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At the end of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), Great Britain set out to organize the North American territories surrendered by France in the Treaty of Paris, 1763.  By the Royal Proclamation of 1763,  the Province of Quebec was created out of the inhabited portion of New France. The boundaries took on a rectangular shape on each side of the St. Lawrence River, and stretching from Lake Nipissing and the 45th parallel to the Saint John River and Ile d'Anticosti. These boundaries were modified by the Quebec Act of 1774 to include the fishing zone off Labrador and the Lower North Shore, and the fur trade area between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes. The Treaty of Paris, 1783 pushed the boundary farther north. With the Constitutional Act, 1791, Britain divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada (the predecessor of modern-day Ontario) and Lower Canada (whose geographical boundaries comprised the southern portion of present-day Quebec).

Later, the posts were placed on a sill or foundation above ground level. This method was displaced by the pièce-sur-pièce technique: roughly squared, relatively short logs were laid horizontally, to meet at rabbeted corners.

As little domestic silver has survived, it is difficult to determine how much was made in the colony. Silver, obtained by melting coins or existing silver articles, was always in short supply.

Petitioning is one of the most common tools of political protest accessible to the local population. Limited during the era of New France, the practice of collectively petitioning political authorities became much more frequent in the years following the Conquest by the British. Sanctioned in the 1689 Bill of Rights, petitioning had been a common practice in Britain for centuries, and ever since 1763, Canadians have been sending petitions to their governments (colonial, imperial, federal, provincial, and municipal) for a variety of reasons. With the recent introduction of e-petition, Canadians, more than ever, can have their voices heard in government.

The First World War of 1914–1918 was the bloodiest conflict in Canadian history, taking the lives of nearly 61,000 Canadians. It erased romantic notions of war, introducing slaughter on a massive scale, and instilled a fear of foreign military involvement that would last until the Second World War. The great achievements of Canadian soldiers on battlefields such as Ypres, Vimy and Passchendaele, however, ignited a sense of national pride and a confidence that Canada could stand on its own, apart from the British Empire, on the world stage. The war also deepened the divide between French and English Canada and marked the beginning of widespread state intervention in society and the economy.

(This is the full-length entry about the First World War. For a plain-language summary, please see First World War (Plain-Language Summary).)

Crown Point is a large peninsula strategically commanding the narrow passage of the southwestern portion of Lake CHAMPLAIN in upper New York State. It was initially the site of Fort Saint-Frédéric, built by the French in 1731 to defend French territory from English colonial invasion.

Hindenburg Line (Siegfried-Stellung), a system of fortified and entrenched reserve positions stretching 80 km southeast from Arras to Soissons, France, built by the Germans in the winter of 1916-17.

The Letters Patent Constituting the Office of Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, usually shortened to Letters Patent, 1947, was an edict issued by King George VI that expanded the role of the governor general, allowing him or her to exercise prerogatives of the sovereign. While Letters Patent delegated Crown prerogatives to the governor general, the sovereign remains Head of State.

The red poppy is a symbol of Remembrance Day that was inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields,” written by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. Canada officially adopted the poppy as a symbol of remembrance in 1921. Red poppy pins are sold by the Royal Canadian Legion and worn by millions of Canadians in the weeks leading up to and on 11 November.

Biology and the laws and customs of human culture together govern the nature of human childhood. The ways in which biology and culture come together in children change over time; the story of these changes forms the history of childhood.

As each new area of Canada was opened to European settlement, pioneers faced the difficult task of building homes and communities from the ground up. Pioneer life revolved around providing the basic necessities of existence in a northern wilderness — food, shelter, fuel and clothing. Pioneering life was integral to family life and provided social stability for the settlement of a larger population across the country.

Social history is a way of looking at how a society organizes itself and how this changes over time. The elements that make up Canada’s social history include climate and geography, as well as the transition to industrialization and urbanization.

New Brunswick became one of the founding members of the Dominion of Canada on 1 July 1867 when it joined Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec in Confederation. Arthur Hamilton Gordon, the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, helped organize the Charlottetown Conference (1–9 September 1864), where a federal union of British North American colonies was first discussed. By 1865, however, a majority in the New Brunswick legislature had swung against it. Albert Smith defeated pro-Confederation premier Samuel Tilley in a snap election that year. But the Fenian Raids in 1866 fueled New Brunswick’s sense of insecurity and increased support for Confederation. After Tilley’s party won another election in 1866, the legislature voted 38–1 in favour of Confederation.

Smallpox is an infectious disease caused by the variola virus. The disease arrived in what is now Canada with French settlers in the early 17th century. Indigenous people had no immunity to smallpox, resulting in devastating infection and death rates. In 1768, arm-to-arm inoculation became more widely practised in North America. By 1800, advances in vaccination helped control the spread of smallpox. Public health efforts also reduced rates of infection. In the 20th century, Canadian scientists helped the World Health Organization eradicate smallpox. Eradication was achieved in 1979, but virus stocks still exist for research and safety reasons.

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The Champlain Society was founded 1905 in Toronto by Sir Edmund Walker to increase public awareness of, and accessibility to, Canada's rich store of historical records. Membership, limited at first to 250, is now approximately 800.

The Canadian Museum of History (CMH) in Gatineau, QC, is the leading museum of human history in Canada and one of the country’s oldest public institutions. Previously called the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the crown corporation’s name was changed to the Canadian Museum of History, and its mandate rewritten, in 2013. Recognized for its spectacular architecture, which is designed to reflect features of the Canadian landscape, the CMH is Canada's most visited museum, with an average 1.2 million visitors each year.

In a monarchy, the Crown is an abstract concept or symbol that represents the state and its government. In a constitutional monarchy such as Canada, the Crown is the source of non-partisan sovereign authority. It is part of the legislative, executive and judicial powers that govern the country. Under Canada’s system of responsible government, the Crown performs each of these functions on the binding advice, or through the actions of, members of Parliament, ministers or judges. As the embodiment of the Crown, the monarch — currently Queen Elizabeth II — serves as head of state. The Queen and her vice-regal representatives — the governor general at the federal level and lieutenant-governors provincially — possess what are known as prerogative powers; they can be made without the approval of another branch of government, though they are rarely used. The Queen and her representatives also fulfill ceremonial functions as Head of State.

The fur trade was a vast commercial enterprise across the wild, forested expanse of what is now Canada. It was at its peak for nearly 250 years, from the early 17th to the mid-19th centuries. It was sustained primarily by the trapping of beavers to satisfy the European demand for felt hats. The intensely competitive trade opened the continent to exploration and settlement. It financed missionary work, established social, economic and colonial relationships between Europeans and Indigenous people, and played a formative role in the creation and development of Canada.

(This is the full-length entry about the fur trade. For a plain-language summary, please see Fur Trade in Canada (Plain Language Summary).)

York Factory, also known as York Fort, Fort Bourbon by the French, and Kischewaskaheegan by some Indigenous people, was a trading post on the Hayes River near its outlet to Hudson Bay, in what is now Manitoba. During its life, it served as a post and later as a major administrative centre in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trade network. It also bore witness to the largest naval battle to take place in Arctic Canada, the Battle of Hudson Bay in 1697.

The Iroquois Wars, also known as the Beaver Wars and the French and Iroquois Wars, were a series of 17th-century conflicts involving the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also known as the Iroquois or Five Nations, then including the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca), numerous other First Nations, and French colonial forces. The origins of the wars lay in the competitive fur trade. In about 1640, the Haudenosaunee began a campaign to increase their territorial holdings and access to animals like beaver and deer. Hostilities continued until 1701, when the Haudenosaunee agreed to a peace treaty with the French. The wars represent the intense struggle for control over resources in the early colonial period and resulted in the permanent dispersal or destruction of several First Nations in the Eastern Woodlands.