The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of the Paleo-Indians to North America thousands of years ago to the present day. The lands encompassing present-day Canada have been inhabited for millennia by Indigenous peoples, with distinct trade networks, spiritual beliefs, and styles of social organization. Some of these older civilizations had long faded by the time of the first European arrivals and have been discovered through archeological investigations.
Canadian Confederation was the process by which three British North American provinces—the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—were united into one federation, called the Dominion of Canada, on July 1, 1867. This process occurred in accordance with the rising tide of Canadian nationalism that was then beginning to swell within these provinces and others. Upon Confederation, Canada consisted of four provinces: Ontario and Quebec, which had been split out from the Province of Canada, and the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The province of Prince Edward Island, which had hosted the first meeting to consider Confederation, the Charlottetown Conference, did not join Confederation until 1873. Over the years since Confederation, Canada has seen numerous territorial changes and expansions, resulting in the current number of ten provinces and three territories.
The Fathers of Confederation are the 36 people who attended at least one of the Charlottetown Conference of 1864, the Quebec Conference of 1864, and the London Conference of 1866, preceding Canadian Confederation. Only eleven people attended all three conferences.
Desmond Dillon Paul Morton (1937–2019) was a Canadian historian and political advisor who specialized in the history of the Canadian military, as well as the history of Canadian political and industrial relations.
Port-Royal National Historic Site is a National Historic Site located on the north bank of the Annapolis Basin in Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia, Canada. The site is the location of the Habitation at Port-Royal, which was the centre of activity for the New France colony of Port Royal in Acadia from 1605 to 1613, when it was destroyed by English forces from the Colony of Virginia.
Henry Youle Hind was a Canadian geologist and explorer. He was born in Nottingham, England, and immigrated to Canada, settling in Toronto, Ontario, in 1846. Hind led expeditions to explore the Canadian prairies in 1857 and 1858. In 1857, he explored the Red and Assiniboine River valleys, and in 1858, the Assiniboine, Souris, Qu'Appelle, and South Saskatchewan River valleys. The expeditions are described in his reports Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857 and Reports of Progress on the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition. Hind's activities changed perceptions of the North West and helped open up the Canadian Prairies for agriculture settlement.
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is a dictionary of biographical entries for individuals who have contributed to the history of Canada. The DCB, which was initiated in 1959, is a collaboration between the University of Toronto and Laval University. Fifteen volumes have so far been published with more than 8,400 biographies of individuals who died or whose last known activity fell between the years 1000 and 1930. The entire print edition is online, along with some additional biographies to the year 2000.
Post-Confederation Canada (1867–1914) is history of Canada from the formation of the Dominion to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Canada had a population of 3.5 million, residing in the large expanse from Cape Breton to just beyond the Great Lakes, usually within a hundred miles or so of the Canada–United States border. One in three Canadians was French, and about 100,000 were aboriginal. It was a rural country composed of small farms. With a population of 115,000, Montreal was the largest city, followed by Toronto and Quebec at about 60,000. Pigs roamed the muddy streets of Ottawa, the small new national capital.
Prosperity returned to Canada during the Second World War. With continued Liberal governments, national policies increasingly turned to social welfare, including universal health care, old-age pensions, and veterans' pensions.
This is a bibliography of major works on the History of Canada.
This is a bibliography of major works on Nova Scotia.
This is a bibliography of works on Canada.
This is a bibliography of works on the military history of Canada.
Frederick Widder (1801–1865) was a Canada Company commissioner and son of a Canada Company London director, with family connections to royalty and Anglican figures of influence. His moderate approach and financial innovations for the Canada Company gave him good standing with the pioneers of the Huron Tract and the reformers of Upper Canada. His administrative talents and hard work allowed him to advance past Thomas Mercer Jones and take the lead in the Canada Company.
This is a bibliography of works on the Provinces and territories of Canada.
This is a brief timeline of the history of Canada, comprising important social, economic, political, military, legal, and territorial changes and events in Canada and its predecessor states.
John G. Reid is a Canadian historian. The principal focus of his work is on the history of early modern northeastern North America, the history of Atlantic Canada, and the history of higher education. According to historian Geoffrey Plank, "No active historian studying the 17th and 18th century Maritime region has produced a richer or more varied body of scholarship than John G. Reid." He was also an expert witness in a number of court cases, including the Mi’kmaw and Wulstukwiuk treaty rights case R. v. Donald Marshall Junior.
The historiography of Canada deals with the manner in which historians have depicted, analyzed, and debated the history of Canada. It also covers the popular memory of critical historical events, ideas and leaders, as well as the depiction of those events in museums, monuments, reenactments, pageants and historic sites.
Carl Berger is a Canadian academic and author. He was a professor of Canadian history at the University of Toronto from 1964 until his retirement in 2003. His research interests are Canadian intellectual history and Canadian historiography. His 1976 book, The Writing of Canadian History, was the first in-depth study of Canadian historiography, eliciting critical praise and winning the Governor General's Award.
