BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

By Samatha Oliver

Key Events and Dates in Canadian History--From Founding of Country Up To Today

• The first European discovery of Canada was made by John Cabot in 1497. France claimed posession in 1534. The territories which now constitue Canada came under British power at various times by settlement conquest or cession.
• The Hudson's Bay Company's charter, conferring rights over all territory draining into Hudson Bay, was granted in 1670,,
• Canada, with all its dependecies, was ceded to Great Britian by France in 1763; Vancouver Island was acknowledged to the British by the Oregon Boundary Treaty of 1846, and British Columbia was established as a separate colony in 1858.
• As orginally constituted, Canada was composed of Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontarion and Quebec), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They united under the Act of the Imperial Parliament, the British Act, 1867. Provision was made in the Act for admission of British Columbia, Prince Edward Island Newfoundland, Rupert's Land and the Northwest Territory into the Union.
• In 1870 Rupert's Land and the Northwest terrtory were annexed and named the Northwest Territories, Canada having agreed to pay the Hudson's Bay Company in cash and land for its relingusing of claims to the territory. By the same action the Province of Manitoba was created from a small portion of this territory and they were admiiited into the Confederation in 1870. In 1871 British Columbia was admitted, and Prince Edward Island in 1873. Alberta and Saskatchewen and orginally parts of the Northwest territories were admitted in 1905. Newfoundland joined Canada as its tenth province in 1949.

Conclusions on Canadian History

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In 1931 Norway recognized the Canadian title to the Sverdrup group of Arctic islands. The Statue of Westminster, 1931, removed what legal limitations existed as regards Canada's legislative autonomy. The expansion of the American west and the slower settlement of the Candian transcontinental railroad and the perception among eastern Canadian political leaders that a Canadian federation from the Atlantic to the Pacific had to be achieved if western Canada was to avoid absorption by the United states was also one of the event that accelerated the union of the British colonies in Canada into a new nation

Additional Online Sources on Canadian History

• Genealogy-Acadian and French Canadian
• No Title

Traditional Bibliographic Sources on Canadian History

• CIA World Factbook.
• U. S. State Department Background Notes.
• United Nations, Statistical Yearbook.