| Year | Date | Event | Ref. |
| 1805 | 1 August | The treaty of the Toronto Purchase is made for the lands of present-day Toronto north to Lake Simcoe between the Crown and the Mississauga. It was found that the original 1787 agreement only provided a land deed and no description of the lands involved. The treaty would be disputed and settled in 2010. | - |
| 1811 | | Settlement began of the Red River Colony. 300,000 square kilometres in size; 5 times that of Scotland. Founded by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk via a land grant from the Hudson's Bay Company, of which he was part-owner. The territory later became part of Manitoba and the Missouri Territory, with the location of colony's main centre becoming the site of Winnipeg. | |
| 1812-1821 | | Pemmican War, the last outburst of long-standing friction between the HBC and rival fur trading companies. The Red River Colony was the scene of a series of violent encounters, blockades, sieges, attacks and kidnappings. The war includes the NWC capture and partial destruction of Fort Douglas and Fort Gibraltar and the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816. | |
| 1813 | 27 April | Battle of York. A U.S. military force attacks the garrison at York, Upper Canada, the capital of Upper Canada. The British and Canadian defenders are defeated. As they retreat, they blow up their magazine and kill hundreds of U.S. soldiers. Surviving U.S. soldiers retaliate by looting and burning down the town. | - |
| 1813 | 21–22 June | During the War of 1812, Laura Secord overhers U.S. officers planning a surprise attack on a British force and walks 30 kms to warn them. The British force successfully repels the U.S. invaders at the Battle of Beaver Dams on 24 June. War ends with Canada still independent from the U.S. | |
| 1818 | 20 October | The London Convention is signed. It sets the boundary between British North America and the U.S., running at the 49th parallel from the Northwest Angle in Minnesota, east of Manitoba, west to the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains, and establishing joint control of the Oregon Country. | |
| 1821 | | Merger of Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company ending the Pemmican War of 1812-1821. As part of the merger, the monopoly of HBC is extended north to the Arctic Ocean and west to the Pacific Ocean. | |
| 1823-1825 | | Robert Wilmot-Horton secures two parliamentary grants to fund an experiment where poor Irish families settled in Canada. The plans are dropped after Wilmot-Horton leaves the Colonial Office in 1827. | |
| 1829 | 6 June | Shanawdithit, the last known full-blooded member of the Beothuks of Newfoundland, dies at the age of 29. | |
| 1837 | | Rebellions of 1837–1838 break out in both Upper and Lower Canada, inspired by republican ideals, against the domination by the Château Clique and the Family Compact, corruption-riddled combinations of large business interests and public officials. The rebellions are led by William Lyon Mackenzie and Louis Joseph Papineau. Some of the captured are hanged; a hundred captured Canadian rebels and U.S. sympathizers are sentenced to life in Australian prison colonies. The rebellions inspire the Durham Report and subsequent reforms. | |
| 1837-1838 | | Patriot War. Members of the Hunters' Lodges make armed incursions into the Canadas. The incursions are met by British regulars and Canadian militia units. Almost a hundred U.S. invaders and 58 Patriot fighters from Lower Canada are transported to Australian prison colonies. | - |
| 1841 | 10 February | Under the terms of the Act of Union 1840, the British colonies of Lower Canada and Upper Canada are merged into the single Province of Canada. Representation by population, to give fairness between former Upper and Lower Canada, is enshrined. | |
| 1846 | 15 June | The Oregon boundary dispute is settled with the signing of the Oregon Treaty, extending the boundary between British North America and the United States along the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Juan de Fuca Strait, and defining the maritime boundary to the Pacific Ocean. | |
| 1850 | 7 September, 9 September | The Robinson Treaties are signed between Ojibwa leaders and the British Crown, surrendering the northern shores of Lake Superior and Lake Huron for £2,160 and an annual payment of £600. | |
| 1860s | | The outbreak of the U.S. Civil War caused issues in Canada. The fear of the large armies encouraged moves towards Confederation as a defence strategy; the activities of Confederate spies in Canada and other issues caused problems with the U.S. government. The end of slavery in the United States in 1865 ended the operation of the Underground Railroad, which had helped 30,00 to 40,000 blacks escape to freedom in Canada. | - |
| 1862 | 18 March | 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic starts with the first reported case of smallpox in Victoria, BC. Smallpox spreads amongst Indigenous populations, and kills an estimated 20,000, two-thirds of the Indigenous population. | |
| 1864 | 1 9 September | The Charlottetown Conference, the first of several meetings to discuss a Maritime Union and Canadian Confederation, is held in Charlottetown. | |
| 1864 | 1 June 29 | The Beloeil train disaster - a Grand Trunk Railway train carrying hundreds of recently arrived immigrants from Montreal to Quebec City did not stop at an opened swing bridge over the Richelieu River, at the present-day town of Beloeil, Quebec. 99 killed and more than 100 injured. The worst railway accident in Canadian history. | |
| 1866-1871 | | Fenian raids into New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba caused more than a hundred Canadian deaths. | |
| 1867 | 1 July | Confederation -- The British North America Act, 1867, divides the Province of Canada into Ontario and Quebec and joins them with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia into the new confederated state of Canada. | |
| 1869–1870 | 11 October – 12 May | A group of Métis led by Louis Riel mount the Red River Rebellion against Canadian intrusion in the Red River Colony. The Canadian government regains control after a military expedition and accedes to many of Riel's demands. He flees into exile in the United States after the government refuses to grant him amnesty and a bounty is offered for his capture. | |
| 1870 | 15 July |
Canada acquires Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory, concluding a series of agreements between Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Hudson's Bay Company. This forms the North-West Territories. In the aftermath of the Red River Rebellion, the area around Winnipeg, in Manitoba, is detached from the new territory and becomes Canada's fifth province. Land rights are granted to Red River Métis. | |
| 1871 | 20 July | The colonies of [Colony of Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866)|British Columbia (1858–1866)|British Columbia] and Vancouver Island amalgamate and then enter Confederation as the Province of British Columbia, Canada's sixth province. Except for individual treaties for small portions of the territory, the agreement annexes a large area of land into Canada without treaties with the First Nations. | |
| 1871 | 3 August | Treaty 1 is signed between Chippewa and Swampy Cree First Nations and the Crown, surrendering lands in Manitoba in exchange for treaty obligations of the Canadian government. | |
| 1871 | 21 August | Treaty 2 is signed between Chippewa Cree First Nation and the Crown, surrendering lands in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in exchange for treaty obligations of the Canadian government. | |
| 1873 | 23 May | The North-West Mounted Police is established to enforce Canadian sovereignty in the North-West Territories and to stamp out the whisky trade. In 1874, the Force accomplished Great March West westward to southern Alberta and to Fort Edmonton. | |
| 1873 | 1 July | Prince Edward Island enters Confederation as the seventh province. | |
| 1873 | 3 October | Treaty 3 is signed between Ojibwe First Nations and the Canadian Crown, surrendering lands in Northwestern Ontario and Manitoba. | |
| 1874 | 15 September | Treaty 4 is signed between many Cree First Nations and the Crown of Canada, surrendering lands in present-day Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba in exchange for treaty obligations agreed to by Canada. | |
| 1875 | 20 September | Treaty 5 is signed between Saulteaux and Swampy Cree First Nations and the Canadian Crown, surrendering lands in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario, in exchange for treaty obligations agreed to by Canada. | |
| 1876 | 12 April | The Indian Act is passed. The Act updates previous legislation of the Province of Canada addressing the relationship between the Government of Canada and officially recognized First Nations. It establishes official definitions of "Indian status" and defines Indigenous government. | |
| 1876 | 23, 28 August; 9 September | Treaty 6 is signed between Plains and Wood Cree First Nations and the Canadian Crown, surrendering lands in present-day Alberta and Saskatchewan in exchange for treaty obligations agreed to by Canada. | |
| 1877 | 22 September | Treaty 7 is signed by Nakoda and Blackfoot First Nations and the Canadian Crown, surrendering lands in southern present-day Alberta in exchange for treaty obligations agreed to by Canada. | |
| 1880 | 1 September | The British Arctic Territories are ceded to Canada, becoming part of the North-West Territories. | |
| 1885 | 26 March – 3 June | Several hundred Catholic Francophone Métis led by Louis Riel and supported by Cree fighters mount the North-West Rebellion. They establish the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan. Riel is captured after the Battle of Batoche, tried for treason, and hanged on 16 November 1885. Many Francophones denounce the sentence, and Canada is split along ethno-religious lines. Six First Nations convicted murderers also hanged in 1885, the largest mass-hanging in Canadian history. | |
| 1885 | 7 November | The transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway, then the longest in the world, is completed. | |
| 1889 | | The Peasant Farm Policy is brought into force. The Policy restricted Indigenous farmers agricultural practices. Indigenous farmers are allowed only to use hand tools, both in the seeding, harvesting and milling. Indigenous farmers were only allowed small plots and not sell produce in competition with settlers. It is discontinued in 1897. | |
| 1890-1891 | | Calgary & Edmonton Railway built from the CPR station at Calgary to the Edmonton area, spawning the later City of Strathcona. | |
| 1896 | 16 August | Gold is discovered in the Klondike region of the Yukon Territory, sparking the Klondike Gold Rush. Tens of thousands flood into the Klondike region in 1897 and 1898, through Edmonton and the the northern Prairies, or through BC and Alaska seaports. | |
| 1899 | 8 July | Treaty 8 is signed by Cree, Beaver, Chipewyan First Nations and the Canadian Crown, surrendering of lands in present-day British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, in exchange for treaty obligations agreed to by Canada. | |
| Year | Date | Event | Ref. |
| 1903 | | The United Kingdom and the United States settle the Alaska boundary dispute on the border with British Columbia. Canadians are bitterly disappointed by British betrayal of Canadian interests in order to curry favour from Washington. | |
| 1905 | 1 September | Alberta and Saskatchewan are partitioned out of the North-West Territories to become the eighth and ninth provinces of Canada. | |
| 1905 | 6 November | Treaty 9 is signed by the Anishinaabe and Omushkegowuk Cree communities and the Crown, surrendering land in Northern Ontario and Northwestern Quebec to James Bay. | |
| 1906 | 28 August | Treaty 10 is signed between several First Nations, including the Cree and Chipewyan, and the Crown, surrendering in northern Saskatchewan and Alberta. Additional nations signed on later in 1906 and 1907. | |
| 1909 | 23 February | The first powered heavier-than-air flight in Canada occurred on Bras d'Or Lake at Baddeck, Nova Scotia, when John Alexander Douglas McCurdy piloted the AEA Silver Dart over a flight of less than 1 kilometer. | |
| 1910 | 4 May | Royal Canadian Navy is established. | |
| 1913 | November | The Great Lakes Storm of 1913 killed at least 250 in Ontario. | |
| 1914 | 29 May | RMS Empress of Ireland and Norwegian collier SS Storstad collide in Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. Death toll was at least 1012. | |
| 1914 | 19 June | Hillcrest mine disaster, at Hillcrest, Alberta. At least 189 coalminers died. | |
| 1914 | 4 August | Great Britain declares war on Germany, bringing Canada into the First World War. Seventy-three Canadians were awarded the Victoria Cross during WWI. | |
| 1916 | June 27 | A German U-Boat torpedoes and sinks HMHS Llandovery Castle, a Canadian hospital ship, off coast of Ireland, killing at least 234 crew, medical officers and other ranks, and nursing sisters. Worst Canadian maritime disaster of WWI. | |
| 1917 | 9–12 April | The four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force fight together for the first time in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, which becomes celebrated as a national symbol of achievement and sacrifice and a formative milestone in the development of Canada's national identity. | |
| 1917 | 6 December | Halifax Explosion -- Accidental collision between two merchant ships, one filled with explosives for the war, occurs in Halifax Harbour. The subsequent explosion caused 2000 people dead and 9000 injured. | |
| 1918 | 1 April | Prohibition in Canada enacted federally by an Order in Council. | |
| 1918 | 24 May | Some women gain the right to vote in federal elections. Female suffrage is extended in later years, including to women with Treaty Indian status and women between ages of 18 and 21. | |
| 1918 | 2 – 3 August | After years of press censorship along with numerous government policies suppressing strikes & lockouts. The 1918 Vancouver general strike, the first in Canadian history, takes place after prominent labour activist Albert "Ginger" Goodwin is shot by police. This sparks the beginning of the Canadian Labour Revolt. | |
| 1918 | 2 August | The beginning of a series of labour movements collectively known as the "Canadian Labour Revolt" begin, lasting six years. | |
| 1918 | 19 September | Canadian Air Force is established. | |
| 1919 | | Canada sends a delegation to the Paris Peace Talks, the conference resolving war issues. Canada signs the Versailles treaty as part of the British Empire, with parliament's approval. | |
| 1919 | | Prohibition in Canada ends federally. | |
| 1919 | May 15 -June 26 | The largest strike in Canadian history; the Winnipeg general strike occurs. Soldiers returning from WW1 & over 30,000 workers walk off their jobs; shutting down the majority of the city's privately owned factories, shops and trains. Public employees joined them in solidarity. These included police, firemen, postal workers, telephone and telegraph operators & utilities workers. Special constables were hired and laws were passed to immediately deport, without trial, anyone who was not born in Canada that was caught striking. events of this day led to the creation of the "One Big Union". | |
| 1920 | January | Canada is admitted as a full member of the League of Nations, independently of Britain. It joins the League Council in 1927. Canada plays a minor role and opposes sanctions or military action by the League. | |
| 1921 | 27 June until 22 August | Treaty 11, the last of the Numbered Treaties, is signed by the Slavey, Dogrib, Loucheux, Hare First Nations and the Canadian Crown. It covers a region within the Northwest Territories. | |
| 1926 | 25 June – 14 September | A constitutional crisis, known as the King–Byng affair, is precipitated when Governor General Byng refused Prime Minister King's request to dissolve parliament and call an election, instead asking opposition leader Meighen to form a government, which in turn was quickly defeated. King framed the dispute as one of Britain, represented by the Governor General, interfering with Canadian affairs. Consequently, the affair played a role in the Balfour Declaration of 1926, in which each Dominion of the British Empire was declared to be of equal status with Britain. | |
| 1927 | 25 November | Canada appoints Vincent Massey as its first fully accredited envoy to a foreign capital. | |
| 1929 | | Great Depression in Canada begins, resulting in widespread poverty, unemployment, & violent labour protests for the next decade. | |
| 1930 | January | The Workers' Unity League is created. The WUL paralleled similar alternative trade union structures elsewhere: the Trade Union Unity League in the US, and the National Minority Movement in the UK. Some of the unions affiliated with the WUL include the Mine Workers' Union of Canada, Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada and the Relief Camp Workers' Union. Unlike both the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and the All-Canadian Congress of Labour, the WUL organized the unemployed as well. | - |
| 1931 | 7 – 29 September | Estevan riot was a confrontation between members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and striking coal miners from nearby Bienfait, Saskatchewan, The Mine Workers' Union of Canada in Bienfait, established by the national "Workers' Unity League" demanded a wage increase, an end to the company store monopoly, better living conditions, and improved workplace safety. Miners assembled in Beinfait with their families to parade to Estevan in order to draw attention to their demands. As they walked from Beinfait to Estevan, they were met with lines of police officers. RCMP fired on the protesters, killing four. | |
| 11 December | The Statute of Westminster 1931 is enacted in Britain, officially ending the power of the British parliament to pass and nullify laws in a Dominion without the Dominion's request and consent. The statute formally recognized the de facto independence attained by Canada following the First World War. | |
| 1933 | September 15 | The Stratford General Strike of 1933 begins with strikes in several local furniture-making factories that the Workers' Unity League had recently unionized, & Swift's Meat Packing Plant, a poultry company, who had unionized as the Food Workers' Industrial Union. At its height more than 2,000 strikers were involved. The army along with several Carden Loyd tankettes were sent to quell the violence. Controversy over the use of armoured military vehicles in a management-labour dispute resulted in victory for the strikers. One strike leader, Oliver Kerr, was elected mayor the following year. | |
| 1935 | April 4- July 1 | Over 1000 workers under the guidance of Arthur "Slim" Evans join the Relief Camp Workers' Union and begin the On-to-Ottawa Trek in protest of the conditions & wages of then prime minister R. B. Bennett's Government relief work camps. After arriving in Regina, Saskatchewan, the trekkers agreed to send only 8 delegates to Ottawa to represent their cause, with the rest remaining at the Regina Exhibition grounds with support provided by private citizens & government of Regina. After discussion between the delegations and the government in Ottawa broke down, RCMP officers hidden in boxtrucks ambush the Trekkers. The police fire pistols and automatic gun into and above the group, causing two deaths and several hundred wounds. Saskatchewan Premier James Garfield Gardiner accuses the RCMP of "precipitating a riot". | |
| 18 June | Battle of Ballantyne Pier, 1000 protesters, consisting of the Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association, under influence of the Workers' Unity League; marched towards Ballantyne Pier to prevent scabs from unloading ships in the harbour. Upon arriving at the pier they were ambushed by the Vancouver police, BC Provincial Police, & RCMP who had been hiding behind boxcars. Battle of Ballantyne Pier was one of many conflicts contributing to the creation of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. | |
| 1938 | 19 June | Bloody Sunday was the conclusion of a month-long "sitdowners' strike" by The Relief Project Workers' Union in Vancouver. 1,200 men split themselves between the post office, the Vancouver Art Gallery & The Georgia Hotel. At 5 o'clock on the morning of 19 June, City Police & RCMP entered the buildings and forcibly ejected the men, Of the 42 hospitalized, only 5 were police and all of those were Vancouver police constables. Later that afternoon, 10,000 to 15,000 turned out to a protest at the Powell Street Grounds against the "police terror" of Bloody Sunday. | - |
| 1939 | 10 September | Canada, with its parliament's support, enters the Second World War by declaring war on Germany. The Dominion of Newfoundland had entered the war as a British colony upon the United Kingdom's declaration of war a week earlier. | |
| 1939–1945 | | During the war, the government mobilizes Canadian money, supplies, and volunteers to support Britain while boosting the economy and maintaining home front morale. Canada plays a military role protecting convoys against German submarines and fighting the German Army in Italy and France, and helping to liberate the Netherlands. Canada expands its small navy into the third largest in the world, after the U.S. and U.K. It had 363 ships and 100,000 sailors. |
Sixteen Canadians were awarded the Victoria Cross during WWII. |
| 1945 | 9 November | Canada joins the United Nations, seeking to play a world role as a "middle power", with interest in the UN Charter and in relief agencies. | |
| 1947 | 1 January | The Canadian Citizenship Act, 1946 comes into force creating a new, separate, Canadian legal citizenship for all British subjects born, raised, or resident in Canada and automatic citizenship for all those born in Canada after this date. | |
| 1949 | 31 March | Newfoundland, the last British colony in North America, enters Confederation as the tenth province following a pair of contentious referendums on whether the island should remain a British Crown Colony, become fully independent, or join Canada. | |
| 1959 | 27 June | The St. Lawrence Seaway, a joint project between Canada and the United States, is officially opened. | |
| 1960 | 1 July | First Nations people are granted the right to vote in federal elections without having to give up their status and treaty rights. | |
| 1965 | 15 February | Canada adopts the maple leaf for the national flag. | |
| 1967 | 27 April | Expo 67 opens in Montreal. | - |
| 1970 | 5 October | The government invokes the War Measures Act to apprehend the Front de libération du Québec, a separatist paramilitary group in Quebec that was responsible for over 160 violent incidents that killed 8 people and in October 1970 had kidnapped a British official and Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte, who they killed. The FLQ collapses in 1971. | |
| 1973 | 31 January | The Supreme Court of Canada rules in the Calder v British Columbia (AG) case that aboriginal title existed prior to the existence of the colonial government and was not a matter of Canadian law alone. The case recognized Nisga'a Nation aboriginal title. The ruling would lead the Government of Canada to update its land claims negotiation process. | |
| 1973 | 15 November | The Quebec Superior Court blocks the James Bay Project by ruling that the Indigenous peoples of the region had not extinguished their aboriginal title to the lands and that Quebec and Canada must negotiate for such title in order to build the project. The final accord is signed 11 November 1975 by Canada, Quebec, Hydro-Quebec and the Cree of Quebec. The treaty becomes enshrined in the 1982 Canadian Constitution. | |
| 1980 | 20 May | A referendum on Quebec independence is held, resulting in a majority of the province voting to remain in Canada. | |
| 1981 | | Workers for British Columbia Telephone take over all of the province's telephone exchanges and run them for 5 days. | |
| 1982 | 17 April | The enactment of the Constitution Act, 1982, by royal proclamation. Canada achieves total independence from Great Britain through Patriation of its Constitution. The Constitution includes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guaranteeing individual human rights. The Act also guarantees all treaty rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The Government of Quebec refuses to sign the deal and attempts to veto the Act; the Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec's assent is not required. | |
| 1987 | 3 June | The Meech Lake Accord is signed by all ten provincial premiers and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The accord is intended to grant further powers to all provinces and grant distinct society status to Quebec, which had opposed the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution. The Accord is not ratified by all provincial parliaments within the required 3 years, heightening national unity tensions. | |
| 1989 | 1 January | The Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement comes into force. Under the agreement, the countries start to reduce or eliminate trade barriers between the two countries. | |
| 1990 | 11 July – 26 September | The Oka Crisis occurs as Indigenous Mohawk activists protest the construction of a golf course on a burial ground, barricading roads and the Mercier Bridge. In August, after a series of violent standoffs between protesters and the Sûreté du Québec which led to the death of one officer, Premier Robert Bourassa requests aid from the Canadian Armed Forces. In September, facing military invasion of their community, the protesters surrender and many leaders are arrested. Construction of the golf course is later cancelled. | |
| 1992 | 28 August | The Charlottetown Accord, a second attempt to settle constitutional grievances, is agreed to by leaders of all provincial governments and the federal government and Indigenous groups. However, a 26 October national referendum on the accord is defeated. | |
| 1994 | 1 January | The North American Free Trade Agreement came into force, creating a free trade zone between Canada, Mexico and the United States, superseding the 1988 Canada-US Agreement. | |
| 1995 | 18 August – 17 September | Indigenous Shuswap and non-Indigenous supporters exchange fire with Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers after a British Columbia rancher attempts to evict them from land being used for a traditional ceremony, beginning the Gustafsen Lake standoff. After the largest and costliest paramilitary operation in the province's history, the Ts'peten Defenders surrender to police. | |
| 1995 | 4 September | Members of an Indigenous Ojibwe band occupy Camp Ipperwash in southwestern Ontario, on land which had been expropriated from the band for a military base during World War II under the War Measures Act, setting off the Ipperwash Crisis. Two days later, unarmed Ojibwe protester Dudley George is shot and killed by an Ontario Provincial Police officer. The land is transferred to the Ojibwe, but agreements to remove ordinance on the site is not reached, leaving the site only partially habitable. | |
| 1995 | 30 October | Another referendum on Quebec independence is held. A majority of the province votes to remain in Canada. | |
| 1997 | 11 December | The Delgamuukw v British Columbia decision is rendered by the Supreme Court of Canada, determining that aboriginal title had not been distinguished in British Columbia. This ended the decades-long refusal of the BC government to participate in land claims to settle with First Nations, claiming that aboriginal title had been extinguished. | |
| 1999 | 1 April | Nunavut is partitioned from the Northwest Territories to become Canada's third territory, following a series of plebiscites in 1982 and 1992, and establishment of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement in 1993. | |