Highlights of the day

  • 1779 Montreal fur traders and merchants found the North West Company, to do battle with the Hudson’s Bay Company.
  • 1902 Victoria Day first observed throughout Canada 16 months after Queen Victoria’s death.
  • 1918 Borden government passes the Canada Elections Act; gives all Canadian women over 21 the right to vote federally.
  • 1932 R. B. Bennett Government passes bill setting up the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) - today’s Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

List of Facts for May 24

  • 1603 Samuel de Champlain anchors at the mouth of the Saguenay River with Gravé du Pont and Pierre de Monts on board Aymar de Chaste’s trading vessel Bonne Renommé; his first landing in Canada. Tadoussac, Québec
  • 1607 Pierre de Monts orders Port Royal colonists to return to France when the ship Jonas arrives with the news that his trade license has been revoked; French concern about Dutch competition in the St. Lawrence River led to a rethinking about colonization in Acadia. Annapolis, Nova Scotia
  • 1650 Charles d’Aulnay drowns in Port Royal basin when his canoe overturns; he hangs on for an hour and a half, but dies of exposure; the Governor of Acadia is buried at Port Royal; his widow, Jeanne Motin, and his former rival, Charles de la Tour, will sign a marriage contract in 1653. Port Royal, Nova Scotia
  • 1679 King Louis XIV signs a decree prohibiting the sale of alcohol outside any dwellings in New France, and the transportation of alcohol to the Native villages, under penalty of a fine of one hundred livres for the First offence, three hundred livres for the second and corporal punishment for the third. Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
  • 1744 Joseph Duvivier captures Canseau fishing station with troops from Louisbourg; Canso the closest British settlement to Louisbourg. Canso, Nova Scotia
  • 1779 Fur traders Benjamin Frobisher, Joseph Frobisher, John Ross and Peter Pond join with Montréal merchants Isaac Todd, James McGill, Simon McTavish, James McBeath and Lawrence Ermatinger to found the North West Company, with 16 shares held by 9 different partnerships; the NWC will let the partners spread their risk to do battle with the Hudson’s Bay Company in the far west. [picture: an example of one of their trade tokens Montréal, Québec
  • 1833 William Logie the First medical student to graduate in Canada, earning his degree in medicine from McGill University. Montréal, Québec
  • 1846 Paul Kane sets out from Fort William with the Hudson’s Bay Company spring fur brigade; will spend three years in the West, documenting one of the last great buffalo hunts; spent Christmas at Fort Edmonton, and recorded Canada’s native peoples at a time of major transition; 1848 returns to Toronto with over 700 sketches from which he painted landscapes and scenes of Indian life. Thunder Bay, Ontario
  • 1847 Franklin Expedition - Graham Gore sets out from icebound ships Erebus and Terror to find the Northwest Passage; he likely crosses the ice to the southern end of King William Island and finds the passage, but it is too late: the ships are firmly caught in the ice. King William Island, Nunavut
  • 1851 Reform Party leader George Coles asked by Lieutenant-Governor to form a government; Prince Edward Island obtains responsible government. Charlottetown, PEI
  • 1853 Seven men lost on a skiff en route from Witless Bay to St. John’s. Witless Bay, Newfoundland
  • 1856 John A. Macdonald and E-P Taché form a new Ministry; all previous Ministers back in office except Allan MacNab and Lewis Drummond. Ontario
  • 1860 Queen’s Plate horse race run for the First time; the oldest continuously run stakes race in North America. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1862 John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis-Victor Sicotte form new Liberal Ministry. Kingston, Ontario
  • 1873 J. W. Bengough founds satirical weekly Grip with his own cartoons; published until December 29, 1894. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1875 NWMP stages snake-killing meet at Swan River post; 1,100 serpents killed. Swan River, Saskatchewan
  • 1876 Police - First North West Mounted Police brass band in the Northwest Territories makes its first public appearance, celebrating the Queen’s birthday. Fort Pelly, Saskatchewan
  • 1877 Wendy Sloboda discovers dinosaur eggs at Devil’s Coulee. Devil’s Coulee, Alberta
  • 1881 Disaster - Excursion steamer Victoria, a flat-bottomed stern-wheeler, flips over and sinks in the Thames River near Riverside Park in London, with the loss of 181 lives. London, Ontario
  • 1882 First issue of the Moncton Transcript newspaper issued; forerunner of current Moncton Times-Transcript. Moncton, New Brunswick
  • 1888 Environment - Opening of Queen Victoria Park at Niagara Falls; Ontario’s first provincial park. Niagara Falls, Ontario
  • 1889 Carl Sutterly and Charles Wesley Busk register their pre-emptions on properties at today’s Balfour, BC.
  • 1893 Religion - Newfoundland legislature passes an act forbidding fishermen to kill seals on Sundays. St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1897 Félix-Gabriel Marchand becomes Liberal Premier of Québec. Québec
  • 1900 Canada’s First Empire Day takes place in Fredericton, organized by the New Brunswick Auxiliary of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE). Fredericton, New Brunswick
  • 1901 Clementina Fessenden originates a public holiday called Victoria Day to honour the Empire by celebrating Queen’s birthday; a schoolteacher, she is the mother of radio broadcasting pioneer Reginald Fessenden. Hamilton, Ontario
  • 1902 Victoria Day first observed throughout Canada 16 months after Queen Victoria’s death. Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier had designated the public holiday to fall on May 24, the Queen’s birthday; later called Empire Day, then Commonwealth Day; in 1952, the date was changed to the First Monday preceding May 25th.
  • 1903 Cowley, NWT, holds its First polo gymkhana. Cowley, Saskatchewan
  • 1907 Winnipeg bakers decided to raise the price of bread from 20 to 18 loaves for $1. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1912 Charles Saunders the First Canadian to make a parachute jump in Canada from a plane. Vancouver, BC
  • 1912 Old bridge at Trail, BC, opened.
  • 1913 Luther McCarty, world heavyweight boxing champion, dies from a single punch thrown by challenger Arthur Pelkey in the First round of their boxing match in Calgary; Pelkey surrenders to police, but is released on bail, and later exonerated by a jury after an inquest is unable to determine the cause of death. Calgary, Alberta
  • 1918 Founding of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, now Statistics Canada. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1918 Robert Borden passes the Canada Elections Act; gives all Canadian women over 21 the right to vote in federal elections only. Manitoba the First province to grant women the vote, in 1916; the other provinces follow suit between 1918 and 1922, except Québec, a hold out until 1940. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1919 Drumheller miners go on strike. Drumheller, Alberta
  • 1919 Ottawa orders postal workers back to work during Winnipeg General Strike. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1921 Victory Hall in Keremeos, BC dedicated.
  • 1924 Alberta Legislature votes to end prohibition amends the Alberta Liquor Act to have the liquor trade controlled by the government. Edmonton, Alberta
  • 1932 Media - The R. B. Bennett Government passes bill taking over the CNR’s network of radio stations used to broadcast programming to riders aboard its passenger trains, with coverage primarily in central and eastern Canada. The bill also sett up the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) - today’s Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). See November 2. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1936 Red Ryan shot and killed by police in gun fight while trying to rob liquor store; notorious bank robber. Sarnia, Ontario
  • 1940 Second World War - Royal Canadian Navy sends four Canadian destroyers to Britain. Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1948 High water on the Elk River at floods Fernie, BC.
  • 1955 CPR and CNR cut Montréal-Vancouver travel time on passenger trains by 14 to 16 hours. Montréal, Québec
  • 1959 Empire Day renamed Commonwealth Day. London, England
  • 1961 David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel, starts four-day visit to Canada. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1967 John A. Macdonald’s Kingston home, Bellevue House, opened as a museum by Parks Canada. Kingston, Ontario
  • 1967 Security guards lock Centre Block doors for First time as over 10,000 Ontario and Québec dairy farmers protest on Parliament Hill for higher milk prices. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1967 Start of Voyageur canoe pageant, with eight provincial teams, two from Yukon and NWT; Centennial canoeists will arrive at Expo ‘67 in Montréal Sept. 4. Rocky Mountain House, Alberta
  • 1967 Wilder Penfield, founder of the Montréal Neurological Institute, awarded the First Royal Bank Centennial Medal. Montréal, Québec
  • 1968 CBC/Radio-Canada starts building new Montréal headquarters called Maison de Radio-Canada, to be finished by April, 1972. Montréal, Québec
  • 1968 FLQ terrorists bomb the US Consulate in Québec City, damaging the building. Québec, Québec
  • 1972 Kurt Waldheim, United Nations Secretary-General, starts two-day visit to Canada. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1977 Liberal Party wins five of six federal by-elections.
  • 1980 Bob Nystrom scores in overtime goal giving the New York Islanders a 5-4 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers and taking the series 4 games to 2; First NHL Stanley Cup for the Islanders. New York, New York
  • 1986 Montréal Canadiens beat Calgary Flames 4-3 to win the series 4 games to 1, and to take home their 23rd Stanley Cup; most championships won by any North American professional sports franchise. Montréal, Québec
  • 1987 Edmonton Oilers 4, Philadelphia Flyers 1
  • 1988 Boston Gardens power failure at 16:37 of the 2nd period forces First suspension of a Stanley Cup playoff game; Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers are tied 3-3, in the fourth game of the final series, with Edmonton leading three games to none. The entire game has to be replayed. Boston, Massachusetts
  • 1989 NHL New York Rangers fire Coach/General Manager Phil Esposito. New York, New York
  • 1990 Edmonton Oilers 4, Boston Bruins 1; Oilers take Stanley Cup 4 games to 1; Edmonton wins for the fifth time in 7 years, beating Boston in 5 games, 4 games to 1; only 2 years after losing Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings.
  • 1990 Konrad Sioui, a Huron from Ancienne-Lorette, is acquitted on a charge of violating Québec provincial park laws against hunting and tree cutting; under the 1760 Hurons and British conquerors treaty. Québec, Québec
  • 1991 George Bush gets US Senate to approve ‘fast track’ talks for North American Free Trade Accord; can deal without amendments from Congress. Washington, DC
  • 1991 Pittsburgh Penguins beat Minnesota North Stars 8-0 to win their First Stanley Cup, four games to two. Bloomington, Minnesota
  • 1992 Brian Mulroney announces Canada withdrawing Ambassador to Belgrade and expelling Yugoslavian diplomats; part of internatinal effort to force Serbs to agree to a cease-fire in Bosnia. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1995 $1.2-billion (Canadian) issue of Suncor Inc. shares snapped up by investors in minutes. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1995 Québec Nordiques franchise sold to a group of businessmen from Denver, Colorado; becomes the Colorado Avalanche. Québec, Québec
  • 1995 Toyota’s car assembly plant in Cambridge, Ont. named top North American auto plant in J. D. Power and Associates quality survey.. Cambridge, Ontario
  • 1996 Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen’s espionage spoof Spy Hard is released. Los Angeles, California
  • 1996 Conrad Black’s Hollinger Inc. raises holdings in Southam Inc. to 41%, giving it effective control; Southam chain publishes 20 Canadian newspapers. Toronto, Ontario
  • 2000 Health - A child and three adults die in Walkerton, Ontario, after town drinking water tainted with lethal strain of E. Coli bacterium; a thunderstorm on May 12 had washed bacteria from cattle manure into a poorly maintained town well, and people began complaining of feeling ill on May 17; by June 1, 2000, 5 more will have died and over 2.300 people sickened by the coliform polluted water. A provincial inquiry will blame the disaster on two town water officials and provincial spending cuts, Walkerton, Ontario
  • 2000 Education - Richard Tomlinson gave $64 million to his alma mater, McGill University. Mpntreal, Québec
  • 2005 Queen Elizabeth II visits Edmonton during centennial year; pays tribute to Alberta’s pioneers in the first speech to the legislature by a reigning monarch. Edmonton, Alberta
  • 2005 Todd Russell of the Liberal Party wins a federal by-election held in Labrador to replace the late Lawrence O’Brien. Newfoundland and Labrador
  • 2005 Bernard Ostry dies at age 78; cultural bureaucrat and former president of TVOntario. Toronto, Ontario
  • 2006 Environment Canada releases a herd of 72 plains bison into Grasslands National Park, as part of a restoration project; first buffalo in the region in 120 years. Val Marie, Saskatchewan
  • 2006 Aboriginal - Department of INdian and Northern Affairs establishes a new Ojibwa reserve - Lake Nippigon Reserve - in northern Ontario. Nipigon, Ontario
  • 2009 Labour - GM Canada workers overwhelmingly ratify a third round of concessions in less than a year to help keep the automaker alive. Oshawa, Ontairo
  • 2010 Miiltary - IED killes Canadian Trooper Larry Rudd, 26, near the Panjwaii district village of Salavat, 20 km southwest of Kandahar. Afghnistan.
  • 2010 Foreign Affairs - Canada imposes trade and investment sanctions on North Korea after the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel in March; on May 25, Canada suspends diplomatic relations.Ottawa , Ontario