On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1684 - Governor Joseph-Antoine de La Barre leaves Montreal with 1,200 soldiers to battle the Iroquois; disastrous campaign leads to his recall in 1685

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1921 - Frederick Banting first isolates insulin from the pancreatic duct of a dog; assisted by colleagues J. J. R. Macleod, Charles Best , and Bertram Collip at the University of Toronto; in January 1922, they administer insulin to 14 year old Leonard Thompson, and prove it an effective lifesaving treatment for diabetes in humans; in 1923, Banting and Macleod will be the first Canadians to win a Nobel Prize (they will share the award with Best and Collip); Banting does not patent the process, but assigns the rights to the University of Toronto, who will manufacture it through Connaught Laboratories.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1995 - John Labatt Ltd. sold to Belgian brewer lnterbrew SA, completing a takeover valued at C$2.7 billion; deal makes lnterbrew the world's third- largest brewery. 


In 2004, Interbrew merged with Brazilian brewer AmBev to form InBev, which at the time became the largest brewer in the world by volume, with a 13% global market share. 

In 2008, InBev further merged with American brewer Anheuser-Busch to form Anheuser-Busch InBev (abbreviated AB InBev).

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1911 - Bobby Leach survives drop over Niagara Falls in a steel barrel; spends 23 weeks in hospital recovering from injuries.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1775 - Guy Carleton, Lord Dorchester conscripts 6,000 French Canadians to fight off the potential American invasion.

1788 - Guy Carleton, Lord Dorchester divides Upper Canada into four judicial districts: Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nassau, and Hesse; judge and sheriff appointed for each.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1943 - Trans-Canada Air Lines inaugurates transatlantic service; forerunner of Air Canada

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1885 - Trial of Louis Riel for treason begins at Regina, the capital of the North-West Territories; Riel wishes to plead not guilty, but his lawyers enter an insanity plea over his objections.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1821 - Start of excavation of the Lachine Canal, in Montreal 

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1814 - Eight traitors captured during the War of 1812 are hanged at Ancaster, Upper Canada; two days later, their headless bodies are put on public display to discourage disloyalty to the British Crown.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1771 - Samuel Hearne and his Chipewyan guide, Matonabbee, reach the partially frozen Arctic Ocean after descending the Coppermine River to its mouth; first European to reach the Arctic overland.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1945 - US scientists explode first atomic bomb near White Sands, New Mexico, using Canadian U-235 refined in Port Hope, Ontario.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1982 - Montreal Expos host first All-Star Game played outside the US; the National League defeats the American League 4-1.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1812 - US Brigadier General William Hull crosses the Detroit River with 2,500 troops and occupies the town of Sandwich; first American invasion in the War of 1812; worried about a new alliance between the British and the Indians led by Tecumseh, Hull will soon retreat to Detroit, and surrenders to the British a month later.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1990 - Corporal Marcel Lemay, a 31 year old constable, killed during gun battle as 100 members of La Sûreté du Québec attack Mohawk barricades, put up in March to block expansion of a golf course on land they claim was never signed away. Mohawks at Chateauguay (Kahnawake) set up sympathy blockade at Mercier bridge leading into Montreal, causing massive traffic jams for thousands of south shore commuters.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1789 - Near Inuvik, NWT, Alexander Mackenzie reaches flats and marshes of the Mackenzie Delta, struggles to within a short distance of the Arctic Ocean before turning back.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1749 - Edward Cornwallis founds new settlement of Halifax; founded as a naval settlement to counter Louisburg.  

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1924 - Winnipeg-born inventor and radio pioneer William Stevenson sends first photo across Atlantic by radio, to England.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1937 - Temperature at Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan reaches 45C (110F), the highest ever recorded in Canada.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1905 - House of Commons passes bill establishing Alberta and Saskatchewan as provinces

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1797 - Law Society of Upper Canada is established

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1922 - France formally transfers ownership of 100 hectares at Vimy Ridge to Canada; German bastion along Vimy Ridge won by all four divisions of the Canadian Corps on Easter 1917; Parks Canada now operates Vimy memorial park and monument dedicated by Edward VIII in 1936. This land is not strictly speaking part of Canada, but France granted "freely, and for all time, to the Government of Canada, the free use of the land exempt from all taxes". Unlike an embassy, it is subject to the laws of France.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1988 - Parliament passes law banning tobacco advertising.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1975 - Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau opens National Historic Park at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland at tip of Great Northern Peninsula; evidence of Viking landing in North America found in 1961.

On This Day In Canadian History....  

1970 - Parliament lowers voting age in federal elections from 21 to 18; revises Canada Elections Act.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1625 - Missionary Nicolas Viel murdered by Iroquois while paddling in a canoe; first priest reported killed by Indians.

On This Day In Canadian History....  

1774 - British Parliament passes the Quebec Act; guarantees Catholic religious  freedom; Coûtume de Paris for civil code, English law for criminal offenses; government by appointed council; trial by jury; also extends boundaries of Province of Quebec into Ohio Valley; to go into effect May 1, 1775.

On This Day In Canadian History....  

1984 - Parliament passes bill establishing the Canadian Security Intelligence Service; CSIS to replace RCMP in dealing with foreign espionage, terrorism and subversion.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1946 - Fred Rose sentenced to six years in prison for spying for the Soviet Union; charged after Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, defected and implicated Rose, Canada's only Communist Party MP.

On This Day In Canadian History....  

1644 - Jesuit priest François-Joseph Bressani tortured by Iroquois, then given to old woman to care for to replace a dead relative.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1784 - King George III partitions Nova Scotia to create the province of New Brunswick.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1919 - British Army Captain John Alcock and Lt. Arthur Brown take off,  from St. John's Nfld, in their Vickers Vimy bomber, a two-motor biplane, to make the first nonstop transatlantic flight; their 3,100 km flight ends 16 hours later with a nose-down landing in a Clifden, County Galway, Ireland peat bog; they win the £10,000 prize offered by the London Daily Mail, and are both awarded knighthoods.

On This Day In Canadian History....  

1833 - John Wilson kills Robert Lyon in the last fatal duel in Ontario; the two law students and former friends quarrelled over remarks made by Lyon about a local teacher, Elizabeth Hughes; Wilson will be acquitted of murder; later marries Hughes and becomes an MP and judge.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1690 - Henry Kelsey sets out from York Factory, Manitoba, with party of Stone and Assiniboine Indians on journey lasting two years; Hudson's Bay Company employee will record first European description of grizzly bears and buffalo.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1638 - Jesuits in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec describe first recorded earthquake in Canada; tremors for six months, from Gaspé to Montreal, but no casualties reported.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1685 - Jacques de Meulles uses card money to pay soldiers during a coin shortage; the playing cards are used whole, or cut into halves and quarters; redeemed in 1718, but in common use until the inflations of the 1750s.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1956 - Two-thirds of an Ontario Hydro power generating station collapses into the Niagara River gorge, about a kilometre below the Falls.

On This Day In Canadian History....

1944 - D-Day: 14,000 Canadian troops landed at Juno Beach, they faced some of the fiercest opposition of the attack, yet they managed to advance further inland than all the other Allied forces, combined. RCN minesweepers help clear the lanes in, and RCAF bombers and fighters help soften up the German defenses while the Canadian Army pushes through the gap between Bayeux and Caen. Canadian casualties that day are less than expected, but still heavy - 715 wounded, 359 dead.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1813 - John Harvey makes surprise attack with 700 British regulars of the 8th and 49th Regiments and some Canadian militia against 2,000 strong American force under Brigadiers William Winder and John Chandler at Stoney Creek, Ontario; Americans withdraw toward Forty Mile Creek after midnight; War of 1812.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1671 - Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson  takes possession of lands around Sault Ste. Marie and claims Huron and Superior areas for France; sent by Jean Talon to do a survey of the area.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1927 - Government liquor stores in Ontario start selling liquor to adults with $2 permits, as prohibition ends; the province has been dry since 1921.

On This Day In Canadian History....

1990 - Premier Don Getty announces that Alberta will privatize 50% of $3 billion giant, Alberta Government Telephones (AGT); Albertans given first right to buy shares. Through a name change in 1996, a merger with BCTel in 1998, and acquisitions of telnet companies like Clearnet Communications, Telus is now Canada's second largest telcom company

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1961 - Torrential storm drops 25 cm of rain in one hour in Buffalo Gap, Saskatchewan; one of Canada's most intense rainstorms on record.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1934 - Allan Roy Dafoe delivers the last of the Dionne Quintuplets: Annette, Emilie , Yvonne, Cecile and Marie.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1900 - Berliner Gramophone Co. of Montreal registers the famous dog and gramophone symbol, His Master's Voice as the company's Canadian trademark. Three of the four major global record companies have units which can trace their ancestry to Berliner Gramophone, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI.

On This Day In Canadian History....

1958 - Toronto gets Canada's first direct distance dialing (DDD) system.

On This Day In Canadian History.... 

1833 - William Logie the first medical student to graduate in Canada, earning his degree from McGill University.

On This Day In Canadian History....  

1962 -  Engineers start drilling first stretch of tunnel for Montreal's new Metro subway system.

On This Day In Canadian History....  

1844 - William Harris founds the Bytown Packet newspaper; now the Ottawa Citizen.

On This Day In Canadian History....

1783 - First of 7,000 United Empire Loyalists reach Parrtown at the mouth of the St. John River to found a settlement. Two years later, on this date, Parrtown is incorporated and renamed Saint John; first city incorporated in Canada.