Highlights of the day

  • 1967 Expo 67 opens to the public in Montreal, Québec.
  • 1981 Terry Fox Dies in Vancouver.

List of Facts for June 28

  • 1602 George Weymouth explores 500 km into Hudson Strait but is turned back by ice. - Hudson Strait, NWT
  • 1609 Samuel de Champlain sets out to explore Iroquois country, with 11 French and 60 Aboriginals. - Québec, Québec
  • 1613 Captain Samuel Argall comes up the coast from Boston to attack the French settlements in Acadia. - Annapolis, Nova Scotia
  • 1672 Charles Albanel reaches mouth of Rupert River on James Bay, making friendly contact with Indians; claims land for France, proves Hudson Bay can be reached overland. - Québec
  • 1672 Count Frontenac sets sail from France, arriving in Québec in early autumn. - France
  • 1759 General James Wolfe starts setting up his main camp on the Montmorency River, across from the Marquis de Montcalm’s trenches. Robert Monckton ordered to set up batteries at Lévis across from Québec, and start bombarding the city. Québec, Québec
  • 1769 Order-in-council sets up separate PEI government; under the name of St. John Island. - Charlottetown, PEI
  • 1776 American Revolutionary War - Guy Carleton holds meeting with 300 Iroquois, who declare their allegiance to Britain. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1776 American Revolutionary War - Guy Carleton starts to pursue a retreating Benedict Arnold up Lake Champlain. - Lake Champlain, Québec
  • 1793 Founding of Anglican Bishoprics for Upper and Lower Canada; Jacob Mountain appointed Québec’s First Anglican Bishop. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1812 War of 1812 - Colonel St. George, British commander at Fort Malden, receives word of the declaration of war. With about 300 British regulars, he despatches a detachment of militia to Sandwich. Amherstburg, Ontario
  • 1829 Montréal Medical Institute joins McGill University as the Faculty of Medicine. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1838 Lord Durham banishes eight Patriote leaders to Bermuda without trial; including Dr. Wolfred Nelson, who shouts out, as he is being led to the ship in chains, By what authority do you chain us like felons? Durham proclaims a partial amnesty for 107 jailed rebels (released on bail of $5-20,000), but not for those 16 patriotes still in the US (including George-Étienne Cartier), and the ten accused of the murder of Lt. Jack Weir. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1838 Queen Victoria crowned in Westminster Abbey, a year after ascending the throne; her reign will last 64 years. - London, England
  • 1845 Another Québec fire destroys the suburb of St-Jean and 1,300 houses, leaving more than 18,000 people homeless. - Québec, Québec
  • 1848 Tiger Dunlop dies; Warden of the Forests of the Canada Company. - Goderich, Ontario
  • 1867 First annual meeting of Society of Friends [Quakers] of Canada. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1886 The Montréal Field Battery executes a 15-gun salute as the The Pacific Express, Canadian Pacific Railway’s First through passenger train to the Pacific coast, leaves Dalhousie Square Station for Port Moody, BC at 20:00 hours; this first CPR transcontinental train carries 170 passengers in two immigrant sleeping coaches, two first class coaches, and two first class sleeping coaches (named Yokohama and Honolulu); also one dining car (Holyrood), two baggage cars, and a mail car; the 4650 km trip will take almost 6 days. - Montréal, Québec
  • 1887 D Division of the RNWMP arrives at Golden City, BC.
  • 1894 Delegates from Britain, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand attend Intercolonial Trade Conference; to develop commercial ties and cut tariff barriers. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1895 Parliament permits the Red Mountain Railway to connect at the Boundary to the Columbia and Red Mountain Railway in Washington state. Subjects the RMR to Ottawa’s authority. [58-59 Victoria chapter 60]. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1897 Maiden voyage of the steamboat North Star. - BC
  • 1900 Standard Pyritic Smelting Company incorporated. Québec, Québec
  • 1901 Patagonian Welsh settlers from Argentina arrive in Saskatchewan. - Saskatchewan
  • 1902 Vancouver, Victoria & Eastern Railway/Washington Great Nothern Railway’s First passenger train reaches Cooper’s Wye, south of Grand Forks, BC
  • 1908 Blairmore, Alberta, absorbs South Blairmore.
  • 1915 North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton rises 10 feet in 10 hours; flood due to heavy rains. - Edmonton, Alberta
  • 1919 Canadian delegation signs the Treaty of Versailles, along with the Allies and new German foreign minister Hermann Müller; draws up conditions of peace for the defeated powers in First World War exactly five years after it began; Canada insisted on separate representation at the signing. The Treaty was ratified by the League of Nations on January 10, 1920; it broke up the German empire and imposed punishing reparations that led to the fall of the Weimar Republic in 1933, adn the rise of Nazism. - Versailles, France
  • 1924 Ceremony is held at Manitoba’s Next-of-Kin Monument to honour fourteen Canadian nurses who drowned when their ship was torpedoed in First World War. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1926 King-Byng Affair - Mackenzie King resigns after eight months of minority government to avoid an adverse vote on a customs scandal; Governor General Lord Byng refuses to dissolve Parliament and call a general election, will ask Arthur Meighen to form government for the second time. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1926 Alberta Election - John Brownlee’s United Farmers of Alberta returned to power; UFA win win a second consecutive majority. Alberta
  • 1930 Lightning strikes drill boat John B. King in the St. Lawrence River, setting off dynamite and killing 31 crew members. - Brockville, Ontario
  • 1944 Second World War - Air Commodore Arthur Ross of Winnipeg wins the George Cross for rescuing two men trapped in a burning aircraft. - London, England
  • 1944 Second World War - RCAF fighters down 26 German planes over France; mostly in support of railway year bombing. - France
  • 1950 Korean War - United Nations calls on 59 member nations to end Korean conflict, as North Korean forces capture Seoul. - New York, New York
  • 1961 John Diefenbaker announces special drought relief for farmers. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1965 Ontario Premier John Robarts opens Trans-Canada Highway from Fort Frances east to Atikokan, Ontario. - Fort Frances, Ontario CBC Archives)
  • 1968 Alberta Premier Ernest Manning opens Calgary’s 182 m, 10,884 tonne Husky Tower; takes 63 second elevator ride to reach the top; Marathon Realty will acquire the Tower in 1970 and the Husky name is removed. - Calgary, Alberta
  • 1969 Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun suggests Toronto rocker Neil Young to Crosby, Stills & Nash, who are looking for another guitarist. - Los Angeles, California
  • 1973 Manitoba Election - Ed Schreyer’s NDP government holds on to power in the provincial election, winning a five-seat majority. - Manitoba
  • 1979 Second International Gathering of the Clans for Scottish descendants at Halifax. - Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1981 Terry Fox dies at age 22; one-legged runner of Marathon of Hope loses battle to lung cancer in a Vancouver hospital; started marathon in St. John’s, Newfoundland; stopped near Thunder Bay, Ontario; raised $25 million to fight cancer; flags across Canada lowered to half mast in his honour. - Vancouver, BC
  • 1982 Communications Minister Francis Fox gets passage of Access to Information Act; allowing greater public freedom of access to government documents; new Information Commissioner will hear complaints from individuals denied access and decide if data should be made public. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1982 Ottawa brings in ‘6 and 5’ wage restraint program for federal employees to control inflation; 6% limit in 1983, then 5%; federal deficit projected to rise to $19.6 billion. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1985 Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Indian Act becomes law. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1988 British Columbia legislature ratifies Meech Lake Accord. - Victoria, BC
  • 1988 Ontario legislature ratifies Meech Lake Accord. - Toronto, Ontario
  • 1988 Parliament passes law banning tobacco advertising. - Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1989 Food poisoning from tapioca pudding strikes by 130 nuns in a convent. - Sherbrooke, Québec
  • 1990 Health Minister Perrin Beatty announces $112 million National AIDS strategy; to stop transmission, search for a cure, and treat sufferers; also national registry, AIDS secretariat, education programs. - Toronto, Ontario
  • 1990 Hull Mayor tells a visiting Queen Elizabeth II she is not welcome so soon after the collapse of the Meech Lake Accord. - Gatineau, Québec
  • 1991 CRTC supports right of CBC to close and cut back operations at 11 stations; Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. Gatineau, Québec
  • 1991 Patricia Starr sentenced to six months in jail for fraud and breach of trust in dealing with Queen’s Park; former political fundraiser for Liberal Party of Ontario. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1995 Mike Harris sworn in as Premier of Ontario, replacing Bob Rae. Toronto, Ontario
  • 2001 Iona Campagnolo appointed Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. Victoria, BC
  • 2004 Federal Election - Paul Martin wins election with a minority against Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party of Canada, with Gilles Duceppe’s Bloc Québecois and Jack Layton’s NDP holding the balance of power. - Canada
  • 2005 Canadian Forces restructures management of military, creating Canada Command. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 2005 Supreme Court of Canada restores deportation order issued to Léon Mugesera. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 2005 Parliament passes Bill C-38 158-133, not acting to prevent same-sex marriage in Canada; Conservative Party of Canada motion to send the bill back to committee fails 158-127. Ottawa, Ontario