Royal Military College cadet.

ILLUSTRATION: GOVERNMENT OF CANADA

JUNE 1, 1876
In Kingston, Ont., the first class of 18 cadets attends the Military College of Canada.

Mount Sorrel on the Ypres Salient.

PHOTO: LEGION MAGAZINE ARCHIVES

JUNE 2-13, 1916
Mount Sorrel on the Ypres Salient is captured by the Germans following a massive bombardment and mine explosions. By the time the ground is retaken, the Canadian Corps suffers 8,430 casualties—130 officers and 3,033 other ranks killed or missing; 257 officers and 5,010 other ranks wounded.

JUNE 3, 1944
Operating out of Wick, Scotland, Flight Lieutenant R.E. McBride, flying an RCAF Canso aircraft, sinks U-477 with four depth charges.

JUNE 4, 1989
Hundreds of civilians are killed after Chinese tanks move in overnight to clear Beijing’s Tiananmen Square of pro-democracy protesters who had occupied the area for six weeks.

Six-Day War

PHOTO: UNITED NATIONS MULTIMEDIA—UN137898

JUNE 5, 1967
Israeli forces begin the Six-Day War by destroying 400 aircraft of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. By the end of the week, Israel has more than doubled its territory; seeds of discord in the Middle East take deep root.

Infantrymen of Le Régiment de la Chaudière off Bernières-sur-Mer.

PHOTO: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA—PA131498

JUNE 6, 1944
The Allied invasion of Northwest Europe is underway. Canada suffers 1,000 casualties, including 350 dead, in D-Day landings of 14,500 soldiers on Juno Beach. The Royal Canadian navy supplies more than 100 ships and roughly 10,000 sailors. Merchant cruisers transport troops and 450 paratroopers are dropped behind enemy lines. The Royal Canadian Air Force is part of the Allied air attack. By day’s end, it is the Canadians who have gone the farthest inland.

JUNE 7-8, 1944
At Abbaye d’Ardenne near Caen, France, 18 Canadian prisoners of war are executed. Two more Canadian prisoners are executed on June 17. Kurt Meyer, commander of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment (of the 12th Panzer Division), is later brought to trial and found guilty. His death sentence is commuted and he begins his prison term in New Brunswick.

North Star aircraft in flight.

PHOTO: DND, COURTESY OF HUGH HALLIDAY—PL101530

JUNE 9, 1954
A 426 Squadron North Star from Japan lands at Dorval, Que., ending Operation Hawk, the Canadian military Korean War airlift, which saw 599 transpacific trips, ferrying 3.2 million kilograms of freight and 13,000 personnel.

JUNE 10, 1940
Italy declares war on France and Great Britain. By the end of the war more than 92,000 Canadians serve in Italy at a cost of 26,000 casualties, including 5,300 dead.

Prime Minister Robert Borden

PHOTO: LEGION MAGAZINE ARCHIVES

JUNE 11, 1917
In parliament, Prime Minister Robert Borden introduces conscription, polarizing the country. Although more than 100,000 are eventually drafted, fewer than 50,000 are sent overseas, and fewer than half of them serve at the front.

JUNE 12-13, 1941
Rail yards near Dortmund, Germany, are hit with 5,000 kilograms of explosives dropped by three No. 405 Squadron Wellingtons in the first Royal Canadian Air Force attack on Germany.

JUNE 14, 1997
Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Shawinigan (2nd) is commissioned. The 970-tonne Kingston-class minesweeper is stationed in Halifax.

JUNE 15, 1846
Great Britain and the United States sign the Oregon Treaty, extending the U.S./Canada boundary along the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Georgia.

United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus.

PHOTO: UNITED NATIONS MULTIMEDIA—UN69123

JUNE 16, 1993
Canada withdraws its peacekeepers from Cyprus, ending a 29-year mission, during which more than 25,000 Canadians served and 28 gave their lives.

Explorer Roald Amundsen

PHOTO: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA—C014073

JUNE 17, 1903
Explorer Roald Amundsen leaves Norway for Canada. He is the first to navigate the Northwest Passage (east to west), reaching the Bering Strait in 1906.

JUNE 18, 1812
United States President James Madison signs a declaration of war against Great Britain, starting the War of 1812.

HMCS Cayuga

PHOTO: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA—PA183937

JUNE 19, 1951
HMCS Cayuga begins the second of her three tours to Korea.

JUNE 20, 2007
A roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan claims three soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.

JUNE 21, 2001
A national monument to Aboriginal veterans is unveiled in Ottawa. More than 7,000 Indians and an unknown number of Métis, Inuit and non-status Indians served in the First and Second World Wars and Korean War.

JUNE 22, 1940
The navy training facility, HMCS Stone Frigate graduates its final course of Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve officers at Kingston, Ont.

JUNE 23, 1943
A Royal Air Force Transport Command Dakota piloted by a Canadian takes off from Montreal, towing a glider loaded with medical supplies, engine and radio parts. The aircraft lands at Prestwick, Scotland, having completed the first transatlantic glider tow.

JUNE 24, 1918
The Aerial League of the British Empire organizes Canada’s first air mail delivery between Montreal and Toronto.

JUNE 25, 1950
North Korea invades South Korea.

JUNE 26, 1945
Canada is one of 50 countries to sign the United Nations Charter. On Oct. 24, the UN replaces the League of Nations, which had been created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

JUNE 27, 1946
The Canadian Citizenship Act confers citizenship on all Canadians, whether or not they had been born in Canada. The act came into force on Jan. 1, 1947.

JUNE 28, 1944
Royal Canadian Air Force Spitfires down 26 enemy aircraft over Normandy.

Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Robert Thirsk

PHOTO: CANADIAN SPACE AGENCY

JUNE 29, 1996
From the space shuttle Columbia, Canadian astronaut Dr. Robert Thirsk talks with students at Maple Grove Education Centre in Nova Scotia.

JUNE 30, 1992
The United Nations orders 850 Canadian peacekeepers to take over and secure the airport in Sarajevo, Bosnia, to allow food and medicine to reach 300,000 people trapped by the civil war.

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