Today’s Features

  • 1851 Sandford Fleming’s three-pence Beaver stamp issued; Province of Canada’s first regular postage stamp.
  • 1924 King George V opens the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley.

List of Facts for April 23

  • 1754 Anthony Henday celebrates St. George’s Day in the vicinity of what is now Edmonton. Edmonton, Alberta
  • 1827 Digging starts on the Shubenacadie Canal, to connect Halifax with the Bay of Fundy. Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1830 Catholic Emancipation Act gives Roman Catholics in Prince Edward Island the right to vote. PEI
  • 1851 Post office issues Sandford Fleming’s three-pence Beaver stamp; the Province of Canada’s first regular postage stamp; part of a series with a 6 penny Prince Albert stamp and a 12 penny Queen Victoria. Kingston, Ontario (See June 14).
  • 1879 Guelph incorporated as a city. Guelph, Ontario
  • 1887 Founding of McMaster University in Toronto as a union of Woodstock College and the Toronto Baptist College; moved from Hamilton, the college will again move back to Hamilton and the Bloor St. building becomes the Royal Conservatory of Music of the University of Toronto. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1890 Incorporation of the town of Grand Falls and the rapidly growing railway centre of Moncton as a city. Fredericton, New Brunswick
  • 1892 Consumers Waterworks Company at Nelson, BC, incorporated.
  • 1892 Founding of Moncton’s First railway union with international affiliation, the Moncton Lodge 226 of the International Association of Machinists. Moncton, New Brunswick
  • 1892 Nelson Electric Light Company incorporated. Nelson, BC
  • 1906 Alberta Legislature sets the provincial speed limit at 10 mph in the city and 20 mph in the country. Edmonton, Alberta
  • 1915 First World War - Canadian 13th Battalion Québec Regiment (Royal Highlanders of Canada) moves up reserves to plug a gap in the line at Ypres. Lance-Corporal Frederick Fisher goes forward with his company machine-gun under heavy fire, and covers the retreat of a battery, losing four of his gun team. He then obtains four more men, and moves forward again to the firing line, but is killed while bringing his machine-gun into action under very heavy fire. For his bravery, Fisher is awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously on June 23, the First Canadian-born man to win the VC while serving in the Canadian Army. St. Julien, Belgium
  • 1915 Switch installed at Princeton connecting the Kettle River Railway to the Vancouver, Victoria & Eastern Railway, completing the Kettle Valley Railway between Merritt and Midway. Princeton, BC
  • 1916 First World War - Royal Naval Reserve sets sail for England. St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1923 Luigi von Kunits conducts the New Symphony Orchestra in its First concert at Massey Hall; will become the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1927; von Kunits conducts TSO until his death in 1931. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1924 Canadians hear radio broadcast of the voice of King George V opening the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley. Costing £12 million it was the largest exhibition ever staged anywhere in the world, and attracted 27 million visitors. Its official aim was “to stimulate trade, strengthen bonds that bind mother Country to her Sister States and Daughters, to bring into closer contact the one with each other, to enable all who owe allegiance to the British flag to meet on common ground and learn to know each other”. Wembley, England
  • 1928 Calgary city officials meet with Canadian General Electric reps to discuss installing electric stop and go traffic signs in Calgary; concern expressed that drivers and pedestrians would not like to be regulated by a mechanical device. Calgary, Alberta
  • 1928 William Clark appointed First British High Commissioner to Canada; takes office September 22. Ontario
  • 1932 Royal Canadian Mounted Police patrol leaves Calgary for nearby Chestermere Lake to take food and supplies to about 50 starving motorists, stranded in the Chestermere general store for five days after a freak spring snowstorm. Calgary, Alberta
  • 1934 Flood damages Vancouver, Victoria & Eastern Railway’s bridge at Princeton, BC.
  • 1940 Representatives from the prairie provinces meet in the Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon to discuss a farm implement co-op. Saskatoon, Manitoba
  • 1947 Military - HMCS Malahat re-commissioned as Victoria’s Naval Reserve Division Victoria, BC
  • 1950 Detroit Red Wings beat the New York Rangers 4 games to 3 for the Stanley Cup. Detroit, Michigan
  • 1951 Korean War - Battle of Kapyong - Second Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry survives the second day of a Chinese army attack while defending Hill 677; the Canadians losing 10 dead and 23 wounded. Kapyong Valley, Korea
  • 1954 CP withdraws Minto from service on BC’s Arrowhead Lakes.
  • 1963 Robert Taschereau appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1968 First public hearings of the CRTC held in the Chateau Laurier Hotel. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1974 Environment - Ontario Ministry of the Environment temporarily closes Falconbridge Nickel for an 11-hour period after Sudbury’s air pollution index hits 102; (32 was regarded as satisfactory, 58 as possibily hazardous to human health); this is the First industrial closure in Ontario since the province’s pollution index was established in 1970; the company had been given a two-year extension to install pollution control equipment. Sudbury, Ontario
  • 1979 John MacLean leads PEI Progressive Conservatives to victory over Bennett Campbell’s PEI Liberals in Prince Edward Island election. PEI
  • 1981 House of Commons approves the final draft of Canada’s proposed new constitution. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1985 Edmonton Oilers 5, Winnipeg Jets 4.
  • 1987 Winnipeg Jets 3, Edmonton Oilers 5
  • 1988 Calgary Flames 2, Edmonton Oilers 4
  • 1989 Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland sets up a five-member panel to inquire into allegations of the sexual abuse of children by priests; just as the Mount Cashel Orphanage scandal is breaking. St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1991 Daniel Johnson convinces Québec civil servants to take 6 month pay freeze; Québec Treasury Board President in the Robert Bourassa government. Québec, Québec
  • 1996 Nova Scotia - New Brunswick, and Newfoundland agree to replace their provincial sales taxes and the GST with a Harmonized Sales Tax.
  • 1997 Ontario director James Cameron’s film Titanic opens at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater; will win Oscar for Best Picture. New York, New York
  • 1997 Ted England, head trader at Peters & Company, purchases 100 shares of Bell Canada, the last trade ever made on the trading floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange, as the TSE closes its floor after 145 years and moves to computer trading. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1999 Supreme Court of Canada rules that lower court judges should apply special provisions, such as traditional Native practices, when sentencing convicted aboriginal people; also should apply traditional disciplinary practices when sentencing Natives found guilty of criminal offences. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 2003 The World Health Organization issues a travel advisory against Toronto because of SARS, Canadian officials protest the decision.