Highlights of the day

  • 1781 Canada’s First Christmas Tree
  • 1814 Treaty of Ghent Ends the War of 1812; news reaches North America Feb. 1815.
  • 1866 BNA delegates adopt London Resolutions; choose name Dominion of Canada for new country.
  • 1906 Reginald Fessenden Makes World’s First Radio Broadcast

List of Facts for December 24

  • 1584 Legal - Basque whaler Joanes de Echaniz dictates his last will and testament at Carol’s Cove, near Red Bay; the oldest surviving will in Canadian history. Red Bay, Newfoundland
  • 1642 Paul Chomedy de Maisonneuve, Jeanne Mance and settlers spend first Christmas at Ville Marie praying to the Virgin Mary for deliverance from the rising waters of the St. Lawrence and La Petite Rivière that threaten to inundate their fort at Pointe à Callières. Maisonneuve builds a cross on the point, and promises to carry it to the top of Mount Royal if the flood subsides. It does and he performs the ceremony on January 6. Today, an illuminated cross marks the spot. Montreal, Quebec
  • 1642 Religion - Paul de Maisonneuve climbs Mount Royal and plants a cross on the summit. Montréal, Québec
  • 1781 Friedrich von Riedesel erects Canada’s First Christmas tree for the garrison in Fort Sorel. Sorel, Québec
  • 1783 Military - Loyalists troops stationed in Lower Canada are disbanded. Montreal, Quebec
  • 1814 War of 1812 - British and American diplomats sign the Treaty of Ghent, Belgium, ending the War of 1812; agree to return to the status quo from before the war. News of the Treaty will reach North America in February 1815.
  • 1819 Education - The Madras Central School opens on King Street in Saint John. Saint John, NB
  • 1854 Curling - John Neill and seven associates form New Brunswick’s First curling club, establishing their rink in Officers’ Square. Fredericton, NB
  • 1854 Skating - Opening of Montreal’s Victoria Skating Rink, located between Stanley and Drummond Streets just below St. Catherine Street. The rink had an ice surface of 10,000 square feet, which eventually became the standard for hockey rinks in North America. It had a long gallery for spectators all the way around the ice, and was lit by five thousand gas jets, set in globes of coloured glass. It hosted the first Stanley Cup finals in 1893, won by the AAA. The Rink was demolished in the 1920s.
  • 1866 Confederation - British North America delegates adopt the London Resolutions; choose name Dominion of Canada for new country; agreements made on the Intercolonial Railway, Imperial aid and religious school rights. London, England
  • 1875 Urban - Sherbrooke gets city charter. Sherbrooke, Québec
  • 1878 Christmas - Saint John “Daily Telegraph” reports that gaily coloured “sky rockets” are sent off from Hall’s bookstore in Saint John, and tinted lights are burning in the windows of many stores. Fredericton, NB
  • 1879 Weather - Temperature in Winnipeg drops to record -44.3 C (-47.8 degrees F). Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1888 Smelting - First smelter blown in at Copper Cliff, near Sudbury, Ontario. Copper Cliff, Ontario
  • 1894 Music - Founding of the Canadian Artistic Society, funded by a lottery, with the goal of opening a national conservatory of music; started operations in 1896, giving free courses and paying teachers $25 a month; forced to close in 1901 when the federal government banned lotteries. Montréal, Québec
  • 1902 Rail - D.C. Corbin incorporates the Spokane and Kootenai Railway Company in the State of Washington; with U.S. Senator George Turner, J.H. McGraw, Jacob Furth and C.S. Bihler. Seattle, Washington
  • 1906 Canadian physicist and inventor Reginald Fessenden makes the world’s first public radio broadcast and the first broadcast of music from his station near Boston on Christmas Eve; featuring his wife singing and Fessenden himself playing ‘O Holy Night’ on his violin to sailors on ships in the Atlantic and Caribbean; also sings carols, reads the Bible. Brant Rock, Massachusetts
  • 1910 Rail - K&S railway suspends operations. BC
  • 1912 Museum - First civic art gallery in Canada opens in Winnipeg. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  • 1920 W.C. Nichol commissioned as Lieutenant-governor of British Columbia. Victoria, BC
  • 1924 Religion - Illumination of the cross on Mount Royal; Paul de Maisonneuve had placed a cross on the mountain on this day in 1642. Montréal, Québec
  • 1925 Literature - A.A. Milne publishes first Winnie-the-Pooh book; the hero of the story was based on a pet bear named Winnipeg (Winnie for short) donated by a Canadian soldier to the London zoo during First World War. London, England
  • 1932 Depression - Quebec Minister of Public Works Joseph-Napoléon Francoeur announces a grant of one million dollars to create jobs in Montreal, conditional on matching grants from the federal government and the City of Montreal to participate in the grant. Quebec, Quebec
  • 1942 Second World War - Department of National Defence says there are now 681,615 volunteers and conscripts in the Canadian forces. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1944 Second World War - Royal Canadian Navy Bangor Class minesweeper HMCS Clayoquot sinks off Halifax; torpedoed by German submarine U-806 a day earlier while taking station on convoy XB.139, by the Halifax lightship in the approaches to Halifax harbour; eight of her crew are lost. Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • 1948 External Affairs - Canada formally recognizes the state of Israel. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1950 Music - Pianist Glenn Gould makes his CBC broadcast debut on ‘Sunday Morning Recital’; comes to prefer the microphone to the concert stage, and in 1964 gives up performing live. Toronto, Ontario
  • 1950 Music - Quebec ballad singer Félix Leclerc appears at the théâtre ABC in Paris, with the Compagnons de la chanson; booked to sing for three weeks, Leclerc is kept on for 14 months at the cabaret de Canetti Aux trois baudets, followed by two years touring in France, Europe and the Middle East. Paris, France
  • 1973 Mining - Founding of the Coal Association of Canada, a national body representing the coal industry. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1974 Music - Joni Mitchell goes Christmas caroling with her neighbours James Taylor, Carly Simon and Linda Ronstadt. Hollywood, California
  • 1976 Christmas - CBC Radio reports that an unidentified flying object entered Alberta airspace just before midnight. Alberta
  • 1976 Christmas - CBC Radio reports that an unidentified flying object entered Saskatchewan airspace just before midnight. Saskatchewan
  • 1989 Trade - House of Commons approves North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after bitter two-week debate and closure. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 1990 Baseball - National League Montréal Expos trade Tim Raines to Chicago White Sox for Ivan Calderon & Barry Jones. Montreal, Quebec
  • 1991 Mary Kinnear dies at age 93; appointed to the Senate of Canada in 1967; one of Canada’s First female senators. Port Colborne, Ontario
  • 1997 Media - Pierre Péladeau dies after suffering a heart attack December 2, 1991; publisher, printer, founding Chairman of media giant Québécor; born at Outremont, Québec April 11, 1925; son of a lumber merchant who died leaving the family in debt; graduate of l’Université de Montréal; 1950 earned law degree at McGill University and started several entertainment weeklies and French-language copies of US tabloids; 1964 founded Le Journal de Montréal, today Canada’s second largest circulating newspaper in the country; founded Québécor chain, which owns newspapers, magazines, printing plants, book publishers and film development companies; 1985 acquired Philadelphia newspaper; 1987 acquired Donohue Inc. forest products company to manufacture its own newsprint and coated paper; a director of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec; 1988 first Chancellor of l’Université St-Anne in Nova Scotia; company will be taken over by his son Pierre Karl Péladeau, who acquired the TQS TV network and Sun Media Corporation and now accounts for nearly 22% of total newspaper circulation in Canada. Montréal, Québec
  • 2003 Canada’s Department of Agriculture places a partial ban on imported beef from the US, due to a single case of mad cow disease (BSE) in a Canadian-born Holstein cow, slaughtered in Washington state on December 9, 2003. Ottawa, Ontario
  • 2008 Gordon Fairweather dies; born in 1923; politician, Member of Parliament for Fundy Royal, New Brunswick (1962–1977)