill.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or In 1971, a Canadian rode the Soviet premier like a horse and only spent two months in jail Back to video

Only one year before, Ottawa had swarmed with troops deployed to protect federal buildings and employees from the threat of Quebec extremists.

Four years before that, the halls of the Centre Block on Parliament Hill had shaken with percussion waves as an Alberta-born terrorist accidentally blew himself apart with a dynamite bomb.

Even in the innocent days of the early 1970s, there were plenty of reasons to be security-conscious in Ottawa.

And yet, on Oct. 18, 1971, with angry protesters all around, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau still decided it would be a good idea to stroll on Parliament Hill with a man thousands of people wanted to kill: Alexei Kosygin, the Soviet Union premier.

They only got a few steps before a young man with a 1970s-bowl hairstyle burst through the crowd and leaped onto the back of the 67-year-old Russian.