Highlights of the day

  • 1913 Mack Sennett gives Charlie Chaplin 1st film job at Keystone Pictures; $150 a week.
  • 1991 Federal governement signs Nunavut land deal with Inuit of Eastern Arctic; to create 3rd territory called Nunavut.

List of Facts for December 16

  • 1824 Fur Trade - Hudson’s Bay Company Chief Trader James McMillan arrives at the Fraser River near Derby; later the site of the HBC’s First Fort Langley. Langley, BC
  • 1837 Lower Canada Rebellion - John Colborne orders 150 captured Patriotes released at St-Benoit, but puts the village to the torch; orders Colonel John Maitland to proceed to St-Scholastique and Ste-Therèse. St-Benoît, Quebec
  • 1884 North West Rebellion - Louis Riel helps the Métis of St. Laurent draw up a petition on Métis grievances, which is endorsed by a committee of French and English representatives in the Electoral District of Lorne on December 18, 1884. The list of demands is sent to the Secretary of State in Ottawa. It will be ignored. St. Laurent, Saskatchewan
  • 1887 Mining - British Columbia grants coal mining Licence Number 25 to F. W. Aylmer, Number 26 to William Fernie, Number 27 to C. S. Lewis, and Number 28 to Peter Creake Fernie. Victoria, BC
  • 1891 Politics - Honoré Mercier dismissed as Premier of Québec by Lieutenant-Governor Auguste-Réal Angers; after a federal Senate inquiry and provincial Royal Commission found he awarded subsidies for the Baie des Chaleurs Railway in return for Liberal party funds. In 1892, he is indicted for corruption, but is acquitted November 4, 1892. Québec, Québec
  • 1892 Québec Election - Louis Taillon reelected Conservative Premier of Québec. Québec
  • 1895 Military - Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps organized to interest young men in serving in a planned Canadian Navy. Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1895 Real Estate - French chocolate baron Henri Menier acquires Anticosti Island in the St. Lawrence for $125,000; builds a chateau and imports a herd of deer for hunting; previous attempts at colonization had failed. In 1926, after Menier’s death, his brother Gaston sells the island to the American Wayagamack Pulp and Paper company for $6 million; later sold to Consolidated Bathurst, who in 1974 sold it to the Quebec government for $24 million. Port Menier, Québec
  • 1896 Rail - State of Washington declares Columbia and Red Mountain Railway complete. BC
  • 1897 Forestry - Captain M.D. McCall and John Sucksmith organize the Wardner Saw and Planing Mills Company. Wardner, BC
  • 1901 Urban - Dawson City incorporated. Dawson City, Yukon
  • 1901 Communications - Guglielmo Marconi is officially notified by the Anglo-American Telegraph Company that it will take legal action against him unless he immediately ceases his wireless experiments and removes his equipment from Newfoundland; Anglo-American had a fifty-year monopoly on electrical communications in Newfoundland, that began in 1858, and is determined to hinder radio telegraphy, which it knows is a serious threat to its transatlantic electric telegraph business operated by submarine cables; Marconi soon decides to move his base of operations to Cape Breton Island, and is welcomed there on December 26, 1905 with open arms. St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • 1905 Mining - Center Star’s magazine explodes, killing powderman John Ingram dead; the blast does major major damage to Rossland, BC.
  • 1910 Farming - Group of 800 farmers marches on Ottawa, to demand US reciprocity and more preference for British goods. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1912 Voting - First resolution in favour of women’s suffrage is introduced into the Saskatchewan Legislature. Regina, Saskatchewan
  • 1913 Cinema - Canadian born silent film director Mack Sennett hires Charlie Chaplin at his Keystone Pictures for $150 a week; start of film career for the English music hall performer. New York, New York
  • 1922 Hockey - Montréal Canadiens Aurèle Joliat scores both goals in his NHL debut, but his team loses to the Toronto Maple Leafs 7-2. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1933 Police - Popular demonstration in Princeton convinces the BC government to withdraw the most confrontational members of the Provincial Police and suppress the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Princeton, BC
  • 1941 Second World War - HMCS Calgary is commissioned for the Royal Canadian Navy; first ship to be given the name. Esquimalt, BC
  • 1948 Music - Walter Kaufmann conducts the First performance of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in the Winnipeg Auditorium; 1958 succeeded by Victor Feldbrill; 1968 the MSO moves to the Manitoba Centennial Concert Hall with George Cleve conducting; official orchestra of the Manitoba Opera Association and Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1948 Military - Founding of RCAF Survival Training School at Fort Nelson, BC and Cambridge Bay, NWT
  • 1949 Constitution - British Parliament amends the British North America Act; Canadian Parliament can now amend the Constitution in federal matters only. London, England
  • 1950 Hockey - Montréal Canadiens rookies Jean Béliveau and Bernie Geoffrion play their First NHL game, helping the Canadiens tie the Rangers 1-1; Boom Boom scores his First career goal. Montréal, Québec
  • 1951 Vancouver actor Raymond Burr (later of Perry Mason and Ironside fame) plays Sgt. Joe Friday’s boss in an NBC-TV pilot of the police drama Dragnet. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1953 Government - Parliament passes Bill to establish Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1964 Symbols - Royal Assent given to The Flag Act, a bill creating the new Flag of Canada, after much controversy. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1971 Smelting - Alcan’s Arvida smelter produces its 10 millionth ingot of aluminum. Saguenay, Québec
  • 1976 Politics - Réal Caouette dies; politician, leader of the Social Credit Party; born at Amos, Québec September 26, 1917. Caouette joined the Socreds in 1939; 1946 elected MP in a by-election as a member of the Union des électeurs; 1961 allied his Ralliement des Créditistes with the national Social Credit Party; ran for leadership against Robert Thompson; 1962 won 26 of the 30 Social Credit seats, holding the balance of power in the John Diefenbaker minority government; 1963 broke with Thompson as leader of his own Ralliement des créditistes with 12 Québec MPs; 1971 reunited the party as national leader; 1976 retired due to ill health; André Fortin became leader. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1976 Health - Ottawa and the provincial governments halt vaccination programs against swine flu after reports of paralysis apparently linked to the vaccine; US researchers found possible links with a paralytic condition known as Guillain-Barre syndrome.
  • 1977 Shipping - CP cancels Kootenay Water Transport Company tug contract and the Melinda Jane retires from barge service on Kootenay Lake, BC.
  • 1984 Diving - Olympic champion diver Sylvie Bernier announces her retirement from the sport. Montréal, Québec
  • 1986 Politics - Independent MP Robert Toupin joins the New Democratic Party, giving them their First Member of Parliament from Québec. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1990 Constitution - Brian Mulroney appoints MP Jim Edwards, Senator Gérald Beaudoin to head joint Committee on Constitutional Reform; to devise new amending formula. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1991 Medicine - Bernard Bradley performs Canada’s First transplant of fetal tissue to battle effects of Parkinson’s disease; Victoria General Hospital procedure stimulates dopamine. Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1991 Media - Conrad Black’s Hollinger Inc. purchases 15% of Australia’s John Fairfax Group Ltd for $1.32 billion; largest single shareholder. Sydney, Australia
  • 1991 Politics - Ged Baldwin dies at age 84; elected MP for Peace River in 1958; served for over 20 years; the prime mover behind Canada’s access to information legislation. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1991 Aboriginal - Tom Siddon signs Nunavut land deal with Inuit of Eastern Arctic after 15 years of negotiation, Ottawa agrees to create a third territory in the North called Nunavut; $1.15 billion in grants, title to 250,000 sq km; plebiscite set for April 1992. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1992 Bridge - Ottawa, New Brunswick and PEI sign deal to build 13 km $800 million bridge to mainland; Ottawa to supply $60 million for roads and redevelop Borden, Cape Tormentine; the Confederation Bridge does not yet have a name. One suggestion made: Span of Green Cables. Charlottetown, PEI
  • 1994 Sovereignty - Bloc québécois and Parti québécois organizations join forces to fight in the referendum campaign. Québec
  • 1994 Rail - Departure of last direct VIA Rail train between Montréal, Québec and Halifax. Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1996 Politics - Jean Chrétien apologizes for lying about the GST, or about giving Canadians the impression during the 1993 election campaign that his government would eliminate the Goods and Services Tax. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1997 Aviation – Air Canada Flight 646, a CRJ-200 registered C-FSKI, crashes in a failed go-around at Fredericton after hitting trees. All on-board miraculously survive. Fredericton, New Brunswick
  • 2002 Environment - Canada ratifies the Kyoto Protocol in the Kyoto Accord, the 1997 treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 2003 Politics - Robert Stanfield dies at 89; leader of the federal Progressive Conservatives from 1967-76. Ottawa, Ontario