Highlights of the day

  • 1812 US President James Madison asks Congress to declare war on Great Britain
  • 1846 First telegraph system connects Toronto with Hamilton and Niagara Falls.
  • 1985 Liberal/NDP alliance defeats Premier Frank Miller on non-confidence vote, ending 42 years of Conservative rule in Ontario.

List of Facts for June 18

  • 1603 Samuel de Champlain leaves Québec with Pont-Gravé to go on an exploring trip up the ‘River of Canada’ - the St. Lawrence; finds that the Algonkians have taken over from the Iroquois as the dominant tribe since the arrival of Jacques Cartier 80 years earlier. - Québec, Québec
  • 1605 Pierre de Monts moves colony across Bay of Fundy to Annapolis Basin to a site Samuel de Champlain had scouted, end starts building Port Royal with St Croix timber; habitation the First permanent European settlement in Canada. Champlain then sails down the New England coast to hunt for a better site for the colony; Annapolis, Nova Scotia
  • 1776 American Revolutionary War - John Johnson arrives at Montreal with 200 followers from the Mohawk Valley; Loyalist from Albany, New York. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1776 American Revolutionary War - John Sullivan retreats to St. John’s with American army of invasion. - St-Jean, Québec
  • 1784 King George III partitions Nova Scotia to create the province of New Brunswick. - London, England
  • 1793 Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Fraser River. - BC
  • 1812 War of 1812 - US President James Madison asks Congress to declare war on Britain due to seizure of American vessels in the Napoleonic Wars, and British support of native resistance to US westward expansion; the House approves by a vote of 78-49, and the Senate by 19-15; the war will rage until December 24, 1814; “Mister Madison’s War” the only major conflict fought on Canadian soil. Washington, DC
  • 1816 First Thanksgiving Day celebrated in Upper Canada: for deliverance from Americans in the War of 1812. - Ontario
  • 1820 John Franklin leaves Cumberland House on expedition to the Coppermine River. - Cumberland House, Manitoba
  • 1822 Boundary Commission draws up US border along St. Lawrence River and through the Great Lakes. - London, England
  • 1846 Denis-Benjamin Papineau joins Draper to form the Draper-Papineau Ministry; after resignation of Viger on June 17, 1846. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1846 First telegraph system was opened to Hamilton and Niagara Falls. - Toronto, Ontario
  • 1855 Opening of rebuilt Sault Ste. Marie Canal; original canal built by the North-West Company in 1797. - Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
  • 1882 CPR buys Montréal-Ottawa railway line. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1899 Opening of CPR line from Lethbridge through Crows Nest Pass to Kootenay Landing; subsidized by 1897 Crows Nest Pass Agreement, which also set fixed freight rates on Prairie grain traffic. - Lethbridge, Alberta
  • 1900 British Columbia Lieutenant-Governor Thomas McInnes forced to resign by resolution of BC Legislature. - Victoria, BC
  • 1903 John Robinson forms the Summerland Development Company with CPR President Thomas Shaughnessy as the major shareholder. - Summerland, BC
  • 1915 Vilhjalmur Stefansson discovers new uncharted land in the Arctic, and claims it for Canada. - Banks Island, Nunavut
  • 1928 US aviator Amelia Earhart arrives in Wales on a flight from Newfoundland in about 21 hours; First woman to fly across the Atlantic; will later make the flight solo. - Wales Roald Amundsen killed in a plane crash on about this date, in the Arctic Ocean between Norway and Spitsbergen, on his way to search for Italian aviator Umberto Nobile, missing on another arctic flight.
  • 1935 Eji Sawamura, the greatest Japanese baseball player of all time, plays in a game between the Tokyo All-Stars and the Saskatoon All-Stars in Saskatoon (Tokyo wins 14-0). - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
  • 1940 Second World War - Canada announces compulsory military training for home defence. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1940 Second World War - French Navy cruiser Émile Bertin arrives in Canada with $305 million in gold bullion from the Bank of France; gold held in the Bank of Canada in Ottawa and released after the war. - Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1940 Second World War - RAF’s 242 ‘Canadian’ Squadron withdraws from Brittany. - France
  • 1959 Queen Elizabeth II arrives with Prince Philip to start 45 day Canadian tour; earlier that day, CBC in Montréal broadcast the First live telecast from England to Canada, showing the Queen and Prince Philip leaving London. - Torbay, Newfoundland
  • 1959 Alberta Election: Ernest Manning’s Social Credit Party wins a seventh consecutive majority. Alberta -
  • 1962 Federal Election - John Diefenbaker loses 100 seats from his 1958 landslide, but wins re-election with a minority in 25th federal general election; takes 116 seats to 100 Liberals; 30 Social Credit; 19 CCF; defeats Lester Pearson with 37.3% of popular vote; will be defeated in both the Commons and a general election the following year.
  • 1970 National Gallery opens exhibition of 203 Group of Seven paintings; to commemorate 50th anniversary of Group’s founding. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1975 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announces the creation of the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA). Ottawa, Ontario -
  • 1979 Newfoundland Election - Premier Brian Peckford wins his first election as provincial Conservative leader. - Newfoundland
  • 1980 Secretary of State Francis Fox presents a bill, similar to previously presented bills on O Canada, that O Canada be proclaimed as Canada’s national anthem as soon as possible in this year of the centenary of the first rendition. The bill is unanimously accepted by the House of Commons and the Senate on June 27, 1980; Royal assent is given the same day. -
  • 1980 Ottawa comic Dan Ackroyd premieres his movie The Blues Brothers, co-starring John Belushi. - New York, New York
  • 1983 NASA astronaut Sally Ride, First US woman in space, deploys Canada’s Anik C2 communications satellite into Earth orbit from the Challenger space shuttle. - Space
  • 1984 New Brunswick celebrates bicentennial of founding as a British colony in 1784. - New Brunswick June 26, 1985. - Toronto, Ontario
  • 1985 Bryan Adams’s single Heaven stays at #1 on the Billboard charts for the second week. - New York, New York
  • 1986 Bert Pearl dies; Canadian musician the star of CBC Radio’s The Happy Gang from 1937 to 1959. - Toronto, Ontario CBC Archives)
  • 1990 Canada Post President Donald Lander declares $149 million profit and $60 million dividend payment to the Government; says corporation not yet ready for privatization. - Ottawa, Ontario 1990, June 18 -Environment Minister Robert de Cotret brings in legislation to make environmental-impact studies mandatory for federal projects or joint projects. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1991 Gilles Loiselle’s Public Service Reform Act simplifies hiring, firing and transfer of employees; greater discretion in contracting out work. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1991 Michael Wilson suspends further exports of automatic arms to Middle East for six months; pending policy review by Commons committee. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1991 Québec gives Barrière Lake Algonquins band control of ancestral lands in La Vérendrye reserve. - Maniwaki, Québec
  • 1992 New NHL teams get First draft picks; Ottawa Senators make goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz their pick; Tampa Bay Lightning take goalie Wendell Young. Montreal, Quebec
  • 1993 Montréal Expos pitcher Dennis Martinez wins his 200th game; 92nd major leaguer to reach that mark. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1997 Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission presents new television rating system; TV programs must be rated in 6 CRTC categories, from those appropriate to children (C) to those for adults only (18+). - Gatineau, Québec
  • 2004 Conservative Party of Canada issues, retracts, reissues, and reretracts a news release entitled “Paul Martin Supports Child Pornography?” Ottawa, Ontario