Highlights of the day

1854 – Lt Alexander Dunn’s bravery in Charge of Light Brigade earns him Victoria Cross; first Canadian winner.

  • 1923 Banting, Macleod win Nobel Price for insulin discovery; share with Best, Collip.
  • 1945 Negro League baseball star Jackie Robinson signs contract with the Montreal AAA Royals
  • 1993 Jean Chrétien beats Kim Campbell’s PCs, who lose 152 of 154 Commons seats; Reform Party wins 52 seats.

List of Facts for October 25

  • 1656 Crime - Party of Oneida Indians kills 3 Frenchmen near Montréal. In response Governor Louis d’Ailleboust arrests a hunting party of 12 Mohawk and Onondaga and orders the arrest of all Iroquois in New France. Montréal, Québec
  • 1657 Jean St-Pierre, notary, is killed by the Iroquois. Québec
  • 1674 Jacques Marquette sets out from Saint-François-Xavier mission on the Fox River to visit Illinois Indians. Wisconsin
  • 1760 King George II dies; King George III ascends the British throne on the death of his grandfather. London, England
  • 1768 Port La Joie, the major town in Prince Edward Island, is renamed Charlottetown in honour of Queen Charlotte. Charlottetown, PEI
  • 1784 Aboriginal - Governor Frederick Haldimand grants the Iroquois tracts of land along the Grand River and Bay of Quinte. Belleville, Ontario
  • 1798 Boundary - Boundary Commission makes the St. Croix River the southern border between New Brunswick and Maine. New Brunswick
  • 1804 Theatre - Two plays are presented at Québec - ‘Le Mariage Forcé’ by Molière, and ‘Les Plaideurs’, by Racine. Québec, Québec
  • 1854 Military - Lieutenant Alexander Dunn, of Toronto, takes part, at 11 am, in a cavalry charge down a long valley, in full view of the Russian army, to take some guns; Crimean War brigade led by Lord James Cardigan; unhorsed, Dunn empties his revolver at the Russians, then uses his sword - too long by regulations - to save several of his fellow cavalrymen; of the 673 men who took part in the suicidal action (caused by an error in staff orders, and animosity between Cardigan and Lord Lucan), Dunn is one of only 195 present at roll call that night; his bravery during the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava will make him the First Canadian to win the Victoria Cross. Balaklava, Russia
  • 1854 Rail - Opening of the Carillon and Grenville Railway as a portage railway around the Carillon Rapids; the broad gauge (5’6) line will close October 25, 1910. Hawkesbury, Ontario
  • 1880 Communications - First submarine telegraph cable laid to Anticosti. Anticosti Island, Québec
  • 1910 Rail - Carillon and Grenville Railway abandoned; last remaining broad gauge (5’6) line in North America opened October 25, 1854 as a portage railway around the Carillon rapids. Hawkesbury, Ontario
  • 1914 Rail - Louis Hill drives the last spike on the Vancouver, Victoria & Eastern Railway Brookmere-Princeton section. Princeton, BC
  • 1916 First World War - Canadian Fourth Division attacks Germans at the Somme. France
  • 1918 Disaster - Snow squall hits CPR steamship Princess Sophia, foundering on a reef she hit a day earlier, en route to Vancouver, BC from Skagway, Alaska; the ship sinks with the loss of all 268 passengers and 75 crew; a small fleet of rescue vessels had to seek shelter in the storm; about 10% of the Yukon’s non-aboriginal population were aboard. Juneau, Alaska
  • 1920 Prohibition - Referenda in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia give large votes for the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. Canada
  • 1920 Shipbuilding - Steamer ‘Le Tadoussac’ launched at Lévis. Lévis, Québec
  • 1923 Frederick Banting & John Macleod of the University of Toronto jointly win the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their discovery of the hormone insulin, which was to save the lives of millions of diabetics. Banting, whose idea launched the research, shares the prize money with Charles Best. Macleod, who supervised the research, shares with J. B. Collip. They are the First Canadians to win a Nobel Prize. Stockholm, Sweden
  • 1925 Canadian hockey entrepreneur Lester Patrick takes over the NHL New York Rangers, and also becomes First coach and general manager of the team. New York, New York
  • 1928 Rossland Power Company dissolved. Rossland, BC
  • 1939 Québec Election - Joseph-Adelard Godbout leads Liberals to landslide win over Union Nationale leader Maurice Duplessis in the provincial election; wins 67 seats to 16 for the Union nationale and 2 Independents; sworn in as Premier November 8, 1939. The election was called over Canada’s role in the War; removes some opposition to Mackenzie King’s war effort; Camilien Houde reelected for the UN. Québec
  • 1939 Aboriginal - Supreme Court of Canada rules that the Inuit are a federal responsibility. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1939 Second World War - Four Saskatchewan pilots fly with the 242nd Canadian Squadron of the Royal Air Force, formed on this day. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1941 Second World War - RCAF Eastern Command makes First attack on submarine off Newfoundland. Newfoundland
  • 1943 Second World War - Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill invite Canada to join th Combined Food Board. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1943 Hector de St-Denys Garneau, poet, dies of a heart attack while canoeing alone near the family manor house near Québec City; born at Montréal June 13, 1912. Garneau was great-grandson of historian François-Xavier Garneau, grandson of poet Alfred Garneau, and cousin of poet and novelist Anne Hébert; studied at Jesuit colleges Sainte-Marie, Loyola and Jean de Brébeuf; 1934 helped start the magazine La Relève; 1954 his Journal posthumously published; 1962 his Journal translated into English by John Glassco. Ste-Catherine-de-Fossambault, Québec
  • 1944 Second World War - RCN River Class destroyer HMCS Skeena goes aground near Reykjavik in a gale and is wrecked; fifteen lives are lost. Reykjavik, Iceland
  • 1945 Sport - Negro League baseball star Jackie Robinson signs contract with the Montreal AAA Royals, a Brooklyn Dodgers farm team; first black in major league baseball. Montreal, Québec
  • 1951 Census - Montreal the First Canadian city to reach a population of more than one million people. Montreal, Québec
  • 1953 Media - Opening of CKSO-TV, Sudbury, Canada’s First privately owned television station. Sudbury, Ontario
  • 1954 Jean Drapeau elected Mayor of Montréal for the First time. Montreal, Québec
  • 1960 Labour - Conference on unemployment held at Ottawa; leads to creation of National Productivity Council December 20, 1960. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1960 Disaster - Gas explosion in a Metropolitan store in the Windsor downtown kills 11 people and injures more than 80. Windsor, Ontario
  • 1962 Military - John Diefenbaker refuses to put Canadian forces on alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis, angering the US government of John F. Kennedy. The Royal Canadian Navy goes on alert on its own authorization.
  • 1962 Science - Opening of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, near Halifax. Bedford, Nova Scotia
  • 1965 Energy - Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company becomes Crow’s Nest Industries Limited. BC
  • 1968 Sport - Elaine Tanner and her fellow swimmers Angela Coughlan, Marilyn Corson and Marion Lay, win the 400m freestyle relay bronze at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, becoming the first Canadian womens relay team to win an Olympic medal in Canadian history. Mexico
  • 1968 Aviation - Opening of new terminal at Vancouver International Airport. Vancouver, BC
  • 1968 Urban - Chicago recognizes French Canadian fur trader Jean-Baptiste Pointe de Sable as its First settler and founder; the name of the city came from the Indian name for a species of wild onion that grew on the site. Chicago, Illinois
  • 1969 Blood, Sweat & Tears, led by Toronto rocker David-Clayton Thomas, see their single ‘And When I Die’ enter the Billboard Top 40 chart. New York, New York
  • 1969 Winnipeg, Manitoba rock group The Guess Who awarded a Gold Record for their hit single, Laughing. New York, New York
  • 1970 Jean Drapeau re-elected Mayor of Montréal. Montréal, Québec
  • 1971 Politics - The Union Nationale party votes to change its name to Unité Québec. Québec, Québec
  • 1978 Strike - Government and workers come to an agreement ending national postal strike. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1978 Selma Barkham and a team of Public Archives of Canada (Library and Archives Canada) researchers find a Spanish galleon off the coast of Labrador; sunk in 1525. Red Bay, Newfoundland
  • 1982 Senate of Canada - passes legislation officially naming July 1 Canada Day. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1985 Aboriginal - Grande Cache natives protest order to apply for hunting licenses; claim aboriginal right. Grande Cache, Alberta
  • 1992 Baseball - Toronto Blue Jays fly home to Toronto with the World Championship banner after Dave Winfield whacks a two run double in the 11th inning after midnight, giving them a 4-3 win over Atlanta Braves, and baseball’s World Series four games to two; First team from outside the United States to take the title, and in their 16th season. Atlanta, Georgia
  • 1993 Federal Election - Liberal leader Jean Chrétien defeats Kim Campbell’s Progressive Conservatives, winning a comfortable majority with 177 seats (41.32% of popular vote); the Bloc Québecois form the Official Opposition with 54 seats (13.51%), the Reform Party have 52 seats (18.72%), mainly in Alberta and BC, and the NDP 9 (6.87%). After 9 years in power, the PCs give up 152 of their 154 Commons seats, and drop to just 16% of the popular vote and 2 seats - Jean Charest in Sherbrooke and Elsie Wayne in Saint John’s. Campbell loses her own seat. The PCs lose their status as an official party, and Campbell is out after four months in power. Chrétien Canada’s 20th Prime Minister.
  • 1993 Disaster - Sightseeing helicopter crashes at Montmorency Falls, killing 4. Beauport, Québec
  • 1995 Alanis Morissette album ‘Jagged Little Pill’ certified Multi Platinum 3.00. Hollywood, California
  • 1996 Strike - Ontario Federation of Labour organize ‘Days of Action’ to protest spending cuts by Mike Harris government; protestors shut down the TTC mass transit system, and many downtown businesses close when their employees can’t make it to work; the OFL will hold a large rally the following day (Saturday) at Queen’s Park. Harris planned to cut the provincial budget by 20% in order to wipe out the deficit by the year 2000. Toronto, Ontario
  • 2004 Alberta’s Premier Ralph Klein gets a dissolution and calls a provincial election for November 22, 2004; his Conservative government holds 73 of 83 seats in the Alberta Legislature. Edmonton, Alberta
  • 2005 Trial - Canadian court approves a $4.2 billion takeover of Canadian owned PetroKazakhstan by the China National Petroleum Corp., China’s largest oil company; clears way to China’s biggest foreign acquisition to date. Canada
  • 2006 Birth - Krista and Tatiana Hogan born in Vancouver; conjoined twins. Vancouver, BC
  • 2007 Environment - Government of Canada announces the creation of the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area; largest freshwater marine protected area in the world. Ottawa, Ontario