Highlights of the day

1749 - Edward Cornwallis founds settlement at Halifax with 2,576 English colonists. 1919 - Bloody Saturday in Winnipeg General Strike. 1957 Ellen Fairclough sworn in as Canada’s First woman Cabinet Minister; Diefenbaker first PC PM in 22 years.

List of Facts for June 21

  • 1665 First of 24 companies of the Le Régiment de Carignan-Salières start arriving in New France; the First duty of the 1300 soldiers is to invade the Iroquois territories; 400 will stay to colonize New France after their three year service. - Québec, Québec
  • 1686 Pierre de Troyes renames Charles Fort (Fort Rupert) as Fort St-Jacques and calls Fort Albany Fort Ste-Anne; returns to Québec. - Moose Factory, Ontario
  • 1692 King William’s War - Count Frontenac sends Abenaki Indians to raid English settlements in Maine and new Hampshire; Durham, New Hampshire raided two days later. - Wells, Maine
  • 1734 Marie-Joseph Angelique is hanged for setting fire to her master’s house, which caused a huge conflagration that burned a large section of Montréal; she was a black female slave protesting her condition. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1749 Edward Cornwallis on the Sphinx arrives in Chebucto basin on his way to Annapolis; reports to London that “The coasts are as rich as ever they have been represented; we caught fish every day since we came … The harbour itself is full of fish of all kinds. All the officers agree the harbour [Halifax] is the finest they have seen. The country is one continued wood; no clear spot is to be seen or heard of.” Over the next week, 2,576 settlers arrive from England, bringing building supplies, a fire engine, hospital equipment and a midwife; Charles Morris, an experienced surveyor from New England, was employed to lay out the land lots of the town of Chebucto, later named in honour of Secretary of War George Dunk, Earl of Halifax. “The town was laid out in squares or blocks of 320 by 120 feet deep, the streets being 55 feet in width. each block contained 16 town lots, forty feet front by sixty deep, and the whole was afterwards into five divisions or wards, called Callendar’s, Galland’s, Ewer’s, Collier’s and Foreman’s divisions, after the names of the persons who were appointed captains of Militia.” - Halifax, Nova Scotia See April 10.
  • 1764 William Brown publishes the city’s First newspaper, the bilingual Québec Gazette; set up First printing shop in Québec with Thomas Gilmore; also province’s First periodical. - Québec, Québec
  • 1792 George Vancouver meets the Spanish trading ships Sutil and Mexicana off Vancouver. - Vancouver, BC
  • 1813 War of 1812 - US Col. Charles Boerstler, moving to make a surprise attack on Lt. James Fitzgibbon’s British outpost at Beaver Dams, halts at Queenston for the night; three American soldiers go to the farm of Loyalist James Secord and his wife Laura Secord, demanding lodging and supper. As the night wears on, the soldiers become rowdy and talkative, and the Secords overhear the American plans; since her husband is still recovering from wounds suffered during the Battle of Queenston Heights, Laura steals away at 4 am the next morning to warn the British.
  • 1817 Lord Selkirk arrives at Fort Douglas, followed by Coltman with order to restore goods seized in Governor Alexander Macdonell’s dispute with the North West Company; Nor’Westers refuse and flee to avoid arrest. - Fort Douglas, Manitoba
  • 1838 Short Hills Raid - James Morrow, Samuel Chandler and their raiding party arrive at the Short Hills, 12 km from St. Catherines; join up with 22 other supporters at the barn of Lewis Wilson, a refugee in Buffalo, then move on to the farm of Aaron Winchester, another sympathizer; they send back word to the newly appointed Commander In Chief of the Patriot Army, Daniel McLeod, that they are ready and waiting for orders. McLeod decides their plan is premature and might jeopardize the success of the general rising, planned for July 4th; dispatches Linus Miller to order the group to return to the US; they refuse and continue to gather new recruits. - Fonthill, Ontario
  • 1844 Four Sisters of Charity, Sisters Valade, Lagrave, Lafrance and Coutlée arrive at Red River, after 59 days of canoeing and portaging through wilderness from Lake Superior. Invited by Bishop Joseph-Norbert Provencher, the Grey Nuns are part of the First religious community to settle in the Canadian West; they start teaching in makeshift schools until their convent, the Provincial House, is completed in 1847. They also provide medical care for the settlers, and vaccinate over 3,000 people when smallpox breaks out in 1870; in 1871, they open the four-bed Saint-Boniface General Hospital; the First in the West. - Saint-Boniface, Manitoba
  • 1856 Montréal Telegraph Company installs submarine telegraph to Ogdensburg, New York; link to New York City. - Prescott, Ontario
  • 1881 Clement Cornwall commissioned Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. - Victoria, BC
  • 1883 Langdon, Shepard and Company graders arrive at Fort Calgary. - Calgary, Alberta
  • 1887 Queen Victoria celebrates her golden jubilee marking 50 years on the throne. - Windsor, England
  • 1899 Treaty 8 signed at Lesser Slave Lake by representatives of the Crown and the Chipewayan, Cree, Beaver and Athapascan first nations; support and reserves in return for aboriginal title to much of northern Alberta. Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta
  • 1900 Henri Joly de Lotbinière commissioned Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. Victoria, BC
  • 1910 Canadian Northern Pacific Railway contracts Foley, Welch and Stewart’s subsidiary, the Northern Construction Company, to build its roadbed. BC
  • 1911 Nelson Electric Tramway re-commences (sporadic) operation. Nelson, BC
  • 1912 First edition of the weekly Financial Times. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1917 Aubin Arsenault becomes premier of Prince Edward Island, replacing John Mathieson. PEI
  • 1917 William Hanna appointed Food Controller of Canada to control wartime supplies. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1919 Winnipeg General Strike - City police and 90 RCMP surround City Hall square as the Mayor of Winnipeg reads the Riot Act from the steps to disperse hundreds of unemployed war veterans illegally parading to support the strike; Royal Northwest Mounted Police and Specials are ordered to fire a volley into the crowd to disperse them, then charge when they do not disperse; two strikers killed, 30 injured; so-called Bloody Saturday leads Mayor to call in the army; end of strike 4 days later. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1921 LNID awards main irrigation construction contracts to Grant, Smith & Co., and McDonnell Ltd. Lethbridge, Alberta
  • 1924 Toronto-born actress and producer Mary Pickford marries her business partner in United Artists, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. - Los Angeles, California
  • 1940 Henry Larsen sets sail from Vancouver on RCMP patrol vessel St. Roch; to reach Halifax, Nova Scotia via the Arctic; makes First successful west to east navigation of Northwest Passage. - Vancouver, BC
  • 1940 World War II - Canadian destroyer HMCS Fraser joins a flotilla evacuating almost 16,000 Polish soldiers who fought with the French army, and thousands of civilians menaced with Nazi capture, at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, a French port in the Bay of Biscay, and one of the six exit points still open to refugees from France. HMCS Fraser was lost on June 25 in a collision with HMS Calcutta in the Gironde estuary. See also June 22. St. Jean de Luz, France
  • 1940 Mackenzie King government brings in Conscription, but only for homeland defence, with passage of National Resources Mobilization Act. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1946 Gordon Macdonald appointed the last Newfoundland Governor-General; will serve until Confederation in 1949. - St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1952 Canadian aviation pioneer Wop May dies while on holiday in the US; born Carberry, Manitoba in 1896, joined the 202nd City of Edmonton Battalion in 1916; transferred to Royal Flying Corps; was being chased back to base in March, 1918, by German ace, Baron Manfred von Richthofen when the Red Baron was shot down by ground fire. In 1921, after a year with Imperial Oil, he went into the air freight business; in January, 1929, flew a two-seater Avro Avian aircraft with an open cockpit in 40-below cold to deliver diphtheria antitoxin to northern communities hit by epidemic. - Provo, Utah
  • 1954 Iron Ore Company of Canada opens railway linking the Seven Islands port on the St. Lawrence with Québec-Labrador iron ore deposits at Schefferville, Québec. - Sept-Îles, Québec
  • 1957 John Diefenbaker sworn in as Canada’s First Conservative Prime Minister in 22 years, replacing Louis St. Laurent; serves until April 22, 1963; Leader of the Opposition 1956-1957, and 1963-1967. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1957 Ellen Fairclough sworn in as Secretary of State in the new Diefenbaker government; Canada’s First woman Cabinet Minister; Hamilton-born accountant moves to Immigration in 1958, and becomes Postmaster General in 1962. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1957 Cecil Kinross dies; soldier with Alberta’s 49th Battalion; won the Victoria Cross at Passchendaele. - Alberta
  • 1966 Renovated birthplace of Dr. John McCrae designated a national historic site; author of the World War I poem In Flanders Fields; opens to public opened September 8, 1968. - Guelph, Ontario
  • 1966 Bull River trout hatchery opened. - Bull River, BC
  • 1967 City of London opens Centennial Hall, a concert and entertainment auditorium, with a performance by the London Symphony Orchestra; the city’s project for Canada’s centennial year. - London, Ontario
  • 1970 Last parade in Natal. - Natal, BC
  • 1971 Ontario government lends $351,000 to Toronto publishers McClelland & Stewart; part of $961,000 loan to maintain Canadian ownership. - Toronto, Ontario
  • 1974 Inaugural run of refurbished steam train the Royal Hudson. - Vancouver, BC
  • 1977 Flash fire kills 21 prisoners, injures 7 more, as well as 6 police officers and a fireman, in police lockup at City Hall; starts in detention area in a padded maximum security cell; surviving prisoner, John Kenney later convicted of arson and sentenced to five years in jail. - Saint John, New Brunswick
  • 1978 Vote on amalgamation held in the communities in Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass area. Alberta
  • 1984 Royal Assent given to bill establishing the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS); civilian agency to replace RCMP Security Service in dealing with foreign espionage, terrorism and subversion. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1985 René Lévesque resigns as Premier of Québec; his Parti Québecois is down in the polls and the province’s constitutional hopes are now pinned more on Brian Mulroney. - Québec, Québec
  • 1985 London, Ontario native Hume Cronyn stars in Ron Howard’s Cocoon, opening on this day; along with his wife Jessica Tandy, plus Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Brian Dennehy, Gwen Verdon, and Jack Gilford. - Hollywood, California
  • 1988 Ottawa makes public the expulsion of eight Soviet diplomats for industrial espionage. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1990 Brian Mulroney flies to St. John’s to address the Newfoundland Assembly, with the Meech Lake Accord vote scheduled for the next day, but he does not extend the deadline. - St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1990 National Transportation Agency grants CP permission to abandon the Kettle Valley Railway from Penticton, BC to Spences Bridge, BC. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1990 Ross Munro dies at age 76; former journalist, war correspondent for Canadian Press, editor and publisher of the Edmonton Journal, Winnipeg Tribune and Montreal Gazette. - Toronto, Ontario
  • 1991 Victor Goldbloom appointed to replace d’Iberville Fortier as Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages; Liberal cabinet minister when Québec introduced language laws. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1995 Saskatchewan Election - Roy Romanow’s NDP win a second consecutive majority. Saskatchewan
  • 1995 Birth of the NHL Colorado Avalanche, the ex-Québec Nordiques. - Denver, Colorado
  • 1996 First National Aboriginal Day celebrated across Canada. June 21 was chosen because of the summer solstice, the first day of summer and longest day of the year. Many aboriginal groups mark the date as a time to celebrate their heritage. In a speech marking the day, Governor General Roméo LeBlanc said: Many cities in Canada are less than a hundred years old. But aboriginal people have lived in this land for more than a hundred centuries. From coast to coast and in the Arctic, they first explored our lakes and rivers, they first mastered our forests and prairies, and they helped those who came later to join them. On June 21st, this year and every year, Canada will honour the native peoples who first brought humanity to this great land. And may the first peoples of our past always be full and proud partners in our future.
  • 1996 Canadian Space Agency astronaut and NASA Payload Specialist Dr. Robert Thirsk starts study to determine effects of spaceflight on mental skills that are critical to performing tasks in space; on Shuttle Columbia Mission STS-78. - Space
  • 1999 Bernard Lord becomes Premier of New Brunswick, replacing Camille Thériault. Fredericton, New Brunswick
  • 2003 Vision Quest Windelectric, and the ENMAX Corporation commission the last generator at their McBride Lake wind farm. - McBride Lake, Alberta