[LAC]
The Battle of Ancre Heights begins.
The ship’s company of HMCS Iroquois holds a remembrance service for shipmates killed in action. [W.J. RUSSELL, LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA—PA114887]
Three are killed, 10 wounded when the HMCS Iroquois is hit by a shore battery in North Korea.
3 OCTOBER 1927
Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King chats with the British PM, inaugurating Canadian transatlantic telephone service.
Passenger Liner SS Florizel arriving St. John’s Harbour. [Public Domain]
The SS Florizel, carrying the Newfoundland Regiment’s First 500, joins the armada carrying the first Canadian contingent to the First World War.
Marc Garneau [Canadian Space Agency, Public Domain]
Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
6-7 OCTOBER 1944
RCAF No. 6 Group commits 293 aircraft to a bombing raid in Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley.
1919 Stanley Cup Series is cancelled between Montreal Canadiens and Seattle Metropolitans because of Spanish Flu. Announcement of Cancellation in The Globe [Globe & Mail, Alex Laney, Public Domain]
The first of Canada’s 50,000 Spanish flu victims dies in Montreal.
Canadian troops in the vicinity of Arras, along Arras-Cambrai road in September, 1918. [LAC-PA-003153, Public Domain]
Hurricane bombardment from 324 tanks is unleashed in the 2nd Battle of Cambrai.
9-10 OCTOBER 1970
Debate starts over making concessions to the FLQ for release of kidnapped diplomat James Cross.
Photograph of Sam Hughes [LAC- PA-028098 ]
Sam Hughes is sworn in as minister of militia and defence.
Lieut. Wallace Algie [Public Domain, WikiCommons]
Lieut. Wallace Algie leads the capture of two machine guns, an officer and 10 men at Cambrai, earning the Victoria Cross.
Cavell in a garden in Brussels with her two dogs before the outbreak of war [IWM-Q 32930, Public Domain]
British nurse Edith Cavell is executed for helping Allied prisoners escape occupied Brussels.
Sir Arthur Currie
13 OCTOBER 1917
Gen. Arthur Currie is asked to deploy Canadian troops on the Passchendaele front.
14 OCTOBER 1942
A U-boat torpedoes the passenger ferry Caribou in the Cabot Strait, killing 136 of 237 aboard.
15 OCTOBER 1942
An RCAF unit forms to oversee the Northwest Staging Route, airstrips built through Alberta, B.C. and the North to ensure a wartime supply route to Russia.
The Batteries of Quebec bombard the New England fleet [Public Domain National Archives of Canada (C6022)]
Quebec City cannons repel an attack by an English fleet of 30 ships and 2,300 men.
![General Sir Arthur Currie and a few children watch Canadian soldiers march to a rest camp following action at Hill 70. [PHOTO: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA—PA1826]](https://legionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/VimyInset5.jpg)
17 OCTOBER 1916
The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisions begin to move toward Vimy Ridge.
18 OCTOBER 1940
The destroyer HMCS Skeena rescues six from the torpedoed SS Bruse.
Sir Alexander Fleming, Inventor of Penicillin. [Public Domain]
The first all-Canadian mercy flight is en route to Poland with a cargo of 2,500 kilograms of penicillin.
Did you know? Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is a descendant of filles du roi Madeleine Niel and Jeanne Ducorps dite Leduc. [Official Photo Department of State]
Bachelors are ordered to marry the Filles du Roi, brides from France, or lose their hunting, fishing and fur-trading rights.
![Private Ernest Smokey Smith, VC. [PHOTO: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA]](https://legionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/OnThisDateInset7.jpg)
21-22 OCTOBER 1944
In Savio, Italy, Ernest “Smoky” Smith holds his position against a firing tank, then shoots and disables it, earning the Victoria Cross.
23 OCTOBER 1942
British Lt.-Gen. Bernard Montgomery launches the second Battle of El Alamein against Axis forces in North Africa.
24 OCTOBER 1921
The Nova Scotian schooner Bluenose wins her first International Schooner Championship.
[PORTRAIT BY SHARIF TARABAY]
The first Canadian to earn a Victoria Cross, Lt. Alexander Dunn saves two colleagues during the Charge of the Light Brigade in Balaclava, Crimea.
26 OCTOBER 1813
Charles de Salaberry and 1,600 Voltigeurs turn back 3,000 invading Americans at the Chateauguay River in Quebec.
27 OCTOBER 1915
King George V visits the Canadian Corps on the Western Front.
CIA reference photograph of Soviet medium-range ballistic missile (SS-4 in U.S. documents, R-12 in Soviet documents) in Red Square, Moscow. [Public Domain]
The Cuban Missile Crisis ends; Russian missiles will be removed from the island.
29 OCTOBER 1958
Rescue workers find 12 survivors of a Springhill, N.S., mine disaster; seven more will be rescued, but 74 die.
30 OCTOBER 1899
A 1,000-man contingent leaves Quebec City, bound for the Boer War.
31 OCTOBER 1944
The Canadian Army attacks the causeway to Walcheren Island on the Scheldt estuary in the Netherlands.
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