Highlights of the day

  • 1576 Martin Frobisher begins first voyage in search for the North West Passage; licensed by the Muscovy Company.
  • 1866 1,800 Fenians raid Lower Canada, loot around Pigeon Hill, St-Armand and Frelighsburg; chased by militia.
  • 1917 Louise McKinney wins Claresholm, Alberta; first woman elected to a provincial legislature.
  • 1944 D-DAY + 1 - 23 Canadian POWs executed by 12th SS Hitlerjugend Panzers.

List of Facts for June 7

  • 1576 Martin Frobisher sails on the Gabriel and Michael to search for the North West Passage; licensed by the Muscovy Company; backed by Queen Elizabeth I and London merchants; will sight Greenland, and name Frobisher Bay after himself. Bristol, England
  • 1585 John Davis sails on the Sunneshine and Mooneshine, with Queen Elizabeth I’s royal patent to discover the North West Passage. Dartmouth, England
  • 1586 John Davis sends the Sunneshine and North Starre to look for a passage between Iceland and Greenland. North Atlantic
  • 1654 Louis XIV crowned King of France. Paris, France
  • 1677 Olivier de La Durantaye claims the Lake Erie-Lake Huron area for France. Ontario
  • 1689 Count Frontenac reappointed Governor of New France, with instructions to capture Hudson Bay and New York; recalled seven years earlier. Paris, France
  • 1776 American Revolutionary War - Arthur St. Clair skirmishes with the British at Three Rivers; the American invaders are beaten back the next day by Simon Fraser and the 24th Regiment. Trois-Rivières, Québec
  • 1800 David Thompson reaches the mouth of the Saskatchewan River. Manitoba
  • 1816 James Keith put in charge of the North West Company’s Fort George and coastal district, as the NWC divides the Columbia district in two; Donald McKenzie put in charge of the inland district. BC
  • 1819 Opening of fourth session of seventh Parliament of Upper Canada; meets until July 12, 1819; authorizes land grants to War of 1812 veterans. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1824 Francis Burton appointed administrator of Lower Canada; serves until September 16, 1825. Québec, Québec
  • 1829 Dedication of Notre-Dame Church on the Place d’Armes. Montréal, Québec
  • 1832 Irish Immigrants arrive at Québec aboard the sailing ship Carrick from Dublin; a government inspector lets the vessel leave the quarantine station, but some of the Irish have Asian cholera, which soon spreads in Québec City and Montréal; 947 die in Québec, and before it burns out, the resulting epidemic kills about 6,000 people in Lower Canada. Québec, Québec
  • 1834 George Back descends the Back River to Chantry Inlet on the Arctic coast, then returns to Fort Reliance; learns of Ross’ safe return to England. Back River, NWT
  • 1838 Group of 200 rebel refugees march through Lewiston, New York, on their way to Clark’s Point, intending to cross the Niagara River to attack Queenston, Ontario, defended by a small company of the First Frontier Light Infantry under Captain Lewis Palmer; rumours fly that US soldiers are on the way to intercept them, and on the order to embark, only 23 men obey, but then they disperse before making the crossing. Clark’s Point, New York
  • 1852 Five Petty harbour fishermen lost in a bait skiff. Petty Harbour, Newfoundland
  • 1862 United States and Britain sign a mutual treaty to suppress the slave trade. Washington, DC
  • 1866 Fenian Raids - Fenian leader Spier leads 1,800 raiders across the border; they loot around Pigeon Hill, Québec; plunder St-Armand, Québec and Frelighsburg, then retreat when the Canadian militia cavalry arrive and attack them; US troops later seize their supplies at St. Alban’s, Vermont, and they retreat south. Frelighsburg, Québec
  • 1875 Fort Walsh is founded by Major James Walsh. Fort Walsh, Saskatchewan
  • 1886 Religion - Pope Leo XIII makes Montreal Bishop Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau Canada’s first Roman Catholic cardinal. Rome, Italy
  • 1887 Liberal caucus’ June 3 choice of Wilfrid Laurier as leader ratified and confirmed at Liberal Party convention; becomes Leader of the Opposition, replacing Edward Blake; later Canada’s 7th Prime Minister. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1892 Ottawa informs D.C. Corbin that in one year he would receive permission to build his Spokane Falls and Northern/Nelson and Fort Sheppard Railway across the Boundary. Otttawa, Ontario
  • 1893 James Jerome Hill’s Great Northern Railway transcontinental completion celebrated; J.J. Hill from near Guelph, Ontario. St. Paul, Minnesota
  • 1902 Vancouver, Victoria & Eastern Railway/Washington Great Nothern Railway in operation from Republic to Marcus, C
  • 1904 Earl Dundonald dismissed as Commander-in-Chief of military forces in Canada for criticizing the Minister of Militia; end of practice of Imperial officers commanding the forces in Canada. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1905 CPR buys Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway. BC
  • 1908 City of Medicine Hat steamboat drifts into the southernmost pier of Traffic Bridge in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and sinks.
  • 1909 John Waldbeser incorporates the Iron Mountain Limited to work the Emerald property near Salmo, BC.
  • 1909 Toronto born actress Mary Pickford makes her motion picture debut in “The Violin Maker of Cremona”, a short film directed by D.W. Griffith.
  • 1917 First World War - British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig launches an assault in Flanders to take German pressure off his French allies; after a five month nightmare in the mud, including the Canadian victory at the Battle of Passchendaele, the British Expeditionary Force will gain only 7 km of land, with losses of 300,000 men against German losses of around 200,000.
  • 1917 First World War - Allied engineers and sappers, many of them Canadian, deploy underground explosives to destroy the German trench system at Ypres, Belgium; lets infantry quickly capture the Messines ridge overlooking the town. Ypres, Belgium.
  • 1917 Alberta Election - Arthur Sifton’s Liberals win a fourth consecutive majority. Alberta
  • 1917 Alberta Election - Louise McKinney wins the seat for Claresholm in Alberta’s provincial election, becoming the First woman in Canada elected to a provincial legislature. Claresholm, Alberta
  • 1921 Bellevue Collieries is liquidated and assets transferred to Mohawk Bituminous Collieries. BC
  • 1927 The Ku Klux Klan holds a large rally in Moose Jaw, the largest ever held in Canada; in 1929, the Klan sides with the Conservative Party and Progressives on the issues of French-language education and immigration, and and helps defeat the reigning Liberal government of Jimmy Gardiner; at its height, the Klan had tens of thousands of members and over 125 chapters in Canada. Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
  • 1930 Business and Professional Women’s Club of Calgary becomes a member of the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. Calgary, Alberta
  • 1938 William Aberhart, Alberta’s premier, states that his Social Credit government will not be blackmailed into changing provincial legislation designed to control bank profits; after several major banks announced they were closing branches in some of Alberta’s smaller communities because the political climate was hurting their profits. Edmonton, Alberta
  • 1939 King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, leave Canada after their Royal Tour and make the first visit to the United States by a reigning British monarch. Niagara Falls, Ontario
  • 1944 Second World War - D-DAY + 1; the 3rd Canadian Division, 9th Canadian Brigade, North Novas with the Sherbrooke tanks for support, and some Cameron Highlander machine-gunners, push through Buron and Authie toward Cariquet airport, 3 miles west of Caen; lose naval gunfire support, pass out of range of Canadian artillery, and lose contact with a British brigade ordered elsewhere; Lt Col Petch decides to withdraw to higher ground, but C company attacked by the German 12th SS Hitlerjugend Panzer Division at Authie, just North of Caen-Bayeux road; 250 North Nova Scotia Highlanders and 60 Sherbrooke Fusiliers tankmen are killed or captured; 23 Canadian POWs are executed that night by the Panzers. Normandy, France
  • 1948 Ontario Election - George Drew’s PCs win a second consecutive majority. Ontario
  • 1950 Music - Canadian band leader Guy Lombardo and his orchestra have a #1 hit with their recording of The Third Man Theme. New York, New York
  • 1956 Energy - Water seepage causes southern two-thirds of an old Ontario Hydro power generating station, built in 1895, to collapse into the Niagara River gorge, about a kilometre below the Falls, killing one worker. Niagara Falls, Ontario
  • 1962 Queen Elizabeth II arrives in Canada with Queen Mother for 10-day visit.
  • 1965 Department of National Defence replaces navy, army, and air force commands with six functional commands. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1965 Religion - General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada voted in favour of ordaining women ministers.
  • 1972 CP completes laying rail on old Eastern BC right-of-way. BC
  • 1980 John Gray’s musical, Billy Bishop Goes to War, closes at the Morosco Theater in New York after only 12 performances. New York, New York
  • 1981 Oakville, Ontario’s Sandra Post wins the LPGA McDonald’s Golf Classic. USA
  • 1989 Hockey - Wayne Gretzky wins his ninth NHL Hart Trophy (MVP) in 10 years. Edmonton, Alberta
  • 1989 Baseball - Ernie Whitt has three hits and drives in three runs as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-2 in their First victory in the SkyDome, before over 45,000 fans; First game in major league history played indoors and outdoors in the same day - with rain threatening in the fifth inning, operators start closing the $100 million retractable roof at 8:48 pm, finishing 34 minutes later, too late to prevent a short game delay. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1991 Benoit Bouchard announces $435,000 aid program for Oka, Québec to help rebuild battered economy after 78 day standoff with the Mohawks. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1996 Québec’s Chief Electoral Officer charges 11 business and student organizations, some in Ontario, with violating the referendum law. Québec, Québec
  • 1997 Hockey - Scotty Bowman’s Detroit Red Wings sweep the Philadelphia Flyers in four games for the Stanley Cup. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 1999 New Brunswick Election - Bernard Lord, age 33, leads his New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Party to a surprise landslide victory in the NB provincial election, winning 44 of 55 seats in the legislature. New Brunswick
  • 2002 Québec becomes the first province to grant homosexual couples full parental rights; gay and lesbian couples legally recognized as legitimate parents of the children they raise. Québec, Québec
  • 2003 Fire destroys old North-West Territories’ Government House at Battleford, Saskatchewan.
  • 2009 Ontario Health Minister David Caplan fires the president of eHealth Ontario, the electronic health records agency involved in a multi-million-dollar contracts scandal. Toronto, Ontario