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

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

OCTOBER 4, 1951
2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry attacks Chinese positions on Hill 187 in Korea.

OCTOBER 5, 1970
British Trade Commissioner James Cross is kidnapped in Montreal by the Front de Libération du Québec, beginning the October Crisis.

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

OCTOBER 7-17, 1920
The first trans-Canada flight is completed in relays between Halifax and Vancouver, at an average speed of 68 miles per hour.

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

OCTOBER 9, 1812
The Americans capture the British brigs Caledonia and Detroit in the Niagara River off Fort Erie, Upper Canada.

OCTOBER 10, 1885
Five native men are tried for involvement in the Frog Lake Massacre and sentenced to hang.

OCTOBER 11, 1899
The Second Boer War begins in South Africa; over 7,000 Canadians serve there over the next three years; 267 were killed.

OCTOBER 12, 1917
The First Battle of Passchendaele begins. By the time the village is captured in November, more than 15,000 Canadians are killed and wounded.

OCTOBER 13, 1944
Black Friday for the Black Watch sees 56 killed attacking a railway embankment during the Battle of the Scheldt.

OCTOBER 14, 1914
The First Canadian Contingent arrives in a massive convoy at Plymouth and Devonport. It will soon begin training on Salisbury Plain.

OCTOBER 15, 1936
The Flying Seven, Canada’s first all-female flying club, is established.

OCTOBER 16, 2004
The Windsor Regiment, Essex and Kent Scottish Regt. and 21st Service Battalion relocate from the old to the new Major F.A. Tilston (VC) Armoury and Police Training Centre, ending a century of army presence in downtown Windsor, Ont.

OCTOBER 17, 2001
Canada deploys HMCS Charlottetown, HMCS Iroquois and supply ship Preserver to the Arabian Sea on Operation Apollo, joining U.S. and British forces in the international campaign against terrorism.

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

OCTOBER 19, 1814
The Americans refuse to be drawn out of sheltering woods near Welland in Upper Canada, as the British unleash artillery and rocket fire into Cook’s Mills.

OCTOBER 20, 1940
The first corvette built in Canada, HMS Windflower, is commissioned into the Royal Navy, but with a Canadian crew.

OCTOBER 21, 1943
The minesweeper HMCS Chedabucto sinks after colliding with another ship in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 50 kilometres from Rimouski, Que.

OCTOBER 22, 1999
The United Nations authorizes a mission to Sierra Leone to make peace after a civil war. The first five unarmed Canadian military observers deployed faced death threats and bombs placed under their vehicles.

OCTOBER 23, 1951
Five Canadian soldiers are killed and 21 wounded attacking Hills 166 and 156 and patrolling the Nabu-ri valley in Korea in Operation Pepperpot.

OCTOBER 24, 1903
The National Transcontinental Railway Act passes, adding a third transcontinental railway to open up more of the country to settlers.

OCTOBER 25, 1974
Reformed and disbanded several times since the Second World War, No. 443 Fighter Squadron is reactivated as No. 443 Anti-Submarine Warfare Helicopter Sqdn.

OCTOBER 26, 1917
Canadians begin the Second Battle of Passchendaele with an opening barrage that could be heard in London, 200 kilometres away.

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

OCTOBER 28, 1942
The Alcan Highway is completed. It links the lower 48 U.S. states to Alaska through 2,700 kilometres of mountains, rivers, muskeg and permafrost in British Columbia, Yukon and Alaska.

OCTOBER 29, 1929
On the worst day of the stock market collapse, crowds gather at exchanges in Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg and the Calgary exchange briefly closes. World trade collapses, and the Great Depression follows.

OCTOBER 30, 1995
The Quebec referendum vote is split 50.58 per cent to 49.42 per cent against sovereignty; la belle province remains in Canada.

OCTOBER 31, 1916
Sir George Perley is appointed the first Minister of Overseas Military Forces and begins shielding the Canadian Corps from partisan personnel policies.