Highlights of the day

  • 1753 Founding of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, as first flotilla of protestant settlers, troops and rangers arrives from Halifax.
  • 1758 James Wolfe lands west of Louisbourg, and drives 1,200 French defenders into the town.
  • 1843 John Strachan enrols first students in King’s College, predecessor of the University of Toronto.
  • 1866 Province of Canada Assembly meets for the first time in the still unfinished Parliament buildings; last session before Confederation.

List of Facts for June 8

  • 1542 Jacques Cartier leaves Charlesbourg after a difficult winter; 35 Frenchmen may have been killed by Iroquois; meets Roberval in Newfoundland; refuses order to join him and returns to France. St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1615 Religion - Samuel de Champlain arrives at Quebec from Tadoussac with Recollet missionaries Denis Jamet, Joseph Le Caron, Jean Dolbeau and Pacifique Duplessis; first Christian priests in the colony. Québec, Québec
  • 1685 Finance - 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. Québec, Québec
  • 1731 Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye leaves Montréal with three sons Jean-Baptiste, Pierre, François and 50 men to explore and trade in the west; with nephew Christophe de La Jemerais. Montréal, Québec
  • 1736 Jean-Baptiste de La Verendrye and 20 of his men are massacred by a Sioux raiding party near Fort St. Charles in the Lake of the Woods; son of Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye; dead include Father Jean-Pierre Aulneau. Lake of the Woods, Ontario
  • 1753 Founding of Lunenburg - First flotilla of settlers, troops and rangers arrives from Halifax in Merligash Bay and lands at Rous’s Brook, on the site of Lunenburg. The settlement was ordered by Governor Edward Cornwallis, who specifically colonizes Lunenburg with Germans and Swiss, because he thought the English inhabitants of Halifax were lazy.. The second embarkation of settlers will arrive on June 17. Altogether, some 1,453 Foreign Protestants — men, women and children - will colonize Lunenburg, named after King George II, Duke of Brunschweig-Lüneburg. In all over 2700 “Foreign Protestants”, mainly from farming communities along the Rhine River, from French- and German-speaking Swiss cantons, and Lutherans from Montbéliard, France, emigrated to Nova Scotia. Lunenberg is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
  • 1758 French and Indian War - After a week of fog lifts at dawn, Jeffrey Amherst gives James Wolfe the order to attack Louisbourg. After a near disastrous landing, Wolfe leads the light infantry, rangers, Fraser’s Highlanders, and the grenadiers of the first, fifteenth, seventeenth, and twenty-second regiments onto the shore west of the fortress and establishes a beachhead, driving 1,200 French defenders into the town; the British then proceed to land artillery to train on the French stronghold. Louisbourg, Nova Scotia
  • 1776 American Revolutionary War - Simon Fraser leads the 24th Regiment in beating back St. Clair’s retreating American invaders at Battle of Three Rivers. Trois-Rivières, Québec
  • 1790 King’s College opens at Windsor; founded by a group of Loyalist scholars from what is now Columbia University in New York; gets Royal Charter in 1802; later moves to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Windsor, Nova Scotia
  • 1813 War of 1812 - James Yeo arrives off Forty Mile Creek with a fleet from Kingston to chase the Americans after the Battle of Stoney Creek; he succeeds in getting close under the enemies batteries, “and by a sharp and well-directed fire soon obliged him to make a precipitate retreat, leaving all his camp equipage, provisions, stoves, etc. behind, which fell into our hands. The Beresford also captured all his bateaux laden with stores, etc. Our troops immediately occupied the post.” The American invaders under Winder and Chandler retreat toward Niagara. Stoney Creek, Ontario
  • 1824 Noah Cushing receives a patent for a wool washing and fulling machine; first patent issued in Canada. Québec, Québec
  • 1826 Tory youths dump printing press of William Lyon Mackenzie into Toronto Bay; he had angered the Family Compact with articles in his newspaper, the Colonial Advocate. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1843 John Strachan enrols First students in King’s College, predecessor of the University of Toronto; First President; later founds Trinity College. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1859 British Columbia establishes the BC Supreme Court. Victoria, BC
  • 1866 Fifth session of the eighth Parliament of Canada begins; last session as the Province of Canada before Confederation; meets for the first time in the still unfinished Parliament buildings, begun in 1857; session ends August 15, 1866;. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1866 Cabinet suspends writ of Habeas Corpus for one year; to capture persons suspected of complicity in Fenian Raids. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1871 Hudson’s Bay Company vacates Fort Colvile; factor Angus MacDonald removes goods to Kamloops, BC
  • 1881 Montreal fire destroys 642 houses. Montreal, Quebec
  • 1883 Bill is introduced in the Manitoba legislature to incorporate the city of Brandon, Manitoba. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1886 Édouard-Charles Fabre appointed First Roman Catholic Archbishop of Montréal. Montréal, Québec
  • 1893 Steamship Miowera arrives in Victoria from Sydney, Australia; First steamer of the Canadian Australian Line. Victoria, BC
  • 1898 Malcolm Cameron sworn in as Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories; dies three months later. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1900 Prince Edward Island passes Canada’s first prohibition law. Charlottetown, PEI
  • 1908 Ontario Election - James Whitney’s Conservatives win a second consecutive majority. Ontario
  • 1915 First World War - United Mine Workers fragment as the British union members walk out of the Crowsnest Pass mines to protest the continuing employment of enemy aliens. BC/Alberta
  • 1917 First World War - Cabinet creates office of Dominion Fuel Controller to help ration wartime supplies. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1923 Amedee-Emmanuel Forget First Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan, dies; Lieutenant-Governor of North West Territories from 1898-1905 and for Saskatchewan from 1905-1910. Saskatchewan
  • 1927 Canada protests immigration quotas applied to Canadians crossing border to take US jobs. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1938 Saskatchewan Election - William Patterson’s Liberals win a second consecutive majority. Saskatchewan
  • 1940 Second World War - RCAF’s No. 1 Fighter Squadron leaves for Britain. Montréal, Québec
  • 1944 Second World War - D-Day +2; Canadians move inland from Juno beach, capture 12 towns in Normandy; Erwin Rommel orders Kurt Meyer’s 12th SS Hitlerjugend Panzer Grenadiers to attack the Canadian 7th Brigade at Putot-en-Basin (8 kms west of Caen). They cross the railway and outflank the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, destroying the three forward companies; the rest are beaten back, leaving their wounded behind; the Canadian Scottish, Canscots and 1st Hussars then use an artillery barrage from the 12th and 13th field regiments to retake Putot, but Meyer counter-attacks with 22 Panther tanks; the Regina Rifles fight a night-long battle, and hold. During these fights, the SS murder several Canadian POWs, including six Winnipeg Rifles, and a Red Cross stretcher-bearer, who are ordered into a wood and shot in the temple; 13 more Canadians are executed within 100 yards of the Command post; the bodies of 7 more are found near-by, all shot in the head with small arms; finally, 40 Winnipegs and Cameron Highlanders are marched into a field, ordered to sit together with the wounded at their centre, and machine gunned; 5 escape. Caen, France June 8 - Second World War - RCAF Flight Officer K. O. Moore, piloting a Canadian Liberator bomber, destroys two German U-Boats in 22 minutes. Atlantic Ocean
  • 1960 Saskatchewan Election - Tommy Douglas’s Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) wins a fifth consecutive majority. Saskatchewan
  • 1964 Ludwig Erhard Chancellor of West Germany arrives in Ottawa for talks with Prime Minister Lester Pearson. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1968 Former residence of Stephen Leacock at Brewery Bay near Orillia designated a national monument. Orillia, Ontario
  • 1968 James Earl Ray suspected assassin of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. arrested four days after the murder traveling with two forged Canadian passports. London, England
  • 1972 Lester Pearson receives Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II; former Prime Minister. London, England
  • 1974 Governor General Jules Leger suffers a stroke; administrative duties taken by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1976 Energy - Thomas Berger ends hearings into social and environmental effects of the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline; Justice of the BC Supreme Court. Inuvik, NWT
  • 1977 Gilbert LaBine dies, discoverer of pitchblende at Great Bear Lake, and developer of what is now the Eldorado refinery at Port Hope, Ontario, where the U-235 for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was made. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1977 Joey Smallwood resigns his seat in the provincial legislature and leaves active politics; Newfoundland’s first premier 1949-72. St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador
  • 1979 Ottawa starts two-month public service hiring freeze. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1983 Ottawa actor Dan Aykroyd stars in Trading Places, opening on this day; with fellow Saturday Night Live actor Eddie Murphy. New York, New York
  • 1984 Ottawa actor Dan Aykroyd stars in Ghostbusters, opening on this day. New York, New York
  • 1989 Rock star Rod Stewart plays before a sell-out crowd of 26,000 at SkyDome; First performer to play there. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1991 Jack Pierce dies at 67 during a cattle roundup at his Turner Valley ranch; founder of Ranger Oil in the 1950s. Calgary, Alberta
  • 1992 Canadian Space Agency chooses 4 new astronauts from 5,300 applicants; Chris Hadfield, aviation systems specialist, Air Force Major, age 32; Julie Payette, computer engineer with Bell-Northern Research; Montréal native, age 28; Robert Stewart, geophysicist with University of Calgary; Calgary native, age 37; Dave Williams, Toronto physician, age 37. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1995 Ontario Election - Mike Harris wins a majority for the Progressive Conservatives, defeating Bob Rae of the NDP, in power since 1990; under the banner of a Common Sense Revolution, he takes 82 out of 130 seats. Ontario
  • 2005 Health - Queen’s Park passes tough anti-smoking legislation; bans smoking in all indoor public places and workplaces in Ontario, effective June, 2006. Toronto,Ontario
  • 2006 Human Rights - Conviction of aboriginal leader David Ahenakew for promoting hatred against Jews overturned; will be acquitted in February, 2009. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 2010 Nelly Furtado, Doug Henning, Clara Hughes, David Clayton-Thomas, Eric McCormack, Farley Mowat, Sarah Polley. Toronto, Ontario