Highlights of the day

  • 1851 Province of Canada issues 12 penny Queen Victoria stamp.
  • 1841 Lord Sydenham opens the first session of the first Parliament of the Province of Canada.
  • 1919 Alcock and Arthur Brown leave St. John’s on the first nonstop transatlantic flight.

List of Facts for June 14

  • 1610 Samuel de Champlain joins new expedition against Iroquois with Algonquin/Huron allies. Québec
  • 1617 Marie Rollet arrives in Canada with husband Louis Hébert and three children; First French family in Canada; Hebert Canada’s First doctor and herbalist. Tadoussac, Quebec
  • 1649 Jesuits and their Huron allies abandon the Huronia missions after Iroquois attacks; retreat to Christian Island in Georgian Bay; leave Huronia completely the following year. Midland, Ontario
  • 1808 Opening of the First Methodist church in Montréal. Montréal, Québec
  • 1841 Lord Sydenham opens the first session of the first Parliament of the Province of Canada at Kingston; meets until September 18, 1841; will defeat his bill establishing a single bank of issue for the colony, but approves everything else, including a District Council Act, abolition of the pillory, public works, customs regulations, a regulated currency, municipal councils for Upper Canada, the sale of wild lands, and a system of common schools. Kingston was named the first capital of the Province of Canada on February 15, 1841, but Sydenham didn’t move there until May due to an illness, and elections that took place in March and April. Kingston, Ontario
  • 1841 Robert Baldwin resigns from Ministry over lack of French Canadians and Reformers in Councils of government; Reformers hold majority in Assembly. Kingston, Ontario
  • 1851 Postal - Post office issues 12 penny Queen Victoria stamp; part of a series with Sandford Fleming’s three-pence Beaver stamp and a 6 penny Prince Albert stamp; first postage stamp issue of the Province of Canada. Kingston, Ontario (See May 12).
  • 1853 Incorporation of the Les Forges de St-Maurice, the St. Maurice Iron Works. Trois-Rivières, Québec
  • 1864 Taché-Macdonald Ministry loses vote of censure. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1869 Philip Hankin appointed Administrator of British Columbia. Victoria, BC
  • 1872 John A. Macdonald government passes the Canadian Pacific Railway general charter and the Trade Unions Bill, which legalized unions. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1883 Department of Indian Affairs moves its headquarters from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Regina, NWT. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1887 Canadian Pacific steamer Abyssinia the First passenger ship from the Orient to dock at Vancouver; from Yokohama, Japan. Vancouver, BC
  • 1892 Tornado rages down the Ottawa Valley between Renfrew and Montréal, killing 12 persons. Ontario/Québec
  • 1894 Opening of Massey Hall on Shuter Street, with a performance of Handel’s Messiah as part of a three day festival; built at a cost of $152,000 by Hart Massey, head of the Massey farm machinery business, as a memorial to his eldest son, Charles Massey, who had died of typhoid at age 36; the top ticket price is $1. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1901 City of Trail incorporated; Colonel E.S. Topping, mayor. Trail, BC
  • 1919 British Army Captain John Alcock and Lt. Arthur Brown take off in their Vickers Vimy bomber, a two-motor biplane, to make the First nonstop transatlantic flight; their 3,100 km flight ends 16 hours later with a nose-down landing in a Clifden, County Galway, Ireland peat bog; they win the £10,000 prize offered by the London Daily Mail, and are both awarded knighthoods. St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1932 Dorimène Desjardins dies; co-founder with her husband Alphonse Desjardins of les Caisses populaires Desjardins. Québec
  • 1935 On to Ottawa trek reaches Regina from Vancouver; now numbering 2,000; leaders continue on to Ottawa to protest government economic policies during the Depression. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1937 Bert Pearl first hosts lunchtime radio show The Happy Gang on station CRCT, a CBC affiliate in Toronto; moves to the CBC network four months later; stars Kay Stokes, Bob Farnon and Blaine Mather; will run for 22 years until 1959, a total of nearly 4,900 programs; Pearl dies in 1986; show also heard for a time on the Mutual Broadcasting System in the US. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1944 Second World War - All units of the exhausted 3rd Canadian Infantry Division put on reserve after taking Le Mesnil-Patry, France; Germans concentrated 7.5 of their 8 armoured divisions, and half of their 12 other divisions against Canadians and British; Canadians spend second half of June in reserve before resuming attack on Capriquet airfield. Normandy, France
  • 1946 Founding of the Canadian Library Association. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1949 Yukon temperature hits 36.1 degrees Celsius; warmest day on record. Yukon
  • 1950 U.S. signs deal to allocate Canada more water from the Niagara River to generate hydro-electric power. Niagara Falls, Ontario
  • 1951 Liberal Minister of Trade and Commerce C.D. Howe makes his famous comment: ‘What’s a million?’ Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1961 James Coyne Bank of Canada Governor resigns over fiscal policy differences with PM John Diefenbaker. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1966 Labour - Québec longshoremen end 39-day strike; get 34% wage increase. Québec
  • 1971 Ottawa and provinces start four-day federal-provincial constitutional conference at Victoria; the first ministers will draft the Victoria Charter proposing constitutional reforms, which will later be rejeted by Québec Premier Robert Bourassa. Victoria, BC
  • 1977 CBC President Al Johnson asks for public input in changing the corporation’s program philosophy. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1984 Pierre Trudeau says farewell to Liberal Party in gala tribute at the opening night of the Liberal party leadership convention. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1988 Pianist Angela Cheng of Edmonton the First Canadian to win the top prize at the Montréal International Music Competition. Montréal, Québec
  • 1989 Hundreds of Winnipeg residents are evacuated from their homes after an explosion and fire at a chemical plant. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1990 World’s fair officials choose Hanover, Germany over Toronto, Ontario by a one-vote margin to host Expo 2000. Geneva, Switzerland
  • 1991 Brian Mulroney says Canada will scale down military in Europe; 8,000 at Lahr and Baden Baden; 1,400 to be withdrawn this year. Berlin, Germany
  • 1991 Michael Wilson says Free Trade tribunal ruling for Canadian pork exporters proves deal works; end of countervail pork duty; $20 million refund. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1993 Hockey - Birth of the NHL Florida Panthers.
  • 1994 Canada joins 25 other nations in signing a United Nations protocol in Oslo, on reducing sulphur emissions that are a major cause of acid rain. Oslo, Norway
  • 1994 Hockey - Fans riot in the streets after the NHL Vancouver Canucks lose the Stanley Cup to the New York Rangers 4 games to 3 at Madison Square Garden; police use TV news videotapes of the riot to lay charges; First Ranger win in 54 years. Vancouver, BC
  • 1994 Gordon Lightfoot, Blue Rodeo and Ontario Premier Bob Rae (who plays a tin drum in Mozart’s Toy Symphony) perform at the 100th anniversary concert of Massey Hall featured; top ticket price is around $70. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1995 Steve Turner and Lorelei Turner convicted of manslaughter in failing to provide the necessities of life to a child; in starvation death of their 3 year old son. New Brunswick
  • 1996 Canadian comic Jim Carrey appears in his new movie Cable Guy, released on this day. Los Angeles, California
  • 1997 Clyde Gilmour ends his 40+ year run as host of Gilmour’s Albums on CBC Radio due to illness; CBC’s longest running, highest rated one man show; the eclectic record collector and critic will die five months later. Toronto, Ontario
  • 2010 House of Commons votes unanimously to designate Halifax’s Pier 21, where more than a million immigrants arrived in Canada 1928-71, as the country’s national immigration museum; closed on March 8, 1971 as passenger liners gave way to plane travel. Halifax, Nova Scotia