Browse "History"

Romance for voice and piano, words by Pierre-Gabriel Huot and music by Célestin Lavigueur composed ca 1861 and a popular patriotic song for several decades. Its inspiration is said to have come from a visit by the authors to the village of Lorette, near Quebec City.

Noteworthy as the first oceanographic study of the Gulf of St Lawrence and Scotian Shelf, the expedition originated with E. E. Prince, dominion commissioner of fisheries.

​The 1939 royal tour by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth was the first time a reigning Canadian monarch had stepped foot in this country.

The terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 had an immediate and profound impact on Canada. Twenty-four Canadians died in what became known as the "9/11" attacks. When the US closed its airspace, hundreds of planes carrying thousands of passengers were diverted to Canadian airports. In the weeks following, Canada passed controversial anti-terrorism laws and sent its first troops to Afghanistan as part of the “War on Terror.”

Canada’s official motto is A Mari usque ad Mare, which translates as “From Sea to Sea.”

Soldiers rounding up terrified civilians, expelling them from their land, burning their homes and crops ‒ it sounds like a 20th century nightmare in one of the world's trouble spots, but it describes a scene from Canada's early history, the Deportation of the Acadians.

IT IS HUGE and quite beautiful, and it jumps right at you as you come out of a curve in the small road that winds along the shore of the Bay of Fundy, near Wolfville in northern Nova Scotia.

Act (Statute), law passed by Parliament or a provincial legislature (see Provincial Government). A federal Act must pass 3 readings in the House of Commons and 3 readings in the Senate, and must receive royal assent.

The Act of Union was passed by the British Parliament in July 1840 and proclaimed 10 February 1841. It united the colonies of Upper Canada and Lower Canada under one government, creating the Province of Canada.

​Alberta joined Confederation along with Saskatchewan in 1905, when the two new provinces were created out of a section of the Northwest Territories.

Amnesty Act, 1 February 1849, offered a pardon to all those involved in the 1837-38 Rebellions. It originated March 1838, when a conditional pardon was extended to minor participants.

Growing up in north Winnipeg, one of my most poignant memories of Remembrance Day was attending a school assembly at Andrew Mynarski VC Junior High. On that day, I watched tears of pride stream down the cheeks of Mynarski's mother as the principal told us the story of her son's sacrifice.

Anson Northup, the first of many steamers to navigate the Red River from Minnesota to the Red River Colony. Shortly after its arrival in Fort Garry in June 1859, the Anson Northup was purchased by the Hudson's Bay Company and entrepreneur J.C. Burbank, who renamed it the Pioneer.

Canada's birthrate ballooned from the end of the Second World War until about 1965, thanks to improving economic conditions and a related trend over the same period toward larger families.

Although the Reform (that is to say liberal) Party swept the constituencies like a broom, the principle that the majority party controls parliament was not yet established. Colonial government was still firmly in the grip of the governor, who was appointed by London.

The Balfour Report of 1926 declared that Britain and its Dominions were constitutionally equal to each other. It was a landmark document confirming Canada as a fully independent country, united with Britain and the other Dominions through the Commonwealth.

From 1862 to 1874 the HBC trader became Her Majesty's Hired Survey Ship Beaver. After the HBC sold the ship in 1874, it was used as a workhorse and tow until 1888, when it was wrecked in the First Narrows in Vancouver harbour. Only a few relics remain.

Bedford Magazine Explosion, 18-19 July 1945, initiated when an ammunition barge blew up at the naval magazine jetty on Bedford Basin, Halifax harbour. Fire spread quickly to adjacent piles of ammunition, which had been temporarily stored outside because of overcrowding in the main compound.

In the mid-1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's political demise seemed inevitable. Seeking to reverse the tide running against his Conservative Party, in January 1935 he began a series of live radio speeches outlining a "New Deal" for Canada.