One entry for every day of the year
Something happened on every date on the calendar. A battle, a birth, a disaster, a deal signed at midnight, a flag raised at noon. Each entry below is built to the same standard as the stories: checked against reputable sources, written plainly, and linked to the full story where one exists.
Today
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January 5 · 1998
Freezing rain starts falling across eastern Ontario and southern Quebec and does not stop for days. By the time it ends, millions are without power in deep cold, transmission towers have folded under the ice, and the Canadian Armed Forces mounts its largest peacetime deployment to that date.
January 14 · 1943
Allied leaders meet at the Citadelle in Quebec City to plan the next phase of the Second World War, including the invasion of Normandy. A second Quebec Conference follows in September 1944.
February 15 · 1965
After months of parliamentary combat known as the Great Flag Debate, the new national flag is raised on Parliament Hill at noon. George Stanley's design, refined after a suggestion from soldier and artist George Bist, replaces the Canadian Red Ensign.
February 20 · 1959
Prime Minister John Diefenbaker announces the end of the Avro Arrow interceptor program and its Orenda Iroquois engines. Some 14,000 people lose their jobs almost at once, and the completed aircraft are ordered cut apart.
March 29 · 1867
Queen Victoria gives royal assent to the British North America Act, the law that will unite Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into the Dominion of Canada on July 1.
April 1 · 1999
Nunavut officially becomes Canada's third territory, carved from the Northwest Territories under the largest Indigenous land claim settlement in Canadian history. Paul Okalik becomes its first premier.
April 9 · 1917
All four divisions of the Canadian Corps attack together for the first time, behind a creeping barrage planned for months. The ridge is taken in four days at a cost of 3,598 Canadian lives.
April 12 · 1980
In St. John's, Terry Fox dips his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean and fills a jar with seawater, planning to pour it into the Pacific. The Marathon of Hope begins.
May 12 · 1870
The Manitoba Act receives royal assent, creating Canada's fifth province out of the Red River Resistance led by Louis Riel and the Métis provisional government, which negotiated its entry into Confederation.
June 21 · 1919
During the Winnipeg General Strike, mounted police charge a crowd of strikers and supporters on Main Street. Two men die, dozens are injured, and the strike collapses days later.
June 23 · 1985
A bomb destroys Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people aboard, most of them Canadians. It remains the deadliest mass murder in Canadian history.
July 1 · 1867
The Dominion of Canada comes into being, uniting Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland both declined to join. John A. Macdonald becomes the first prime minister.
July 2 · 1992
Fisheries minister John Crosbie announces a ban on northern cod fishing, putting some 30,000 people out of work in the largest layoff in Canadian history and changing outport Newfoundland forever.
August 19 · 1942
Nearly 5,000 Canadians land at Dieppe, France. Within nine hours, 916 are dead and almost 1,900 are prisoners. Canadians still argue, with reason on both sides, about what the raid taught and what it cost.
August 27 · 1776
Shanawdithit, whose drawings and accounts are among the most important records of Beothuk life and history, was born in this period. She died in St. John's in 1829, the last known member of her people.
September 1 · 1980
Forced to stop after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres when cancer returns, Terry Fox tells reporters he will finish his run after he gets better. He never gets the chance, and Canada has been finishing it for him ever since.
September 11 · 2001
Thirty eight planes are diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, bringing 6,579 stranded passengers to a town of not quite 10,000. For five days, Gander feeds, houses, and befriends them all.
September 13 · 1759
British and French forces meet outside Quebec City in a battle that lasts well under an hour. Generals Wolfe and Montcalm are both mortally wounded, and Quebec falls five days later.
September 28 · 1972
Paul Henderson scores the winning goal in Game 8 of the Summit Series in Moscow, giving Canada the series over the Soviet Union. Foster Hewitt's call becomes part of the country's memory.
September 30 · 2021
Canada marks the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, honouring the children who never returned home from residential schools, the survivors, and their families and communities.
October 5 · 1755
British authorities begin loading Acadian families onto ships at Grand Pré and other settlements, deporting some 11,500 people from Acadie over the years that follow in what Acadians remember as Le Grand Dérangement.
October 14 · 1970
Days after the kidnappings of James Cross and Pierre Laporte, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau tells a reporter, when asked how far he will go, to just watch him. The War Measures Act is invoked two days later.
October 18 · 1929
The Privy Council in London rules that women are qualified persons under Canadian law, eligible for appointment to the Senate, overturning the Supreme Court of Canada in the Persons Case brought by the Famous Five.
November 7 · 1885
Donald Smith drives the last spike at Craigellachie, British Columbia, completing the Canadian Pacific Railway. The famous photograph does not show the thousands of Chinese workers whose labour made the line possible.
November 11 · 1918
At 11 in the morning on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns fall silent. Some 61,000 Canadians were killed in the First World War. Canada marks the day each year as Remembrance Day.
December 6 · 1917
The munitions ship Mont Blanc collides with the Imo in Halifax Harbour and explodes, killing 1,782 people in the largest human made explosion before the atomic age. Train dispatcher Vincent Coleman dies at his key warning an incoming train.
The calendar is being built a week at a time across its first year, to the same two source standard as the stories. Months fill in as their entries are completed and checked.