Suez Crisis
1956 Built in 1869 by the British and the French, the Suez Canal provided a direct maritime link between the Red Sea and the...
Tommy Douglas becomes leader of the New Democratic Party
1961 In 1961, Tommy Douglas stepped down as premier of Saskatchewan, an office he had held since 1944. That same year, Douglas...
Greenpeace is founded
1971 In 1969, the Don’t Make a Wave Committee was formed in Vancouver to oppose U.S. underground nuclear testing at...
Great Peace of Montréal
1701 The Great Peace of Montréal ended nearly a century of conflict between the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy on one side...
Formation of the Allied Tribes of British Columbia
1916 In 1916, the McKenna-McBride Royal Commission on the “Indian reserve question” in British Columbia recommended that 482...
Winnipeg General Strike
May 15, 1919 On May 15, 1919, some thirty thousand Winnipeg workers — angry about high inflation, dismal working conditions and...
North-West Rebellion
1885 As Canadian settlement pushed west, Métis and First Peoples began to fear for their lands. In 1885, Métis leader Louis...
MS St. Louis — filled with Jewish refugees — is turned away from Canad...
1939 The German ocean liner MS St. Louis departed from Hamburg, Germany, in May 1939, just prior to the beginning of the Second...
New Brunswick’s first assembly meets at Mallard House
1786 As there were no legislative buildings in Saint John at the time, the first meeting of the New Brunswick Legislature took...
The Statute of Westminster
1931 After the First World War, Canada sought greater legislative independence from Britain and to be recognized as an autonomous...
Innu families are relocated to Davis Inlet
1967 In 1967, with the encouragement of the Catholic Church and the Newfoundland provincial government, the Innu (Naskapi) People...
Viola Desmond challenges racial segregation
1946 In 1946, Viola Desmond, an African-Canadian woman, purchased a ticket to a movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia....
Marie Rollet and Louis Hébert settle in Québec City
1617 Marie Rollet and her husband, Louis Hébert — an apothecary from Paris — moved to Québec City with their three children...
First trans-Canada flight: 49 hours of flight time
1920 On October 7, 1920, the first leg of a cross-country flight began in Halifax. The journey included numerous mail delivery...
McLaughlin Carriage becomes General Motors of Canada
1918 With the steady decline of carriage purchases and rapidly increasing sales of automobiles, the McLaughlin family agreed to...
Fraser River gold rush
1858 In 1858, approximately 30,000 miners, many of them Americans, flocked to the shores of the Fraser River in search of gold....
Royal Proclamation
1763 While the Treaty of Paris transferred France’s North American territories to Britain, the Royal Proclamation that followed...
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is first used
4000 BC A buffalo jump is a location where — through the skilful manipulation of wind, weather and topography — a group of...
Hudson’s Bay Company is established
May 2, 1670 On May 2, 1670, England’s King Charles II granted a royal charter to a fur-trading venture called the Hudson’s...
Northern Dancer wins the Kentucky Derby
1964 In May 1964, Northern Dancer became the first Canadian-bred horse to win the famous Kentucky Derby horse race. He returned...