Highlights of the day

  • 1817 Founding of the Bank of Montreal, Canada’s oldest, with £250,000 capital.
  • 1896 Wilfrid Laurier leads Liberals to victory in the 8th general election, beating Tupper’s Conservatives.
  • 1974 John Diefenbaker sworn in as an MP for a record 12th consecutive time.
  • 1985 Terrorist bomb downs Air India Flight 182 Boeing 747 from Toronto off the coast of Ireland.

List of Facts for June 23

  • 1713 French residents of Acadia given one year to plead allegiance to Britain or leave the country. - Nova Scotia
  • 1755 Anthony Henday returns to York Factory after visiting Alberta tribes. - Churchill, Manitoba
  • 1767 Prince Edward Island land lottery held in London; the Earl of Egmont wanted full feudal title, but the land was divided up for colonization by those with military or other public service. - London, England
  • 1812 War of 1812 - Great Britain, not aware of US President James Madison’s declaration of war, suspends one of the major causes of the war, the continental blockade orders that had hampered U.S. shipping by stopping them from entering French ports. Henry Clay and the War Hawks in Congress used the orders as an excuse to go to war to conquer Canada. - London, England June 22
  • 1817 Founding of the Bank of Montreal, with £250,000 capital; Canada’s oldest chartered bank. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1838 Short Hills Raid - Col. Allan MacNab orders out four militia regiments from the Gore District - the 3rd Gore, the Beverley Regiment, the Queen’s Own and the Queen’s Rangers, to intercept the Patriots. Thirty-one Patriots, including two women, are arrested. Dr. J. T. Wilson escapes. Regular troops and the Niagara militia capture Samuel Chandler, James Morrow, Benjamin Wait and Alexander McLeod; end of week long Short Hills raid. Morrow, Wait and Chandler will be tried and sentenced to hang. Wait and Chandler are recommended for mercy by the jury and sentenced to banishment to Tasmania for life, but Morrow will be executed at Niagara on July 30, 1838. Four American citizens and several others deemed British subjects by birth or naturalization are sentenced to be hanged. After receiving petitions for clemency, Governor Sir George Arthur recommends that Jacob Beemer be executed. - Hamilton, Ontario
  • 1864 John Linklater visits J.C. Haynes at Osoyoos and comfirms the existence of gold in Wild Horse Creek in the East Kootenays. - Osoyoos, BC
  • 1870 Imperial Order-in-Council transfers Rupert’s Land and the Northwest Territory to Canada; to take effect July 15, 1870. - London, England
  • 1870 Louis Riel and his Métis provisional government formally accept George-Étienne Cartier’s Manitoba Act. - Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1887 Founding of the Halifax & West India Steamship Company and Canada Atlantic Steamship Company. - Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1887 John A. Macdonald government passes Rocky Mountains Park Act, creating Banff National Park, Canada’s first; the site first established in 1885 as a reserve area around the mineral hot springs; promises that the park will become a public park and pleasure ground for the benefit, advantage and enjoyment of the people of Canada. The park has been greatly expanded to its present area of 2,564 sq mi (6,641 sq km), and in 1984 was designated part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage site. - Ottawa, Ontario Wilfrid Laurier leads Liberals to majority victory in the 8th general election, beating Charles Tupper’s Conservatives 123 seats to 88; with 45.1% of popular vote vs. Tupper’s 46.1%; runs on reciprocity; 49 of his 118 MPs from Québec; PM until 1911. Laurier the first French Canadian prime minister; wins election partly on the Manitoba Schools Question, though his compromises are not instituted until 1897.
  • June 23 - Federal Election - Election race for Assiniboia East ends in a tie and is decided by the vote of the returning officer. - Saskatchewan
  • 1899 Four die in blast in War Eagle mine, Rossland, BC -
  • 1912 First passengers on the Kettle Valley Railway hauled on flatcars out from Merritt to inspect First 10 complete miles. - Merritt, BC
  • 1920 Québec Election - Louis-Alexandre Taschereau elected Liberal Premier of Québec; sworn in July 9, 1920. - Québec, Québec
  • 1925 Seven Alpine Club of Canada mountaineers- Albert H. MacCarthy (leader), H.F. Lambart, Allen Carpé, W.W. Foster, N. Read and Andy Taylor - make the first ascent of Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, in the St. Elias Range on the Yukon-Alaska border. - Yukon
  • 1935 Prince Edward Island Election - Liberals win all 30 seats in provincial legislature; First Commonwealth assembly elected without any sitting opposition; New Brunswick Liberals under Frank McKenna will repeat feat in 1987. - PEI
  • 1940 Sgt. Henry A. Larsen leaves on the RCMP schooner St. Roch bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia via the Northwest Passage; ship will take southerly route through Arctic islands, and after two winters trapped in the ice, will reach Halifax October 11, 1942; First ship to make the voyage from west to east, and in both directions, and to circumnavigate North America; St. Roch declared national historic site in 1962; berthed at Vancouver Maritime Museum. - Vancouver, BC
  • 1942 Second World War - Start of conscription for Second World War home service, in Canada only.
  • 1943 Aviation - Trans-Canada Air Lines inaugurates transatlantic service. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1944 Second World War - Canadian army goes into action for the First time, as a separate unit, not under Bernard Montgomery’s British command. - Normandy, France
  • 1946 A magnitude 7.3 Earthquake hits the Forbidden Plateau area of central Vancouver Island, just to the west of Courtenay and Campbell River; causes major damage and two deaths. Courtenay, BC
  • 1948 Ralph Dill dies; Saskatoon’s first photographer. - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
  • 1961 Forest fires along Bonavista Bay force 3,000 people to leave their homes. - Bonavista, Newfoundland
  • 1962 Saskatchewan government and provincial doctors sign deal settling the Medical Care Insurance Act dispute. - Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1965 Queen Elizabeth II arrives in Canada with the Queen Mother for a five-day visit. - Toronto, Ontario 1970 -, June 23 - First Juno Award ceremony for Canadian music is held. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1971 Saskatchewan Election - Allan Blakeney leads NDP to majority victory, defeating the Liberals under Ross Thatcher. - Saskatchewan
  • 1971 Constitution - Québec Premier Robert Bourassa rejects the proposed constitutional charter drafted a week earlier in Victoria, BC; wants provincial legislative primacy in income security. - Québec, Québec
  • 1972 End of five-month strike by 2,200 CBC broadcast technicians. John Diefenbaker sworn in as an MP for the 12th consecutive time; a record in Canadian politics; he will make it 13 swearings in before his death in 1979. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • June 23 - Orillia, Ontario-born singer Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown the #1 Billboard hit for the second week in a row. - New York, New York
  • 1975 Shock rocker Alice Cooper falls off stage in Vancouver, breaking 6 ribs. - Vancouver, BC
  • 1978 Québec Referendum Act passed in National Assembly; sets up procedure for referendum on Sovereignty Association with Canada. - Québec, Québec
  • 1983 NASA astronauts on board Shuttle Challenger flight STS-7 deploy Telesat’s 1238 kg Anik-C2 communications satellite using the Canadarm. - Space CBC Archives)
  • 1987 Robert Bourassa and his Liberal majority in the Québec National Assembly approve the Meech Lake Accord, the First legislature to do so; starts countdown on three year ratification period. - Québec, Québec
  • 1990 Constitution - Brian Mulroney tells national TV audience that the Meech Lake Accord is dead, but that its failure is not the failure of Canada, unity will prevail; says no more constitutional conferences without Québec. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1990 Politics - Jean Chrétien wins federal Liberal leadership on first ballot with 2652 votes, almost 1500 more than Paul Martin Jr.; Sheila Copps 3rd (499), Tom Wappel 4th (267), John Ninziata 5th (64). - Calgary, Alberta
  • 1990 Constitution - Robert Bourassa refuses to talk about constitutional reform with provincial counterparts again; leaves door open to talks with Ottawa after failure of Meech Lake Accord. - Québec, Québec
  • 1992 Brian Mulroney says his government plans to spend over $4 billion on 50 helicopters to replace aging naval Sea Kings; delivery to start in 1998; Jean Chrétien will scrap contract after election in 1993, but later reworks deal. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1995 New Halifax-class frigate HMCS Winnipeg is commissioned. - Saint John, New Brunswick
  • 1996 Canadian Space Agency astronaut and NASA Payload Specialist Dr. Robert Thirsk, on Shuttle Columbia Mission STS-78, continues studying the effects of microgravity on areas such as muscle and circadian rhythms, how living in space affects sleep patterns and mental and physical functions; crew take a series of performance and mood tests using a laptop computer to assessed the quality of their sleep last night; also do mental exercises, which show the speed and accuracy of their responses to rotated letters, math problems, letter sequences and rotated images. Thirsk also performs exercises on Torque Velocity Dynamometer to get precise measurements of muscle strength, power and endurance in Space. - Space
  • 2005 Court of Queen’s Bench of New Brunswick Justice Judy L. Clendenning rules the prohibition of same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Fredericton, New Brunswick