Highlights of the day

  • 1583 Humphrey Gilbert enters St. John’s Harbour, claims the lands for Queen Elizabeth I.
  • 1846 Oregon Treaty proclaimed; establishes 49th Parallel as the Boundary west from the Rocky Mountains.
  • 1919 Mackenzie King elected Leader of the Liberal Party on the third ballot, succeeding Wilfrid Laurier.

List of Facts for August 5

  • 1583 Humphrey Gilbert enters St. John’s Harbour with his ships Delight, Golden Hind, Swallow and Squirrel, and reads a Royal Charter claiming the lands 200 miles around St. John’s for Queen Elizabeth I, thereby founding the First English colony in North America; one of his first acts as Governor is to grant shore rights to 36 foreign fishing vessels; on his return trip to England, he was lost in the little 10-ton Squirrel in a storm off the Azores; Gilbert was the half brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, and was knighted in 1570 for his service in the campaigns in Ireland; his 1576 Discourse about the North West Passage inspired the voyages of Martin Frobisher and John Davis. St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1602 George Weymouth’s ships ‘Discovery’ and ‘Godspeed’ clear Hudson Strait and head for England. Hudson Strait, NWT
  • 1689 Band of 1,500 Iroquois surround the village of Lachine during a violent thunderstorm and set fire to the houses; they then massacre 24 inhabitants and kidnap 90; 42 of the 90 are never seen again; they also kill about 200 more settlers and capture 100 in raids in the vicinity. Lachine, Québec
  • 1756 French and Indian War - Marquis de Montcalm sets out from Fort Frontenac to attack British post of Fort Ontario across Lake Ontario. Kingston, Ontario
  • 1763 Pontiac’s allies defeated by the British at Bushy Run. Pennsylvania
  • 1812 War of 1812 - Shawnee chief Tecumseh defeats Americans at Brownstown, cutting General Hull’s supply line. Brownstown, Michigan
  • 1822 Imperial Trade Act forbids Lower Canada from imposing new duties without Upper Canada approval; regulates trade battle between Upper and Lower Canada. London, England
  • 1833 Steamship Royal William leaves Québec for Pictou to take on coal; en route across the Atlantic Québec, Québec
  • 1846 Oregon Treaty (Buchanan-Pakenham Treaty) proclaimed; establishes the 49th Parallel as the Boundary west from the Rocky Mountains; ratified July 17. Washington, DC
  • 1858 Frederick Gisbourne completes laying CyrusField’s First transatlantic telegraph cable from Ireland to Newfoundland; started July 7, 1858; the service ends on September 1, 1858 because the current is too weak, and the line will be relayed using a thicker and better shielded cable. Newfoundland
  • 1871 St. Boniface General Hospital is begun by Sister Ste. Thérèse of the Grey Nuns. St. Boniface, Manitoba
  • 1885 Thomas White appointed Minister of the Interior in the Macdonald government. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1889 Joseph Martin pledges himself to abolish the official use of the French language in Manitoba. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1906 St. Alban’s Anglican Church opened. Coleman, Alberta
  • 1913 US barnstormer John Bryant killed when he crashes his Curtiss seaplane; Canada’s First air fatality. Victoria, BC
  • 1914 Beverly is incorporated as a town. Beverly, Alberta
  • 1914 First World War - Canada joins the rest of the British Empire in the war on Germany; the day after the German invasion of Belgium. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1919 Mackenzie King elected Leader of the Liberal Party on the third ballot, succeeding interim leader Daniel McKenzie; gets 476 votes, to W.S. Fielding’s 438. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1940 Second World War - Montreal Mayor Camilien Houde arrested by RCMP for sedition due to his anti-conscription rhetoric; because of his fascist sympathies he will be interned at Camp Petawawa for the rest of the war under the War Measures Act. Montreal, Quebec
  • 1952 Alberta Election - Ernest Manning and Social Credit re-elected in Alberta.
  • 1960 Arthur Meighen dies in Toronto at age 86; Senator, Canada’s 9th Prime Minister, 1920-21 and 1926. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1961 NFL Chicago Bears beat the CFL Montreal Alouettes, 34-16, in a summer exhibition game. Montréal, Québec
  • 1965 City of Laval created by Québec provincial legislation. Laval, Québec
  • 1966 Sport - Elaine Tanner and members of the womens freestyle relay team win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica. The new Canadian Maple Leaf flag is raised for the first time in history at an international sporting event. Kingston, Jamaica
  • 1967 Schizophrenic Victor Hoffman kills nine people near Shell Lake, Alberta.
  • 1967 Kinnaird incorporated as a Town. Kinnaird, BC
  • 1969 Energy, Mines, and Resources completes the Canadian topographical map series; 918 maps of Canada on a scale of four miles to the inch. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1980 Montreal Expos Dick Williams wins his 1,000th career game as a manager. Montréal, Québec
  • 1984 Toronto Blue Jays Cliff Johnson sets a major-league baseball record by hitting the 19th pinch-hit home run in his career, as he leads the Jays to a 4-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1986 Canada adopts sanctions against South Africa for its apartheid policies. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1989 Rock singer Rod Stewart headlines a Terry Fox benefit concert in Boston; Fox’s mother flew from Vancouver, BC to attend the sold-out show, which raised about $175,000 for the American Cancer Society. Boston, Massachusetts
  • 1995 Start of three-day, all-Canadian Big Sky Concert in honor of the 325th anniversary of the Hudson’s Bay Company; 75,000 people attend, and see 33 acts, including Bryan Adams, Tom Cochrane, Anne Murray and Céline Dion; the event raises about $1 million for the HBC’s Adventurer’s Foundation for Youth. High River, Alberta
  • 1999 Bell Canada announces it will acquire the remaining 35% stake in BCE Mobile Communications Inc. that it does not already own. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1999 Interlake Agro joins Agricore.
  • 2003 Nova Scotia Election - John Hamm’s Conservatives are re-elected to a minority government. Nova Scotia
  • 2004 Former US President Bill Clinton signs his autobiography My Life at a Toronto bookstore and draws huge lineups. Toronto, Ontario
  • 2005 CN Rail freight trail derails about 30 km north of Squamish, sending 9 cars plunging into the Cheakamus River canyon and causing a toxic spill; one car contained about 51,000 liters of highly corrosive sodium hydroxide. Squamish, BC