The first humans arrived in the Americas
by crossing a frozen land bridge from
Asia towards the end of the last ice age
about sixteen thousand years ago.
The descendants of these paleo-Americans
would become the many aboriginal tribes
of Canada together known as the First
Nations. Then about a thousand years ago
the forefathers of the Inuit people came
from Alaska and quickly spread eastward
across the Canadian Arctic. Around the
same time
Vikings led by Leif Erikson reached the
eastern coast of Canada, but they did not
stay for long
perhaps because of conflicts with the
natives whom they called Skraelings.
It would take another five centuries before
Europe made contact with Canada again
and that happened when John Cabot an
italian explorer reached the eastern
shores of canada in 1497. He was followed
by French explorer Jacques Cartier who
claimed the land for France in 1534.
The name canada comes from 'kanata'
meaning village in the language of the
Iroquis tribes that were encountered
by Cartier.
It wasn't until 1603 that the French-led
by Samuel de Champlain started to
colonize the country, then called New
France. Champlain founded the permanent
settlements at Acadia and Quebec as bases
for the fur trade. Also in the race for
the New World was England. Starting in
1607 the English established the 13 New
England colonies and in 1670 the
Hudson's bay company was founded to
acquire the fur trading areas in the
north. In 1756 the seven years war broke
out between Britain and France. Although
France had more people
the British had more soldiers and in
1759 british troops captured Quebec in
the decisive 30-minute battle of the
Plains of Abraham. The treaty of Paris
ceded all French colonies in Canada
over to the British. However to avoid
conflict the British passed an act to
maintain the french language, the
Catholic faith and French civil law in
Quebec. But it was the 13 colonies to the
South that rebelled against the British
and became the independent nation of the
United States of America. The British
colonies in Canada did not join the
Americans because they were too
dependent on the mother country and had
a much smaller population. However many
people in the United States did not
support the revolution and thousands
traveled north to Canada to return to
british rule. They were called the United
Empire Loyalists. In 1812 the United
States attacked Canada in response to
the harassment of American ships by the
British Navy. The fighting continued for
two more years during which the British
attacked Washington and famously burnt
down the White House. The war finally
ended in a stalemate. The British
colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick now thought it would be a good
idea to come together to better utilize
the economic and military strength of
their combined populations and resources.
On the first of July 1867 they merged to
form a single self-governing colony - the
Dominion of Canada. Sir John Mcdonald, the
first Prime Minister of Canada was a man
of great ambition and vision he wanted
to expand the borders of Canada to
include the remaining British colonies
as well as the unexplored lands to the
west. To achieve this
he started work on the Canadian Pacific
Railroad. Manitoba, the Northwest
Territories and British Columbia became
part of Canada which more than doubled
the country's size as can now stretched
from sea to sea. In the early 1900s
Canada began to transform into
an industrialized economy. Two million
Europeans came to Canada between 1901 to
1911 seeking a better life and the new
provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan
were created in the resource-rich west.
In 1914 world war one had begun in
Europe and all of Britain's colonies
including Canada were called to fight
for the mother country. Canada would lose
60,000 men in the war but victory in the
battle of Vimy ridge against the Germans
in 1917 signalled the arrival of Canada as
a nation on the world stage. In 1931 the
statute of westminster granted Canada
near total independence from the United
Kingdom. The British monarch was still
the head of state but the government of
Canada now made all decisions about
Canada. One such decision was to join the
allies against Nazi Germany in World War 2.
Over a million Canadians fought in the
war and 44,000 lost their lives. One of
the most important battles was the
disastrous beach rate at Dieppe in 1942
where 3,500
Canadians were killed wounded or
captured by the Germans. The mistakes
made in this battle helped the Allies
prepare for the Normandy landings two
years later. Canadian troops were
responsible for liberating much of the
Netherlands from german occupation.
Wartime industrialization
left Canada with a strong
economy and the country became a leading
car manufacturer. In 1947 vast reserves
of oil were discovered in Alberta making
Canada a petroleum superpower.
In 1957 Canadian diplomat Lester Pearson won the
Nobel peace prize for organizing a UN
peacekeeping force to end the Suez
crisis in Egypt. Pearson went on to become
the Prime Minister and had the national
flag changed to Canada's iconic maple
leaf flag. His government introduced
publicly-funded universal healthcare or
Medicare which provided free basic
healthcare for all Canadians. Meanwhile
the conservative province of Quebec that
had preserved its French language and
Roman Catholic identity saw the rise of
a modern nationalist movement. There were
calls for an independent self-reliant
Quebec. Martial law was declared in
October 1970 after the Front de
libération du Quebec a radical
separatist group started a series of
bombings and kidnappings. These tensions
culminated in an unsuccessful referendum
in which only forty percent voted for
independence. In 1982 Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau negotiated the passage of
the Canada act that stopped the
dependence on the British Parliament for
constitutional amendments. The new
Canadian constitution declared the
country officially bilingual in both
English and French. Canada survived
another referendum on Quebec's
independence in 1995 but only by a
margin of less than one percent.
Since then canada has entered a period of
political and economical stability.
Immediately after the attacks of 911
canada launched operation Yellow Ribbon
to divert air traffic away from the US
and housed & fed 40,000 stranded
passengers. Canada also join the US-led
war on terror in Afghanistan but
declined to join the 2003 invasion of
Iraq. In 2015 the Liberal Party led by
PM Justin Trudeau came to power.
Today Canada has the 10th largest economy in
the world and is a member of the NATO, G8
and G20 group of Nations.
A proud multicultural country one in every five
Canadians was born outside Canada.
The country ranks ninth in the world on the
Human Development Index and 16th by per
capita income. So this was the history of
Canada. Check out these other videos on
History, Languages and Cultures that we made.
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