Prime Minister Robert Borden in front of the soldiers of the Red Cross (?, bands on their upper arm). Aug 64 p16

1 January 1916

In his New Years’ message, Prime Minister Robert Borden announces Canada’s goal to place 500,000 men in uniform.

2 January 1940

PO Selby Roger Henderson and Wing Cmdr. John Francis Griffiths are the first Canadians awarded medals during the Second World War, each earning the Distinguished Flying Cross.

4 January 1945

U-boats claim the Norwegian steamship Polarland and Canadian merchant ship Nipawin Park off the coast of Nova Scotia.

5 January 1971

Bernard Lortie, Francis Simard and brothers Paul and Jacques Rose are charged in the kidnapping and murder of Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte (pictured) during the 1970 October Crisis.

8 January 1944

German submarine U-757 is sunk in the North Atlantic by HMCS Camrose and HMCS Bayntun. All 49 crew die.

11 January 1957 

HMCS Magnificent delivers troops and materiel for the United Nations Emergency Force controlling the
Israeli-Egyptian border.

12 January 1919 

The Paris Peace Conference begins to establish terms of peace following the First World War.

13 January 1944 

Canadian secret agent Gustave Bieler is captured by the Gestapo in France.

15 January 1792 

Black Loyalists begin leaving Nova Scotia for settlements in Sierra Leone; 1,196 depart, about 1,800 remain.

16 January 1991 

The Persian Gulf War begins with an American-led coalition offensive against Iraq. Canadian naval Capt. Duncan Miller becomes commander of the Combined Logistics Force, the only non-American to hold such an important command at sea during the conflict.

18 January 1945  

Roughly 13,000 conscripts are en route to Europe. Conscription was controversial: a 1942 plebiscite divided the country with 80 per cent support in anglophone provinces, and 73 per cent disapproval in Quebec.

20 January 1968

Robert Shankland,awarded the Victoria Cross at the Battle of  Passchendaele in 1917, dies.

21 January 1900 

A second contingent of 1,281 Canadian troops sails from Halifax for the Boer War.

23 January 1945 

RCAF Spitfire pilot Richard Audet, 22, of Lethbridge, Alta., shoots down two jets; three weeks earlier he had scored a record five kills in a five-minute dogfight.

24 January 1946

HMCS Warrior, Canada’s first aircraft carrier, is commissioned.

25 January 1919

Canada is among the delegates at the Paris Peace Conference approving the proposal to create the League of Nations.

28 January 1918

Lt.-Col. John McCrae, author of “In Flanders Fields,” dies of pneumonia and meningitis in Boulogne, France.

29 January 1946

The celebrated schooner Bluenose sinks after hitting a reef off Haiti.

31 January 2006

Canada signs a five-year international commitment to support security, governance and development in Afghanistan.