Louis Riel

ILLUSTRATION: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA—e010973456

AUGUST 1, 1885
Louis Riel is found guilty of treason, and later hanged.

AUGUST 2, 1951
His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Athabaskan (2nd) sails for her second tour of duty in Korean waters.

AUGUST 3, 2000
Sailors from Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Athabaskan (3rd) board (via helicopter) the GTS Katie. Their mission: to compel delivery of Canadian military equipment destined from Kosovo to Quebec. The ship had refused to dock over a payment dispute.

Attack on Fort Makinac

ILLUSTRATION: PETER RINDLISBACHER

AUGUST 4-5, 1814
United States Lieutenant-Colonel George Croghan’s troops are repulsed during an attack on the British at Fort Makinac in Michigan Territory.

AUGUST 6, 1942
His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Assiniboine, commanded by J.H. Stubbs, rams and sinks U-210 in the Atlantic.

AUGUST 7-12, 1955
First Canadian Division participates in the largest peacetime training exercise to date, Exercise Rising Star at Camp Gagetown, N.B.

Action at Amiens

PHOTO: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA—PA040174

AUGUST 8, 1918
The Canadian Corps is assigned to spearhead an attack near Amiens, France. It is the start of what will become known as The Hundred Days of victories and advances.

AUGUST 9, 2008
National Peacekeepers’ Day is officially designated to honour Canadians who serve or have served on peacekeeping missions around the world.

AUGUST 10, 1930
The British airship R-100, which had completed a transatlantic flight, leaves Montreal bound for Ottawa and southern Ontario.

AUGUST 11, 1986
Fishermen rescue 155 Tamil Sri Lankan refugees adrift in lifeboats after being dropped by human smugglers off the Newfoundland coast.

HMCS Shearwater

PHOTO: CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM—19840218-002_8

AUGUST 12, 1917
His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Shearwater and submarines CC-1 and CC-2 are the first Canadian warships to pass through the Panama Canal.

AUGUST 13, 1943
The first five Canadian-made Mosquito fighter/bombers arrive in England.

President Roosevelt (seated left) and Prime Minister Churchill on deck of HMS Prince of Wales.

PHOTO: UNITED NATIONS—UN51615

AUGUST 14, 1941
Following a meeting between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Newfoundland, details of the Atlantic Charter are released.

German prisoners captured by Canadians on Hill 70.

PHOTO: CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM—EO-1795

AUGUST 15-18, 1917
Several Canadian battalions attack and capture Hill 70, a strategic position overlooking Lens, France.

AUGUST 16, 1943
Intent on rousting the Japanese, a joint Canadian/American task force lands at Kiska Island in the Aleutians, but their quarry has already left.

Troops of Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal supported by Sherman tank of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers.

PHOTO: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA—PA115568

AUGUST 17, 1944
Canadians capture the town of Falaise, France.

P/O John G. Magee

PHOTO: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA—C081431

AUGUST 18, 1941
Royal Canadian Air Force pilot John Gillespie Magee, 19, slips the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God in his sonnet High Flight, the official poem of the RCAF and Royal Air Force.

AUGUST 19, 1942
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Merritt and honorary Captain John Foote earn the Victoria Cross during the Dieppe raid, which quickly turned into a disaster.

AUGUST 20, 1944
West of Brest, France, His Majesty’s Canadian ships Kootenay, Chaudière and Ottawa sink U-984.

AUGUST 21-22, 1944
The Canadian corvette Alberni is destroyed by a German U-boat in the English Channel. Three officers and 28 men are rescued; 59 perish.

AUGUST 22, 2006
A suicide bomber crashes into a Canadian military patrol in southern Afghanistan, wounding three and killing a young girl and Corporal David Braun of Canadian Forces Base Shilo, Man.

AUGUST 23, 1941
Anxious for action, some soldiers boo Prime Minister Mackenzie King in Aldershot, England, where he speaks to 10,000 Canadian troops who are anxious to fight the enemy.

Fall of Washington

ILLUSTRATION: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS—LC-USZC4-3115

AUGUST 24, 1814
British troops sack Washington, D.C., and burn public buildings.

AUGUST 25, 1875
The North-West Mounted Police establish Fort Brisebois at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers in Alberta. It is renamed Fort Calgary the following year.

AUGUST 26, 1940
Royal Canadian Air Force No. 1 Fighter Squadron is the first RCAF unit to engage enemy aircraft.

AUGUST 27, 1944
Canadian forces in Italy continue their advance to the Gothic Line. Within a few days they will break through the line south of Rimini.

AUGUST 28, 1928
Punch Dickins begins a 12-day, 6,400-kilometre pioneering flight in a float-equipped Fokker airplane over northern Canada.

AUGUST 29, 1911
Canada receives news its naval service becomes The “Royal” Canadian Navy, by decree of King George V.

AUGUST 30, 1945
Navy Sub-Lieutenant William K.L. Lore orders Japanese guards at Sham Shui Po PoW camp to unlock the gates, beginning the liberation of Canadians captured during the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941.

AUGUST 31, 1946
The Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service passes into history. Established in July 1942, 5,893 women were serving in the Wrens by 1946.

For ‘ON THIS DATE’ September events, come back to legionmagazine.com on September 1st, 2013.