Highlights of the day

  • 1882 North West Territory divided into Athabasca, Assiniboia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
  • 1945 Canadian troops move into Amsterdam on VE-Day.
  • 1984 Gunman Cpl. Denis Lortie kills three in Quebec National Assembly.
  • 1987 Birth of the Loonie, Canada’s first $1 coin.

List of Facts for May 8

  • 1604 Pierre de Monts arrives in Acadia with Samuel de Champlain, Louis Hébert and Baron Jean de Poutrincourt; asks Champlain to hunt for a good site for a trading colony. Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
  • 1620 Samuel de Champlain sails for Canada, accompanied by his young wife Hélène de Champlain, who ‘brought him a useful dowry.’ Le Havre, France
  • 1642 Governor Montmagny appoints Paul de Maisonneuve the first governor of Ville-Marie. Montréal, Québec
  • 1760 Superior Council of New France meets for the last time. Québec, Québec
  • 1813 War of 1812 - US General Zebulon Pike departs from York to Fort Niagara after burning the Upper Canada Parliament Buildings, looting the town; occupied since April 27; British retaliate a year later by burning the American capital, Washington. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1818 The Duke of Richmond appointed Governor-General of Canada; serves from July 30, 1818, until his death from rabies on August 28, 1819. London, England
  • 1821 William Parry sails from England on a new voyage to the Arctic; until October 10, 1823. London, England
  • 1828 John Baker goes to trial in Fredericton for resisting arrest and conspiracy; he had raised the American flag over Madawaska Settlement, claiming the area as US territory, but was arrested by a posse. Fredericton, New Brunswick
  • 1842 Michael Power appointed the First Roman Catholic Bishop of Toronto. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1848 The vessel Star out of Ireland arrives at St. Andrews with 383 immigrants hoping to find work building the new St. Andrews & Québec Railway; 63 of the passengers are sick with typhus, and are quarantined on Hospital Island in Passamaquoddy Bay. St. Andrews, New Brunswick
  • 1858 Governor James Douglas proclaims the Colonial right to seize any ship on the Fraser River and all its goods found lacking either a customs inspection certificate or Hudson’s Bay Company licence. Victoria, BC
  • 1858 John Brown American abolitionist holds an anti-slavery convention at Chatham. Chatham, Ontario
  • 1871 John A. Macdonald signs the Treaty of Washington as part of the British delegation; US gets fishing rights in Canadian inshore waters, as well as some navigation rights on Canadian rivers, including allowing Maine’s lumber industry to float logs down the Saint John River; also use of Canadian canals; both countries have freedom of navigation on the Great Lakes. Washington, DC
  • 1875 Fleet of fifty-six ships ice-bound at Bay Bulls. Bay Bulls, Newfoundland
  • 1880 Founding of the Victoria and Esquimalt Telephone Company; the First in British Columbia. Victoria, BC
  • 1882 Order-in-Council divides the North West Territory into Athabasca, Assiniboia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, provisional districts of the NWT, with the capital at Regina. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1882 Electoral district of Alberta is created. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1882 Electoral district of Athabasca is created. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1882 Electoral district of Assiniboia is created. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1882 Electoral district of Saskatchewan is created. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1886 Steamboat Duchess launched onto Columbia River at Golden City.
  • 1895 Construction of the Kaslo and Slocan Railway begins at Kaslo, BC on Kootenay Lake.
  • 1897 West Kootenay Power and Light Company incorporated in British Columbia: Oliver Durant, president. Victoria, BC
  • 1897 Vancouver, Victoria and Eastern Railway & Navigation Company incorporated in British Columbia by William Templeton, W.L Nicol, G.L. Milne, J.T. Bethune, Alexander Ewan. Victoria, BC
  • 1897 Bedlington and Nelson Railway incorporated. Victoria, BC
  • 1897 D.W. Moore, J.D. Munn and Franklin McKay obtain a British Columbia charter for the Kaslo and Lardo-Duncan Railway. Victoria, BC
  • 1897 South Kootenay Water Power Company enchartered. Victoria, BC
  • 1901 Kingston, in Kent County, New Brunswick, officially changes its name to Rexton. Rexton, New Brunswick
  • 1903 Miners in the Territorial reach of the Crowsnest Pass vote to leave the Western Federation of Miners and join the United Mine Workers of America, District 18/5. Alberta/BC
  • 1906 Founding of the University of Alberta at Edmonton. Edmonton, Alberta
  • 1906 American desperado Bill Miner aka the Gentleman Bandit or the Grey Fox, holds up the Canadian Pacific Railway express at Ducks Creek near Kamloops, BC with two accomplices; they make off with only $15.00 in cash and a package of patent medicine; are captured by the NWM Police a few days later after a gunfight in which an officer and one of the robbers is wounded. Miner is sentenced to 25 years in the New Westminster Penitentiary for the CPR robbery; 1907 August Miner escapes and flees to the US, where he resumes his career; 1913 dies in prison in Georgia after another bungled train robbery; Canada’s First train robbery the subject of a film, The Grey Fox. Monte Creek, BC
  • 1907 Canadian boxer Tommy Burns knocks out Jack O’Brien in the 20th round, to win the heavyweight championship of the world. Los Angeles, California
  • 1915 Government appoints War Purchasing Board. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1922 Crews begin removing Red Mountain Railway tracks at Rossland, BC.
  • 1926 US aviators Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett fly from Spitsbergen to the North Pole and back. Nunavut
  • 1928 CPR’s Tie and Timber Branch shuts down its Bull River saw mill.
  • 1929 Guelph native and Metropolitan Opera tenor Edward Johnson sings on the final evening of the first music festival held in Guelph; accompanied by the Vogt Choir of Guelph and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Guelph, Ontario
  • 1933 Saskatoon relief workers’ riot leads to one death and twenty-eight arrests. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
  • 1945 Victory in Europe Day - Canadian troops move into Amsterdam on VE-Day; Second World War ends in Europe with the unconditional surrender of German land, sea and air forces. Amsterdam, Netherlands (Archives)
  • 1945 Second World War - End of the war at sea with Germany. See May 12.
  • 1945 In the second day of rioting, 10,000 servicemen loot and vandalize downtown Halifax during VE-Day celebrations. Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1945 Bull River post office closed.
  • 1946 Thirteen year old prodigy Glenn Gould First appears as a pianist with an orchestra, playing the first movement from Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with the Toronto Conservatory of Music Orchestra. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1950 Ten thousand people evacuate the Red River valley south of Winnipeg, as the Red River Flood hits; ends May 25, 1950 after causing $25 million damage; one person killed. Manitoba
  • 1951 Canada signs trade agreements with 16 other countries at UN; resulting from Torquay Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1950-51. United Nations, New York
  • 1956 C. D. Howe intriduces bill to create the TransCanada Pipeline in the House of Commons. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1963 Canada evacuates citizens by air from riot-torn Haiti. Haiti
  • 1967 Opening of 2nd session of the 27th Parliament; until April 23, 1968. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1974 Pierre Trudeau loses a non confidence vote on the budget, when the Conservatives and NDP combine to defeat the Liberal government by a vote of 137 to 123; says he will call an election for July. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1979 Mexico to sell Canada 17 million L (100,000 barrels) of oil a day for 10 years; will look at purchase of Candu reactor. Mexico City, Mexico
  • 1981 Debut album by the Canadian rock group Loverboy certified gold in the US. New York, New York
  • 1982 Gilles Villeneuve, from Berthierville, Québec, dies in a 225 kmh accident while qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix. Villeneuve began his racing career on snowmobiles, and won the world championships in 1974. He entered his First car race in 1973 and by 1976 was dominating the Formula Atlantic series. He signed with McLaren and later joined Ferrari to drive Formula One. In 1978 he won the Canadian Grand Prix in Montréal - a First by a Canadian driver. Father of driver Jacques Villeneuve. Zolder, Belgium
  • 1982 Saskatchewan Election - Grant Devine becomes Premier of Saskatchewan after defeating Allan Blakeney’s NDP
  • 1982 Joan Duncan and Patricia Smith become the First two women provincial cabinet ministers in Saskatchewan. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1984 Canadian Army Corporal Denis Lortie enters the Québec National Assembly at 9:45 am, fires on a receptionist and messenger, then enters the Salon bleu and sprays it with sub-machine gun fire, killing 3 and wounding 13; on leave from his base at Carp, Ontario, he tells Sergeant at Arms René Jalbert, who calms him down and gets him to give up to police, that he wanted to destroy the Parti Québecois. On May 11, 1987, he will be sentenced to imprisonment for second degree murder; released on parole in 1995. Jalbert will later receive the Cross of Valour. Québec, Québec
  • 1984 Miguel de la Madrid, Mexican President, addresses Parliament during official visit to Canada. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1986 Alberta election - Don Getty and PCs win a fifth consecutive majority, but smaller than before. Alberta
  • 1987 Royal Canadian Mint unveils one-dollar coin to replace the paper dollar; made of nickel, copper and recycled tin, the loonie has a loon engraved on its rear side. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1989 Léopold Bélliveau elected Moncton’s First Acadian mayor. Moncton, New Brunswick
  • 1990 Hockey - Edmonton Oilers 4, Chicago Blackhawks 2
  • 1991 Labour - 1,400 United Steelworkers of America workers end strike at Brunswick Mining and Smelting; cost local economy $40 million in lost wages. Bathurst, New Brunswick
  • 2005 Basketball - Canadian Steve Nash of the NBA Phoenix Suns the first Canadian player to win the National Basketball Association MVP Award; the point guard, born in Victoria, BC, played for Canada’s national basketball team.