Search for ""

​The 1215 agreement between King John of England and his barons provided the foundation for English common law, which spread throughout the English-speaking world.

​The 1217 Charter of the Forest (Carta de Foresta) is a companion document to the Magna Carta of 1215.

​An explosion on 9 May 1992, deep inside the Westray Mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia killed 26 underground miners.

The Canadian worker has been a neglected figure in Canadian history. Workers have contributed in many ways to the development of Canadian society, but the history of working people — their families, communities and work places — has only gradually become part of our view of the past and an important component of understanding how we came to occupy our present.

The Aivilingmiut of Nunavut are walrus hunters. Like many regional groups of Inuit, they’re named after the animal that once kept them alive.

Prime Minister Lester Pearson and John Matheson, one of his Liberal Members of Parliament, are widely considered the fathers of the Canadian flag. Their names were front and centre in 2015 during the tributes and celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the flag’s creation. But the role played by George Stanley is often lost in the story of how this iconic symbol came to be.

This entry presents an overview of Quebec cinema, from its beginnings in the silent film era to the burgeoning of a distinctly Quebec cinema in the 1960s. It highlights the most important films, whether in terms of box office success or international acclaim, and covers both narrative features and documentaries. It also draws attention to an aspect of filmmaking that still has difficulty finding its place: women’s cinema.

​The spectacular suspension bridge across the Peace River south of Fort St. John, British Columbia, was opened in the summer of 1943, replacing a ferry crossing on the Alaska Highway.

​Château Ramezay, in Old Montréal, was the first building to be designated a historic monument by the government of Québec, in 1929.

​The Lachine Canal passes through the southwestern part of the island of Montréal, from the Old Port to the borough of Lachine, where it flows into Lake Saint-Louis.

​Yukon entered Confederation in 1898, after a gold rush boom led Canada to create a second northern territory out of the Northwest Territories (NWT).

Canada’s war of independence was the First World War. Unlike the Americans, our war of independence was not fought against the country from which we became independent, but alongside it. We started the war as a colony of Britain and ended it as an ally. The remarkable performance of the Canadian Corps and its first Canadian commander made these gains in autonomy possible.

Throughout the history of exploration, what one group saw as new territory was often long-established homeland for another. Canada’s Arctic was no exception.

Numerous tragedies have unfolded on Canadian roads and highways, the deadliest being a bus crash that killed 44 people in Quebec in 1997. Despite the death toll in such headline-grabbing disasters, Canada’s motor vehicle fatality and injury rates are steadily declining, thanks to engineering improvements in vehicles, and the increasing promotion and awareness of safe driving practices.

​Between 1838 and 1841, Lower Canada was governed by an “authoritarian” political body known as the Special Council.

​Madawaska was a borderland that comprised parts of New Brunswick, Lower Canada, and the state of Maine, concentrated along the upper Saint John River valley.

​Despite hosting talks about Confederation, Prince Edward Island did not join the Dominion of Canada until 1873, when a crippling debt forced it into the national fold as the country's seventh province.

​Québec became one of the founding members of the Dominion of Canada on 1 July 1867 when it joined New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario in Confederation.