Turning points, wars, the fight for rights, and the moments that shaped daily life.
From the first Europeans to the newest territory.
Norse explorers from Greenland built a small settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. It is the oldest known European site in the Americas and did not last long. Indigenous peoples had lived in the land for thousands of years before.
John Cabot reached the east coast for England in 1497. Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence for France from 1534. The name Canada probably comes from kanata, an Iroquoian word for village.
Samuel de Champlain founded Québec. French settlers farmed along the St. Lawrence and traded furs with First Nations. New France passed to Britain in 1763.
On 1 July, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick united as the Dominion of Canada. The other provinces and territories joined later, the last province being Newfoundland in 1949.
Canada gained the power to change its own Constitution without the British Parliament. The Constitution Act, 1982 added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Nunavut was created from the eastern part of the Northwest Territories, after the largest land claim agreement in Canadian history. Most of its people are Inuit.
Battles that decided who would govern Canada and how the world saw it.
British forces under General Wolfe defeated the French under the Marquis de Montcalm outside Québec City. Both generals were killed. The battle led to the end of French rule in Canada.
The United States invaded British North America. British soldiers, Canadian volunteers and First Nations allies such as Tecumseh defended it. The war ended without either side gaining land, and Canada stayed separate from the US.
In the First World War all four Canadian divisions attacked together for the first time and captured the ridge in France. About 3,600 Canadians died. Many see it as a moment when Canada began to feel like a nation.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, Canadian soldiers landed on Juno Beach in Normandy as part of the Allied invasion of France. More than one million Canadians served in the Second World War.
After the Suez Crisis, Lester B. Pearson proposed the first large United Nations peacekeeping force. Since then Canadian soldiers have served in many UN missions around the world.
How freedom, self-government and the vote reached more people.
Upper Canada, led by John Graves Simcoe, passed the first law in the British Empire to limit slavery. Slavery ended across the empire in 1834. Later, many enslaved people escaped from the US to Canada by the Underground Railroad.
Nova Scotia became the first British colony where the government had to keep the support of the elected assembly. The Province of Canada followed the same year, under leaders Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine and Robert Baldwin.
Manitoba was the first province to let women vote, in 1916. Most women won the federal vote in 1918. Quebec gave women the provincial vote in 1940.
Status Indians gained the right to vote in federal elections without giving up their status. Before 1960, most could not vote unless they gave it up.
The Charter protects freedoms such as religion, expression and assembly, the right to vote, and equality rights. Courts can strike down laws that break it.
For over a century many Indigenous children were sent to residential schools, where many suffered abuse. The government apologised in 2008, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission published its report in 2015.
Not only battles: railways, broadcasting, world fairs and a policy of welcome.
The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven at Craigellachie, British Columbia. The railway kept the promise to British Columbia when it joined Confederation and opened the West to settlers. Thousands of Chinese workers helped build it, many in great danger.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was created to give Canadians their own national radio service in English and French. Television followed in 1952.
For Canada’s 100th birthday, Montréal hosted a world fair. About 50 million visits were made over six months, and it showed a modern, confident Canada to the world.
Canada made multiculturalism an official federal policy in 1971, and a law in 1988. It recognises that people of every background can keep their culture while taking part fully in Canadian life.