1 October 1944
Calais, France, is occupied by the 3rd Canadian Division.

2-3 October 1944
First Canadian Army begins its hard slog to clear the Scheldt Estuary in an effort to open the port of Antwerp.

4 October 1957
The first Avro Arrow rolls out on the same day the Russians launch the satellite Sputnik.

5 October 1939
Major-General A.G.L. McNaughton is appointed head of 1st Canadian Division.

6 October 1986
The United Nations awards the people of Canada the Nansen Refugee Award for the country’s record of sheltering world refugees.

7 October 1950
The United Nations recommends “all appropriate steps be taken to ensure conditions of stability throughout Korea.”

8 October 1880
Canada’s governor general requests the British Admiralty supply a naval training vessel; HMS Charybdis is dispatched, but arrives needing extensive repairs.

9 October 1958
The last Sabre jet rolls off the assembly line at Canadair for delivery to the German air force.

11-12 October 1899

The Second Boer War begins in South Africa; more than 7,000 Canadians served there over the next three years; 267 were killed.

14 October 1914
Canada’s first overseas contingent starts to disembark in England. For the next four months, the soldiers of 1st Canadian Division will train on Salisbury Plain.

15-17 October 1970
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau proclaims the War Measures Act and the Canadian Army is ordered into Montreal, where hundreds are arrested and thousands searched before the body of Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte is discovered Oct. 17.

18 October 1917
Canadian Corps relieves II Anzac Corps, which had been decimated at the First Battle of Passchendaele.

19 October-22 November 1914
The first great battle of the First World War takes place near Ypres, Belgium.

24 October 1962
HMCS Iroquois is paid off at Halifax.

25-26 October 1813
British forces led by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Salaberry defeat American troops at Châteauguay, Que.

27 October 1941
‘C’ Force—1,975 members of the Canadian Army—sails for Hong Kong to reinforce the garrison.

28 October 1790
On present-day Vancouver Island, Spain signs an agreement with Britain to end its Pacific Northwest monopoly.

30 October 1918
The west coast patrol vessel HMCS Galiano is wrecked in bad weather and lost with all hands while transiting Barkley Sound.

31 October 1975
At CFB Cold Lake in Alberta, 419 Squadron is established as a training squadron.