Confederation Timeline

1867 - British Parliament passes British North American Act: Sir John A. Macdonald forms cabinet and wins first election; first Parliament meets.

1868 - Queen Victoria rejects appeal of Nova Scotia anti-confederates for dropping province from Confederation; D'Arcy McGee, Montreal MP and foe of Irish extremists, shot to death by Fenian sympathizer at Ottawa.

1869 - Dominion government gives N.S. better financial terms (first use of "equalization payments"); Louis Riel seizes Fort Garry and proclaims Red River "provincial government."

1870 - Manitoba constituted a province. Riel flees before military force; Fenians raid Quebec's Eastern Townships.

1871 - British Columbia joins Confederation; national currency uniformity legalized.

1873 - Northwest Mounted Police organized; 562 lost when liner Atlantic wrecked near Halifax; Canadian Pacific Railway organized; Macdonald government resigns over allegation that CPR paid into Conservative funds.

1874 - Liberals under Alexander Mackenzie win general election; Election Act introduces vote by ballot.

1875 - Presbyterian churches of various synods amalgamate as Generol Assembly; Dominion debt reaches $116,008,378.

1876 - Intercolonial Railway links Maritimes with central provinces; Alexander Graham Bell patents telephone.

1877 - Wilfrid Laurier, 36, becomes cabinet minister.

1878 - Canada Temperance Act, providing prohibition on local option basis, passed; Macdonald returns to power.

1879 - Lieutenant-Governor Luc Letellier de St. Just of Quebec fired for dismissing Conservative government in 1877 Liberal coup d'etat.

1880 - George Brown, a Father of Confederation, killed by discharged employee; Britain decrees all British North America except Newfoundland belongs to Canada.

1881 - Population reaches 4,328,000; sternwheeler Victoria sinks with loss of 181 lives in Thames River near London, Ont.

1882 - Federal electoral ridings redistributed.

1884 - Riel opens rebellion at Duck Lake, Sask.

1885 - Riel surrenders after forces routed, and is hanged.

1886 - Vancouver destroyed by fire.

1887 - CPR transcontinental line opened; Britain empowers Ottawa to negotiate foreign commercial treaties.

1889 - Rock slide kills 45 at Cape Diamond, Quebec City.

1890 - Manitoba Schools Act, suppressing separate schools, passed; oil discovered along Athabaska River.

1891 - Macdonald dies in office, succeeded by Sir John Abbott.

1892 - Newfoundland erects tariff against Canada.

1893 - Wheat crop reaches 50,000,000 bushels.

1895 - Women's suffrage bill defeated in Parliament.

1896 - Klondike gold rush touched off by find at Bonanza Creek; Liberals under Laurier elected.

1897 - One wing of Parliament Buildings burned; Canada enacts Imperial preference, raising tariffs against U.S.; Manitoba school compromise negotiated.

1898 - National plebiscite testing opinion, favors prohibition.

1899 - Canada sends troops to Boer War; 2,300 Doukhobors from Russia land at Halifax.

1900 - Canadians spearhead victory at Paardberg and help raise siege of Mafe-king.

1901 - Prohibition launched in P.E.I.

1902 - Trans-Pacific cable from Vancouver to Brisbane completed.

1903 - Alaska boundary dispute decided in favor of U.S.; landslide buries Frank, Alta., with loss of 66 lives; 125 die in Coal Creek, B.C. mine explosion.

1904 - Toronto hit by $11,000,000 fire.

1905 - Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan created.

1906 - Britain hands over fortresses of Esquimalt and Halifax to Canada.

1907 - Marconi establishes transatlantic wireless service with base at Glace Bay, N.S.; 60 workmen killed collapse of Quebec bridge.

1908 - Forest fires destroy three Kootnay B.C. towns with 70 dead.

1909 - J.A.D. McCurdy makes Empire's first heavier-than-air flight at Baddeck, N.S.

1910 - Royal Canadian Navy established by legislation.

1911 - Trade reciprocity treaty with U.S. proclaimed; Conservatives win election and discard reciprocity; forest fire levels Northern Ontario mining town of South Porcupine, killing 73.

1913 - Worst Great Lakes storm in history takes 148 lives as 13 vessels wrecked.

1914 - Canada enters First World War; liner Empress of Ireland sinks in St. Lawrence River with loss of 1,024.

1915 - Canadians hold line at Ypres under gas attack; Canadian Corps formed; Sir Charles Tupper, last survivor of Fathers of Confederation dies.

1916 - Parliament Buildings destroyed by fire; controversial Militia Minister Sir Sam Hughes dropped from cabinet; 223 die in forest fire in Matheson area of Northern Ontario.

1917 - Personal income tax introduced as temporary war measure; Canadians capture Vimy Ridge; conscription enacted; 1,630 persons killed in munitions ship explosion at Halifax; in Alberta Louise McKinney and Roberta MacAdams become first woman members of an Empire legislature; The Canadian Press formed.

1918 - Federal franchise for women adopted; Canadians hold against German offensive; Canadian ship Princess Sophia sinks off Alaska with 398 dead; 88 killed in Allan Shaft explosion at Stellarton, N.S.

1919 - Sir Wilfred Laurier dies; Winnipeg general strike turns into rioting with two dead.

1920 - Sir Robert Borden turns over prime ministry to Arthur Meighen.

1921 - Liberals under W.L. Mackenzie King win general election; Agnes Macphail first woman elected to Parliament.

1922 - Discovery of insulin by Frederick Banting announced.

1923 - Royal Canadian Air Force established.

1925 - United Church of Canada formed.

1926 - Mackenzie King resigns over customs scandal; Meighen takes over but defeated on first Commons vote; King wins general election.

1927 - Old age pension on need basis begun. Privy Council fixes disputed Labrador boundary; 77 children die in Laurier Palace theatre fire in Montreal.

1928 - First transatlantic telephone calls made from Canada. Percy Williams wins with two gold medals in Olympic Games sprints.

1929 - Stock market collapses; international incident created as U.S. gunfire sinks Canadian rum-runner I'm Alone on high seas.

1930 - Cairine Wilson named first woman senator; R.B. Bennett and Conservatives win power; emergency session of Parliament votes $20,000,000 depression relief; radium found at Great Bear Lake.

1931 - Beautharnois inquiry reveals Liberals took money from power promoters; U.K. Parliament passes Statute of Westminster establishing Canadian autonomy in law-making.

1932 - Imperial economic conference at Ottowa reorganizes preferences; CCF formed.

1933 - Acreage-reducing wheat agreement reached among Canada, Argentina, Australia, U.S. and Russia to stabilize world market.

1934 - Dionne quintuplets born at Callander, Ont., brewer John S. Labatt kidnapped near London, Ont., later released.

1935 - Bank of Canada established; Parliament passes emergency depression legislation; unemployed riot at Regina; Alberta elects first Social Credit government.

1936 - CIO moves into Canada with sitdown at General Motors, Oshawa, Ont.; CBC set up; two of three men trapped in Moose River, N.S., gold min rescued after 10-day entombment.

1937 - Privy Council disallows Bennett, social legislation; Transport Minister C.D. Howe files Montreal to Vancouver in 17 hours, 11 minutes.

1938 - Canada - U.S. - U.K. sign trade agreement; Canada contracts to build RAF bombers.

1939 - King George and Queen Elizabeth tour Canada; daily Trans-Canadian mail and passenger flights begin; war against Germany declared; Commonwealth Air-Training Plan starts in Canada.

1941 - Sir Frederick Banting killed in Newfoundland plane crash; Canadian troops reinforce Hong Kong but overrun as Japanese take colony.

1942 - Canadians spearhead Dheppe attack; 1st Canadian Army formed; ferry Caribou sunk by enemy sub off Cape Breton with 137 lost.

1943 - Canadians in invasions of Sicily and Italy; invade Kiska, but find Japanese gone; pay-as-you-go income tax begun; Gen. A.G.L. McNaughton relinquishes command of overseas army; St. Lawrence Gulf toll 20 ships.

1944 - Canadians land in Normandy; CCP wins Saskatchewan from Liberals; Defence Minister J.L. Raiston quits cabinet in conscription crisis, succeeded by McNaughton; family allowances start.

1945 - 1st and 2nd Canadian Corps accept surrender of opposing Germans in Germany and Holland as war ends; victory brings rioting by Canadian servicemen at Aldershot, England, and Halifax.

1946 - Red spy networks in Canada disclosed by Russian Igor Gouzenko, Communist MP Fred Rose among arrested; Rand formula devised to settle auto strike at Windsor, Ont.; Nazi Gen. Kurt Meyer gets life sentence in shooting of Canadian prisoners.

1947 - Supreme Court of Canada replaces Privy Council as final appeal tribunal; Confederation talks with Newfoundland; quotas placed on imports to bolster dollar; oil discovered near Leduc, Alta.

1948 - Supreme Court rules ban on margarine unconstitutional; Louis St. Laurent succeeds retiring King as Liberal leader and prime minister; Parliament gets power to amend British North America Act.

1949 - Newfoundland joins Confederation; 119 die in fire on excursion ship Noronic at Toronto; time bomb wrecks CPA plane over Quebec, killing 23.

1950 - Mackenzie King dies; Winnipeg floods cause $25,000,000 damage; Canadian troops with UN forces in Korea; general strike ties up railways nine days.

1951 - Universal old age pensions at 70 adopted; Charlotte Whitton becomes mayor of Ottawa.

1952 - Vincent Massey becomes first Canadian governor-general; CBC begins Canadian TV.

1953 - Strike ties up deep-sea fleet for month; Stratford Festival started.

1954 - Hurricane Hazel smashes Toronto area with 81 dead and $24,000,000 damage; St. Lawrence Seaway launched; Toronto opens first Canadian subway.

1955 - Dew radar lines across north established; revised Criminal Code goes into effect.

1956 - Canadian Labor Congress formed; Parliament approves coast-west pipeline after historic uproar; John Diefenbaker becomes Conservative leader; 39 dead, 88 rescued in Springhill mine collapse; Canada Council created.

1957 - Diefenbaker wins general election, ending 22-year Liberal rule; Ellen Fairclough becomes first woman minister; Lester B. Pearson wins Nobel Peace Prize.

1958 - Pearson chosen Liberal leader; Conservatives win record majority; seven miners rescued at Springhill after 8½ days underground, 75 die in blast.

1959 - Queen Elizabeth and President Eisenhower open seaway; policeman killed as striking Newfoundland loggers riot.

1960 - Canadian in UN peacekeeping force in Congo; Parliament adopts Bill of Rights; Roger Woodward, 7, lives after Niagara Falls plunge.

1961 - Senate blocks unprecedented government attempt to dismiss James E. Coyne, governor of Bank of Canada, who then quits.

1962 - Conservatives lose Commons majority but stay in office; doctors' strike greets medical insurance plan in Saskatchewan; Trans-Canada Highway declared open.

1963 - Conservative government falls, Liberals win with minority; TCA airliner crashes at STe. Therese, Que., killing 118; government places trusteeship over Great Lakes unions after royal commission on violence.

1964 - Texas Guld makes $2,000,000,000 bases metals find near Timmins, Ont; Canadians in Cyprus peace-keeping force.

1965 - Influence-peddling charges surrounding dope smugglers Lucien Rivard lead to resignation of Guy Favreau as justice minister after royal commission criticism; vast power blackout in Ontario and northeastern U.S.

1966 - Paul Joseph Chartier kills self in Parliament Building with bomb meant for Commons; royal commission raps Diefenbaker for not firing Associate Defence Minister Pierre Sevigny over affair with playgirl Gerda Munsinger.