Canada's History

Indigenous peoples lived across what is now Canada for thousands of years before European contact. European exploration began with John Cabot's 1497 voyage to the Atlantic coast, followed by Jacques Cartier's exploration of the St. Lawrence in the 1530s — the word "Canada" comes from the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village." Samuel de Champlain founded Québec City in 1608, the start of New France.

Britain and France fought for control of North America through the 1700s. Britain's 1759 victory at the Plains of Abraham ended French rule, confirmed by the 1763 Treaty of Paris. The Quebec Act of 1774 preserved French civil law and Catholic religious freedom. After the American Revolution, more than 40,000 Loyalists fled north to Nova Scotia and Quebec.

Confederation united Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick on July 1, 1867, under the British North America Act, with Sir John A. Macdonald as the first Prime Minister. Canada expanded west and north over the following decades — Manitoba (1870), British Columbia (1871), the Prairie provinces, and eventually Newfoundland and Labrador (1949) and Nunavut (1999). The Canadian Pacific Railway, completed in 1885, linked the country coast to coast.

Canada came into its own on the world stage in the 20th century. At Vimy Ridge in 1917, Canadian troops fought as one force for the first time. Women won the federal vote in 1918. The Statute of Westminster (1931) gave Canada legal independence from Britain, and the Constitution was fully patriated in 1982. Canadians served with distinction in the Second World War, including the D-Day landing at Juno Beach in 1944.

Based on Discover Canada — chapter “Canada's History.”