Today’s Features;

  • 1775 George Washington asks Canadians to Join the American War of Independence.
  • 1864 Fathers of Confederation get their picture taken outside Government House during the Charlottetown Conference.
  • 1893 Mackenzie King Makes the First Entry in his Diary.
  • 1952 First Canadian TV begins as Radio-Canada’s CBFT-TV in Montréal starts regular broadcasting.

List of Facts for September 6

  • 1760 French and Indian War - Lord Amherst reaches Montréal, defended by just 2,000 French troops. Montréal, Québec
  • 1775 American Revolutionary War - Invading Army of the Continental Congress attacks Fort St. John. St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec
  • 1775 American Revolutionary War - George Washington issues his Address to the Inhabitants of Canada asking for their support in the American war of independence; calls for volunteers to accompany Benedict Arnold and his Virginia and Pennsylvania militia in the invasion of Québec. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 1799 Hudson’s Bay Company begins building Greenwich House at Lac la Biche. Lac La Biche, Alberta
  • 1806 Mississauga nation cedes aboriginal title to 34,400 hectares in Peel and Halton Counties to the Crown; 85,000 acres. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1811 David Thompson and his voyageurs of the North West Company mount today’s Tin-Cup Rapids at the confluence of the Kootenay River and Columbia River. BC
  • 1839 Charles Poulett Thomson, Lord Sydenham appointed Governor-in-Chief of Lower Canada; serves from October 19, 1839 to February 10, 1841. Québec
  • 1864 Confederation - Charlottetown Conference - The first order of business is the taking of the official photograph of the Fathers of Confederation at Government House; a final presentation is made by the Canadians, followed by luncheon at the residence of Attorney General Edward Palmer, and a supper and ball at Government House. Charlottetown, PEI
  • 1897 Government signs Crow’s Nest Pass Agreement with Canadian Pacific Railway; CPR gets $3.3 million subsidy to extend its lines into the mining and smelting areas of southern BC in return for perpetual reduction in eastbound freight rates on grain and flour, and westbound rates on ‘settlers’ effects’. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1897 Founding of the Regina Roughrider football club; today’s CFL Saskatchewan Roughriders. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1897 Founding of the town of Wawa; gold discovered that June. Wawa, Ontario
  • 1909 North Pole - Word received at the New York Explorers Club of Admiral Peary’s claim to have reached the North Pole 5 months earlier; it is now clear he drifted far to the east and never made it near the Pole. New York, New York
  • 1910 Saskatchewan Roughrider Football Club formed; First called the Regina Roughrider Football Club; today’s CFL Saskatchewan Roughriders. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1913 Football - Hamilton Alerts apply for ORFU reinstatement under a new name, the Hamilton Rowing Club; forerunner of CFL Hamilton Tiger Cats. Hamilton, Ontario
  • 1916 Henri Menier dies; the Belgian chocolate baron is proprietor of Anticosti Island. Port Menier, Québec
  • 1919 Unveiling of the George-Étienne Cartier monument in Parc LaFontaine on the eastern side of Mount Royal. Montreal, Quebec
  • 1920 Erection of a statue of George-Étienne Cartier in the upper town of Québec. Québec, Québec
  • 1925 Montreal-born actress Norma Shearer plays in MGM’s ‘Pretty Ladies’ with ZaSu Pitts, Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy. Hollywood, California
  • 1936 British aviatrix Beryl Markham becomes the First person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west, taking off in England and crash-landing in Nova Scotia twenty-one hours later. Raised in Kenya, and brought up to be a horse trainer and breeder, she took up aviation, and from 1931 to 1936 worked as bush pilot, flying to the remote corners of the Sudan, Kenya and Rhodesia. In 1942 she published her memoir, West with the Night. Nova Scotia
  • 1937 Oliver airstrip completed. Oliver, BC
  • 1939 James Ralston replaces Charles Dunning, who resigned due to ill health, as Minister of Finance; serves for 10 months, until July 4, 1940, when he is replaced by James Ilsley. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1941 Second World War - HMCS Morden is commissioned. Esquimalt, BC
  • 1945 Espionage - Fred Rose arrested for communicating official secrets to the USSR; will be sentenced to 6 years in penitentiary for espionage; Communist union organizer, politician, elected MP for Montréal-Cartier in a 1943 by-election. Montréal, Québec
  • 1945 Opening of 1st session of 20th Parliament; until December 18, 1945. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1950 Korean War - Total of 8,691 enlist to date in Canadian Army Special Force for service in Korea. Korea
  • 1952 Media - Canadian television broadcasting begins at 4 p.m. on this day as CBFT-TV in Montréal (part of CBC’s French network Radio-Canada) goes on the air with the movie Aladdin and His Lamp, followed by a cartoon, then a broadcast of Jean Cocteau’s drama Oedipus Rex, a news segment and a bilingual variety show; Canada’s first permanent television station; Toronto gets the picture two days later on CBC Archives)
  • 1953 Korean War - Thirty Canadians freed in final exchange of POWs with the North Korean Communists. Korea
  • 1956 Hugo Winterhalter & Eddie Heywood’s hit single Canadian Sunset reaches #1 on the Billboard big band chart; no Canadian content except the name. New York, New York
  • 1957 Louis St. Laurent retires as leader of Liberal Party of Canada after defeat by John Diefenbaker; Prime Minister since 1948. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1957 Paul Anka’s hit single Diana reaches #1 on the Billboard pop chart. New York, New York
  • 1960 Jean-Paul Desbiens publishes ‘Les Insolences du Frère Untel’ (‘The Insolences of Brother Anonymous’), criticizing the Quebec educational system; member of the Marist order of brothers, was removed to Europe by his superiors; 1964 joined the Québec Ministry of Education; 1970 appointed chief editorial writer at La Presse; 1972 appointed a school principal; one of the chief authors of Québec’s Quiet Revolution. Montreal, Quebec
  • 1961 First Canada Council medals awarded to Lionel Groulx, Marius Barbeau, Brooke Claxton (awarded posthumously, as first chairman of Canada Council), Vincent Massey, Wilfrid Pelletier, Healey Willan, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, E. J. Pratt and Ethel Wilson. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1963 Taxation - Government gives 3 year tax holiday to attract new industries to 35 areas of high unemployment in Canada. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1963 Official opening of La Place des Arts concert hall complex. Montréal, Québec
  • 1964 US President Lyndon Johnson gives BC Premier W. A. C. Bennett a cheque for $273,291,661.25 in payment for the Columbia River Power Agreement. Washington, DC
  • 1964 Billy Sherring dies at age 87; 1899 won the Hamilton Herald road race; 1900 second in the Boston Marathon; 1906 won Canada’s First gold medal in the Olympic marathon, a distance of 26 miles 385 yards from Marathon to Athens, competing as a member of the St. Patrick’s Athletic Club of Hamilton; this Olympics now unrecognized). Hamilton, Ontario
  • 1964 Riot - Police read Riot Act at Grand Bend to mobs of young people celebrating Labour Day; over 120 people charged. Grand Bend, Ontario
  • 1968 Hugh Shearer, Prime Minister of Jamaica, starts three-day visit to Canada. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1972 Canada-USSR Summit Series - Team Canada 4 - USSR 4 in the Game 3 of the Summit Series; Bobby Hull watches in the stands - left off the Team Canada roster of NHLers because he had jumped to the Winnipeg Jets of the new World Hockey Association. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1977 Québec Superior Court denies Charter of the French Language rule that court documents be in French only; British North America Act allows both English and French to be used in Québec courts. Québec
  • 1977 Canadian Wheat Board sells Vietnam 120,000 metric tonnes of wheat. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1977 Leslie MacFarlane dies at age 74; wrote the First 20 books of the Hardy Boys adventure series for boys; was paid a pittance for these bestsellers. Whitby, Ontario
  • 1977 Metric Conversion - Provincial governments convert highway signs to metric; all areas of Canada except Québec and Nova Scotia.
  • 1978 Sam Pollock resigns as General Manager of the Montréal Canadiens hockey club. Montréal, Québec
  • 1985 Mel Hurtig launches The Canadian Encyclopedia. Edmonton, Alberta
  • 1987 Football - Saskatchewan Roughriders kicker Dave Ridgway kicks a CFL-record 60-yard field goal. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1987 SaskWest Television Inc. became the First television company In Canada to put two signals on air simultaneously in two different cities (STV-Regina and STV-Saskatoon). Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1989 Toronto rocker Neil Young wins MTV’s Best Video Award with ‘This Note’s For You’ which the channel initially refused to air because it mocked commercials. Los Angeles, California
  • 1990 Ontario Election - Bob Rae wins majority in provincial election for the NDP; takes 74 of 130 seats to 26 for David Peterson’s Liberals, 20 for Mike Harris’ PCs; wins with only 37.6% of the popular vote; says, ‘Maybe a summer election wasn’t a bad idea after all’; Peterson, threatened by scandal, called the election only three years into his term; Rae First New Democratic Party Premier of Ontario.
  • 1990 Mercier Bridge reopened for traffic; blockaded by Kahnawake Mohawks on July 11, 1990 in sympathy with the Kahnesetake Iroquois at Oka. Kahnawake, Quebec
  • 1991 Ontario Premier Bob Rae goes back on election promise and abandons plans for $1.4 billion government-run auto insurance scheme; would put 5,600 private insurers out of work. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1991 Pope & Talbot and CanPar incorporate a company to operate a shortline railway in and around Grand Forks, BC; named the Grand Forks Railway in August, 1992. Victoria, BC
  • 1994 Georges Cartier dies; founder of Québec’s Bibliothèque Nationale. Québec, Québec
  • 1995 Aboriginal - Kettle and Stony Point protester Dudley George killed while part of a group occupying Ipperwash Provincial Park; first Canadian Aboriginal in modern times killed in a land dispute. On July 23, 1996. Ontario Provincial Police officer Kenneth Deane will be charged with criminal negligence causing death in the shooting. Ipperwash, Ontario
  • 1995 Energy - Federal government says it will sell off most of its remaining holdings in Petro-Canada. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1996 Northwest Territories residents vote to keep that name for the western part of territory after the eastern part becomes the territory of Nunavut in 1999. NWT
  • 1996 Consumers Distributing goes out of business; virtually bankrupt. Montréal, Québec
  • 1997 Unseeded Montréal-born Greg Rusedski wins the US Open tennis semifinal on his 24th birthday; wearing a shirt adorned with a black ribbon for Princess Diana, he watched her funeral before playing, then, battling a throat infection, beat Jonas Bjorkman 6-1, 3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 to go against the winner of the Michael Chang-Patrick Rafter semifinal; in the previous round he had beaten former top 10 and 1996 Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek in straight sets; playing for Britain since he moved there in 1994 and became a British subject in 1995, he is the first British men’s finalist in 61 years. New York, New York
  • 1998 Disaster - Divers working off Peggy’s Cove find the flight data recorder from Swissair Flight 111 which had crashed September 2, 1998 killing all 229 people on board; unfortunately, the recorder had stopped working several minutes before the crash. Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia