2 January 1942
Cabinet approves a $1-billion gift of war supplies from Canada to Britain.

3 January 1947
Prime Minister Mackenzie King becomes Canada’s first citizen in the initial citizenship ceremony after passage of the Canadian Citizenship Act. 

4 January 1951
Communists occupy Seoul, South Korea, and a new UN front line is established south of the city.

5 January 1945
Flying Officer Norman Pearce of Portage la Prairie, Man., destroys six enemy vehicles while serving with 73 Squadron, RAF.

7 January 2009
Trooper Brian Richard Good is killed and three other Canadian soldiers wounded by an IED blast north of Kandahar, Afghanistan.

9 January 1889
The Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge dislodges during a storm and collapses into the river.

10 January 1920
Drafted in 1919, the Treaty of Versailles takes effect, formally ending the First World War. It redraws the map of Europe and imposes punitive economic reparations on Germany.

13 January 1943
Canadian corvette HMCS Ville de Québec sinks U-224 in the western Mediterranean.

14 January 1952
HMCS Uganda, the only Canadian warship to fight the Japanese, is reactivated for the Korean War and recommissioned as HMCS Quebec.

16 January 1961
The Canada-India nuclear plant goes online, provided to India under the Colombo Plan, the Asia-Pacific human resources development program.

17 January 1991
Operation Desert Storm is launched against Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait.

18 January 2015
RCAF CF-18s bomb ISIS fighters northwest of Mosul, Iraq.

19 January 1989
Heather Erxleben passes the 16-week Regular Force infantry trades training course at CFB Wainwright in Alberta, making her Canada’s first female combat soldier.

20 January 1899
The first of 7,500 pacifist Doukhobors arrive from Russia to settle on free homesteads in Saskatchewan, part of a federal plan to populate the Prairies.

23 January 1953
Flight Lieutenant Ernie Glover receives the first peacetime Distinguished Flying Cross awarded to RCAF personnel.

24 January 1932
During a rebellion in El Salvador, HMCS Skeena and HMCS Vancouver send armed landing parties ashore at Acajutla to protect British subjects.

26-31 January 1945
In just six days, three regiments (the Lincoln and Welland Regiment, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada and South Alberta Regiment) suffer 291 casualties in the wintry Battle of Kapelsche Veer in the Netherlands.

27 January 2004
Corporal Jamie Brendan Murphy is killed and three other soldiers wounded by a suicide bomber in Kabul, Afghanistan.

29 January 1856
Queen Victoria issues a warrant establishing the Victoria Cross.