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The timeline of Montreal history is a chronology of significant events in the history of Montreal, Canada's second-most populated city, with about 3.5 million residents in 2018,[1] and the fourth-largest French-speaking city in the world.[2]
Pre-Colonization
The area known today as Montreal had been inhabited by Algonquin, Huron, and Iroquois for some 2,000 years, while the oldest known artifact found in Montreal proper is about 2,000 years old.[3]
In the earliest oral history, the Algonquin migrated from the Atlantic coast, arriving, together with other Anicinàpek, at the "First Stopping Place" (Montréal). There, the Nation found a "turtle-shaped island" marked by miigis (cowrie) shells.
The Iroquois, or Haudenosaunee, were centred, from at least 1000 CE, in northern New York, and their influence extended into what is now southern Ontario and the Montreal area of modern Quebec.[4]
1142 – The Iroquois Confederacy is, from oral tradition, said to have been formed in 1142 CE.[5]
In the modern Iroquois language, Montréal is called Tiohtià:ke. Other native languages, such as Algonquin, refer to it as Moniang.[6]
1535 – Jacques Cartier renames the Saint Lawrence River in honour of Saint Lawrence on August 10, the feast day of the Roman martyr. Prior to this, the Saint Lawrence River had been known by other names, including Hochelaga River and Canada River; Cartier penetrates far into the interior for the first time, via the river.
1535 – September 19, Cartier starts his journey from Quebec City to Montreal, while in search of a passage to Asia.
1535 – Cartier visits Hochelaga on October 2, claiming the St. Lawrence Valley for France.[8] He becomes the first European to reach the area now known as Montréal when he enters the village of Hochelega. Cartier estimates the population to be "over a thousand".
1535 – October 3, Cartier climbs up the mountain on the Île de Montréal and names it Mont Royal; the name Montréal is generally thought to be derived from "Mont Royal", the name given to the mountain by Cartier in 1535.
1608 – Québec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.
1610–1629
1609 scene, including self-portrait, reprinted from Deffaite des Yroquois au Lac de Champlain (Defeat of the Iroquois of Lake Champlain), drawn by Samuel de Champlain (1613)
1611 – Samuel de Champlain, in the company of a young Huron, whom he had taken to and brought back from France on a previous voyage, visits the Île de Montréal.
1611 – Champlain decides to establish a furtrading post at present-day Pointe-à-Callière.
1613–20 – The Compagnie des Marchands operates in New France but, in 1621, loses its rights in to the Compagnie de Montmorency, due to a breach of their contract.
1615 – Les Franciscains des Recollets, an order of French missionaries, are the first to settle Canada. A century later, a faubourg of Montréal adjacent to their residence in that city was called Faubourg des Récollets, a name still in use today.
1643 – On June 9, the first persons are killed at Montréal during an attack by Iroquois.
1643 – At the end of August, a vessel with a reinforcement commanded by Louis d'Ailleboust de Coulonge arrives at Ville-Marie.
1644 – Iroquois attack on March 16 and on March 30.
1645 – The hospital is initially located within the fort. Maisonneuve grants the first concession outside the fortifications to Jeanne Mance to build Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal; work begins on it on October 8, 1645.
1653 – The Great Recruitment, still better known as La Grande Recrue — Jeanne Mance redirects funds donated by Duchesse d’Aiguillon for the Hôtel-Dieu hospital to Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve for the recruitment of a hundred people; the contingent arrive at Ville-Marie on 16 November. Of the 95 who embark in Saint-Nazaire, 24 are massacred by Iroquois, four drown, and one burned when his house caught fire.[12]
1657 – In mid-August, four priests (Gabriel de Queylus, Gabriel Souart, Antoine d'Allet, and Dominique Galinier) belonging to the Society of Saint-Sulpice in Paris land in Montreal to take over from the Jesuits.
1657 – Marguerite Bourgeoys – the town's first teacher, who would found a community of teachers, opens the first school in a former stable on 25 November.
1658 – Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve signs a contract with Jacques Archambault to have him dig "a well in Fort Ville-Marie in the middle of the Court or parade ground."
1663 – March, seigniorial rights to the Île de Montréal are transferred by the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal to the Sulpicians. The Sulpicians become the seigneurs of Montréal, taking over from Chomedey de Maisonneuve.
1663 - Emigration of approximately 800 young French women (to become known as the filles du roi, or King's daughters) to New France begins, under sponsorship of King Louis XIV of France, and continues through 1673.
1666 – According to the 1666 census of New France, Ville-Marie recorded 582 inhabitants. 24 of the 111 families living in Montréal had already been formed in France. A few houses, flanked by a windmill and fort, and connected by a footpath (now beneath Rue Saint-Paul), represented the beginnings of Ville-Marie.
1667 – Almost from its inception, pelts were bartered in Montreal, which, after 1667, becomes a centre for trade. An annual market for pelts takes place in June on the common of Pointe-à-Callière.
1668 – Maison Saint-Gabriel is bought to receive the King's Daughters. The current structure dates back to 1698, when it was rebuilt following a fire in 1693.
1669 – Louis XIV ordered that men of New France between 16 and 60 years of age must perform mandatory military service; every parish would have its militia.
1670–1689
Louis Jolliet statue, Parliament Building (Quebec)
1672 street grid survey of Ville-Marie
1670s – A large orchard is planted on the side of Mount Royal during the mid-1670s.
1670–80 – Initially, trading is done in people's homes; traders soon set up stalls between Rue Saint-Paul and the Little St. Pierre River, west of the marketplace. Natives camp on the Point, numbering about 900 in 1672.
1671 — founding of the municipality of Verdun.
1672 – Commissioned by François Dollier de Casson, superior of the Sulpicians; notary and surveyor Bénigne Basset Des Lauriers makes the first street layout in Montreal. The original plan of Old Montreal consists of 10 streets, of which three run parallel to the river– Notre-Dame Street, Rue Saint-Paul, Saint Jacques Street –and seven extend perpendicular from the river, including Saint Pierre, Saint François Xavier, Saint Jean Baptiste, Saint Gabriel, and Saint Vincent.
1672 – The cross is planted to designate the future location of the first Notre-Dame Basilica (Montreal) on June 29 and the first five stones are laid the next day.
1672 – As a churchwarden, Pierre Gadois supervises the construction of a public well in the Place d'Armes.
1677 – Jacques Bizard is sent to Montreal by Frontenac to investigate claims of illegal sale of alcohol to the natives. However, the leader of the smugglers, Montreal Governor François-Marie Perrot, imprisons Bizard. With the help of Frontenac, Bizard is liberated and Perrot is removed from office.
1680–85 – More and more voyageurs, coureurs des bois and missionaries were exploring the regions upriver from Montreal. As the new territory opens up, part of the fur trade shifts toward the Great Lakes. Fewer and fewer natives came to Montreal, and the annual fur fair became less popular from 1680 to 1685.
1687–89 – A wooden palisade is erected to protect the town.
1687 – An epidemic of typhus kills approximately 150 people in the autumn.
1689 – On June 13, construction was begun by the Montreal Sulpicians on a 2 km canal to support their monopoly on flour-milling. François Dollier de Casson asserts that such a canal (Lachine Canal) would supply water to Montreal's mills while simultaneously facilitating westbound navigation.
1690 – February 8: Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville leads more than 160 French Canadians and 100 Indian warriors to Schenectady, New York which they attack and burn in retaliation for the Lachine Massacre.
1698 – A chapel dedicated to St. Anne is founded at the south end of Murray street. Le Quartier Ste-Anne becomes infamous as a den of licentiousness, and the clergy restricts the sale of liquor around the chapel.
1698 – Bishop Saint-Vallier, returning from France, accompanies two English gentlemen, one of them a Protestant minister, on a visit to Jeanne Le Ber.
1700 – At the turn of the 18th century Montreal's population is about 1,500 souls, which gradually grows to about 7,500 in the year 1760, at the time of the British conquest.
1700 – Gédéon de Catalogne is employed by the Sulpicians in October to dig the Lachine Canal.
1701 – August 4, The Great Peace of Montreal : The French and Native Americans from across the continent conclude a historic alliance, at Pointe-à-Callière.
1705 – Montreal is now the official name for the city formerly named Ville-Marie.
1705 – Place Royale is designated as a marketplace.
1706 – After 1706, deforestation along the riverbank is advanced enough that the opening of a road along the lake, from La Présentation to the tip of the Île de Montréal, is decreed.
1711 – The court orders the construction of a stone wall around the city.
1713 – Jurisdiction of the Government of Montreal begins to the west of Maskinongé, Quebec and Yamaska and ends at the extremity of the inhabited area, namely fort Saint-Jean, Châteauguay and Vaudreuil.
1713 – Michel Bégon decides to erect stone fortifications. The wooden walls are replaced with stone due to the threat of British attack.
1717–1744 – Stone fortifications were erected according to plans by the architect Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry. The fortifications correspond roughly to the present-day limits of Old Montreal, with Rue Berri to the east, Rue de la Commune to the south, Rue McGill to the west, and Ruelle de la Fortification to the north.
1719 – Pointe-aux-Trembles windmill is built at the corner of Notre-Dame Street and Third Avenue. Its three storeys make it the tallest windmill in Quebec that still stands.
1720–1739
1721 – The great fire. New wood constructions are prohibited inside city limits.
1726 – A dam is built to link the river bank to the Île de la Visitation – one of the most impressive feats of civil engineering of the French regime. It remains in operation until 1960.
1731 – Orchards covered 90 arpents (76 acres; 31 ha) on the Île de Montréal, on the side of the mountain and around town. From 1731 to 1781, the surface area occupied by the orchards rise from 90 to 402 arpents (76 to 340 acres; 31 to 137 ha).
1737 – Inauguration of the Chemin du Roy on the North Shore (Laval) between Montréal and Quebec City. The road's construction takes 4 years and requires the construction of 13 bridges. After its completion, people can travel from one city to the other in 4 days.
1749 – Pehr Kalm visits Montreal, where he is hosted by the Baron de Longueuil. Kalm notes that "some of the houses of the town are built of stone, but most are of timber, though very neatly built."
1749–51 – De la Visitation Church (1747 Gouin Boulevard) is built to replace the small chapel at Fort Lorette. It is the oldest church in Montreal and the only one built during the old régime still standing. The church is consecrated by Henri-Marie Dubreil de Pontbriand in 1752.
1759 - The British army defeats the French on the Plains of Abraham allowing the French to keep their language and Catholic churches and schools such as they were.
1760–1779
1760 – On May 9, British ships arrive at Quebec City, forcing the French Army to Montreal.
1760 – The British, under Amherst, march from Lachine through Nazareth Fief (now Griffintown), through the Recollet Gate, and into the walled city of Montreal. The Articles of Capitulation of Montreal are signed on September 8, in the British camp before the city of Montréal. Most North American fighting ends with the surrender of Montréal.
1760 – On September 21, Jeffery Amherst appoints brigadier Thomas Gage as military governor of the Montreal district.
1774 – The British Parliament passes the Quebec Act that allows Quebec to maintain the French Civil Code as its judicial system and sanctions the freedom of religious choice, allowing the Roman Catholic Church to remain.
1775 – Montreal falls without any significant fighting on November 13, as Carleton, deciding that the city was indefensible (and having suffered significant militia desertion upon the news of the fall of St. Johns), withdraws.
1775 – Richard Montgomery uses some of the captured boats to move towards Quebec City with about 300 troops on November 28, leaving about 200 in Montreal under the command of General David Wooster.[18]
1776 – May – With only 1,765 soldiers remaining in Montreal, the colonial force is overcome by the British.
1776 – Within four hours, Benedict Arnold and the American forces garrisoned around Montreal abandon the city (but not before trying to burn it down), leaving it in the hands of the local militia. Carleton's fleet arrive in Montreal on June 17.[19]
1787–1811 – John Reid is justice of the peace for the district of Montreal, which governs Montreal's affairs.
1788 – The Gazette, formerly a French journal, appears in English.
1789 – Lord Grenville proposes that land in Upper Canada be held in free and common soccage, and that the tenure of Lower Canadian lands be optional with the inhabitants.
1789 – May 4 – The justices of the peace, who govern Montreal's affairs, order "the price and assize of bread, for this month" to be: "the white loaf of 4lbs. at 13d., or 30 sous", etc., and that bakers of the city and suburbs do conform thereto, and mark their bread with their initials.
1789 – Christ Church opens for service on December 20.
1791 – Edmund Burke supports the proposed constitution for Canada, saying that "To attempt to amalgamate two populations, composed of races of men diverse in language, laws and habitudes, is complete absurdity. Let the proposed constitution be founded on man's nature, the only solid basis for an enduring government."
1792 – December 20 – a fortnightly mail is established between Canada and the United States.
1792 – Opening of the first post office in Montreal on 20 December.
1793 – Importation of slaves into Canada is prohibited on July 9.
1799 – Mary Griffin obtains the lease to Griffintown from a business associate of Thomas McCord.
1799 – The census of 1799 lists 9,000 inhabitants while that of 1761 lists 5,500.
1799 – Citizens of Montreal petition to secure master's rights over slaves
1799 – A measure respecting slavery in Lower Canada does not pass.
1799 – January 3 – Parliament appropriates $5,000 for a new Montreal Court House.
1800 – Alexander Skakel moves from Quebec City to Montreal and establishes the Classical and Mathematical School. This was the principal educational institution for the English-speaking population.
1802 The first unofficial cavalry corps is formed in Montreal.
1803–15 – With the Napoleonic Wars comes a demand for large amounts of squared timber for shipbuilding. Montreal is able to fulfil the demand, and this expansion of the city's economic base is reflected in a rise in population to 26,154 by the year 1825.
1804–17 – The demolition of Montreal's fortifications takes 13 years, from 1804 to 1817.
1805 – Thomas McCord returns to Montreal and recovers his land, which has been divided by Mary Griffin into streets and lots. The name Griffintown sticks.
1807 – May – The Canadian Courant and Montreal Advertiser are first issued; owner and editor: Nahum Mower.
1807 – The brothers James and Charles Brown begin publishing the Canadian Gazette/Gazette canadienne in July.
1807 – An Act provides for a new market house in Montreal.
1808 – In early 1808, sick and in debt, Edward Edwards sells the Montreal Gazette to the Browns, who the following month announce their plan to revive it.
1808 – Importation of slaves is banned.
1808 – July 12 – 5 privates of the 100th Regiment, Montreal, are charged with desertion and are transported as felons to New South Wales for 7 years, afterwards to serve as soldiers in that colony.
1808-11 – A new prison is built.
1809 – August 17 – The foundation of Nelson's Column is laid in Montreal. Installed on Place Jacques-Cartier, this is the second monument to be erected in Montreal.
1809 – November 3 – John Molson's steamboat PS Accommodation sails from Montreal to Quebec. It is 85 feet over all, has a 6 horse-power engine, makes the distance in 36 hours, but stops at night and reaches Quebec on the 6th. The PS Accommodation is the second steamboat in America and probably in the world. The fare for an adult is £2.10s.od =$10.
1815 - John Molson builds the luxurious Mansion House Hotel on Rue St. Paul.
1815 – March – Parliament votes $25,000 for Lachine Canal.
1816 – Population of Montreal is about 16,000.
1816 – The National School is opened.
1816 – May 14 – Thomas A. Turner and Robert Armour, Esq., are appointed commissioners for the improvement of internal navigation between Montreal and Lachine, under the Provincial Act 48 George III, c. 19.
1821 – Beginning of Lachine Canal excavations on July 17.
1821 – The British garrison starts the construction of the Fort de l'Île Sainte-Hélène. It is completed in 1823 and partially rebuilt in 1863 after a fire as a preventive measure against an eventual American attack.
1822 – The first iron bridge is erected on March 8.
1824 – Construction on the new Notre-Dame Basilica (Montreal) begins, designed by New York architect James O'Donnell, an Irish Protestant.
1825 – The Lachine Canal is opened, and new industries spring up in the St. Antoine ward area as a direct outcome of the easier transport of goods. Shipping immediately increases and, along with the destruction of the city walls, Montreal comes to be an economic, rather than military, city. Gradually, the city's harbour facilities expand. In 1830 the wharves are rudimentary and stretched for only a short distance along De la Commune Street.
1825 – First permanent theatre building in Montreal, Theatre Royal, is built by John Molson to attract bigger names to the city, which lacked such a venue. It costs the magnate $30,000. The building is demolished in 1844 and the site was used for the Bonsecours Market. Another venue, also called Theatre Royal, was built not far away in Old Montreal; this building, too, no longer exists.
1829 – Most of Notre-Dame Basilica (Montreal) is now completed. Work continues for more than a decade on the two bell towers. A new skyline begins to develop.
1840 – August 19 – Lachine Rapids first navigated in a steamboat.
1841 – There are now at least 6,500 Irish Catholics in Montreal. Most of the immigrants to Montreal settle in Griffintown, particularly in the area west of McGill Street (Montreal). In this district, the area between the Lachine Railroad and the Lachine Canal becomes a slum. Much like the French slums of Hochelaga Maisonneuve to the east.
1841 – West Bell Tower of Notre-Dame Basilica (Montreal), called "Perseverance" and housing the 10,900 kg bell "Le Gros Bourdon" / "Jean-Baptiste", completed.
1842 – In May, Charles Dickens appears at Theatre Royal, in Montreal, surrounded by local talent. While Dickens is in Montreal he produces, directs and acts in three plays.
1843 – The Cornwall Canal and the Chambly Canal are opened.
1843 – Survey of the boundary between the U.S. and Canada is begun.
1843 – The first labour strike in Canada occurs. The Lachine Canal was widened in the 1840s under conditions of bitter conflict between contractors and Irish labourers.
1846 – Foundation of the Montreal City and District Savings Bank, now known as the Laurentian Bank.
1847 – The Montreal Telegraph Company founded. In 1850, the year prior to Hugh Allan's presidency, Montreal Telegraph Co operated merely 500 miles of line, all in the province of Canada.
1847 – Telegraph service between Montréal and Toronto, between Montréal and Quebec City, and between Montréal and New York City established.
1847 – Bonsecours Market opened. It housed City Hall between 1852 and 1878.
1847 – The railway from Montreal to Lachine is opened.
1847 – Desbarats & Derbyshire (Georges-Édouard Desbarats and Stewart Derbyshire) start a glass factory at Vaudreuil.
1847 – The first mass is celebrated in St. Patrick's Basilica on St. Patrick's Day, March 17.
1849 – April 25 – For sanctioning the Rebellion Losses Bill, Lord Elgin is mobbed and the Parliament House in Montreal is burned. Parliament will now sit alternately in Quebec and Toronto.
1852 – July 8 – Beginning of Great Fire of 1852, which burns 11,000 houses in Montreal; 20% of the eastern side of the city is devastated.
1853 – The first screw steamer up the Saint Lawrence River arrives from Liverpool. Canadian Steam Navigation Company runs regular services from Liverpool and Glasgow to Quebec City and Montreal, twice a month in summer and once a month in winter.
1853 – May 23 – First charter for steamers from Montreal to Great Britain.
1853 – June 9 – Alessandro Gavazzi's anticlerical speeches at Montreal's First Congregational Church (Zion Church) spark riots that kill 40 people.
1854 – August 2 – First coffer-dam of Victoria Bridge ready for masonry.
1854 – October 16 – Twenty-one vessels in port at Montreal.
1854 – St. Ann's Church is consecrated, becoming the centre of Griffintown life; it opens on December 8 (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) and was designed by John Ostell. The Sulpicians donated the land for the church and provided the Irish-born pastors: Father Michael O'Brien, Father Michael O'Farrell and Father James Hogan (priest 1867–1884). Some residents of Griffintown claim that St. Ann's ("down the hill") was actually more of a center for the Irish in Montreal than St. Patrick's Basilica, Montreal's ("up the hill") was, since most of the city's Irish lived in Griffintown. It will be demolished in 1970.
1856 – The Allan's four steamships, between Montreal and Liverpool bring 3,031 passengers, Westward (average voyage 13 days).
1856 – September 16 – Balloon ascension from Griffintown, in the "Canada"
1856 – The Grand Trunk Railway begins through passenger service between Montreal and Toronto on October 27 with great celebrations being held in Kingston to celebrate this accomplishment.
1858 – January 27 – The Queen names Ottawa the seat of government
1858 – February 20 – In Griffintown, beds stand in three feet of water
1858 – Riots and street fights run rampant through Griffintown on election day when D'Arcy McGee is chosen to represent the Montreal West riding, including Griffintown, in the federal government.
1861 – The street horsecar is introduced as public transportation on 27 November. It was operated by Montreal City Passenger Railway Company 1861–1886.
1862 – May 20 – The Montreal Water Works are commenced.
1863 – Bounties for USA recruits and substitutes often reach $2,000, inducing kidnapping and contraventions of the British Foreign Enlistment Act, for which heavy bail is exacted.
1864 – The Montreal City Passenger Railway Company has 10 miles of track, $240,000 paid capital and carries 1,485,725 passengers at 5 cents each.
1864 – In October, delegates from across British North America developed the terms for Confederation at a three-week conference in Quebec City. After the Quebec Conference, there remained the task of selling Confederation to the citizens.
1864 – November 10 – Continued examination of raiders at Montreal.
1865 – July 11–14 – Convention at Detroit to promote a new Reciprocity treaty. Montrealers attend, but only to give desired information. The Convention passes resolutions favouring a new Reciprocity treaty.
1875 – September 2 – The Guibord case occasions some ill feeling in Montreal, but by the energetic action of Dr. William Hales Hingston, the Mayor, there are no riots.
1879 – Mary Gallagher is murdered by jealous rival Susan Kennedy on June 27. It is a sensational story. It's said Gallagher's ghost returns every seven years to haunt Griffintown.
1879 – In a strange turn of events, Michael Flanagan, cleared of all charges regarding the death of Mary Gallagher, is loading barges in the Wellington Basin when he falls and drowns on December 5, the very same day Susan Kennedy was supposed to be hanged.
1880–1900
1881 – Mark Twain visits in November, remarks that "this is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn't throw a brick without breaking a church window."
1885 – A smallpox epidemic in February kills 3,164 Montrealers (out of over 150,000 inhabitants).[20]
1885–86 – Massive flooding and fires recorded in Griffintown.
1886 – First Trans Canada train departure on June 28.
1886 – On July 4, the first scheduled Canadian Pacific Railway transcontinental passenger train reaches Vancouver, after travelling for five days, 19 hours.
1886 – Worst flooding recorded – also two major fires.
1892 – April 3 – Bonsecours Market sustains its fourth serious fire. The uninsured loss is $20,000.
1892 – The era of public transportation in Montreal begins with the inauguration of the electric tram. The trams constitute a practical way to get from one end of the city to the other, especially for workers.
1897 – A survey of living conditions is conducted by Mr. Herbert Brown Ames. He points out the discrepancy in living conditions between wealthy areas of Montreal ('the upper city') and the areas inhabited by the working class ('the city below the hill'): "The sanitary accommodation of 'the city below the hill' is a disgrace to any nineteenth century city on this or any other continent. I presume there is hardly a house in all the upper city without modern plumbing, and yet in the lower city not less than half the homes have indoor water-closet privileges. In Griffintown only one home in four is suitably equipped, beyond the canal (in Pointe-Saint-Charles) it is but little better. Our city by-law prohibits the erection of further out-door closets, but it contains no provision for eradicating those already in use."
1897 – Canadian Car and Foundry's history goes back to 1897, but the main company is established in 1909 from an amalgamation of several companies and later becomes part of Hawker Siddeley Canada through the purchase of Avro Canada in the late 1950s.
1899 – October 30 – The First Canadian Contingent of the Boer War sets sail to South Africa on the SS Sardinian of the Allan Line, bearing Canada's initial quota of fighting men, including the men of "E Company" of Montreal.
1899 – In the afternoon of November 21, Montrealers see their first car. At the wheel of this first steam-powered automobile is Ucal-Henri Dandurand, accompanied by Mayor Raymond Préfontaine. They descend steep Côte du Beaver Hall without difficulty and climb back up through the streets in the same fashion.
1899 – Construction of a dam in the Old Port of Montreal: there will be no more flooding.
1901 – The city counted 1033 men and 4 women in the Chinese community. Clustered together along Saint Laurent Boulevard and De la Gauchetière Street, various Chinese establishments also serve as living quarters for the first Chinese Montrealers and, from the end of the 19th century onwards, constitute a distinctive neighbourhood: Chinatown.
1925 – June 10 – Canada's Methodist churches, Congregational churches, and a large portion of its Presbyterian churches join to form the United Church of Canada.
1930 – The foundation of the monument of Jean Vauquelin (1728–1772) – defender of Louisbourg and Quebec City – is laid in Montreal; sculptor Paul-Eugène Benet.
1930 – Beginning of commercial flights from Montreal.
1931 – Canada's first television station, VE9EC, begins broadcasting in Montréal. VE9EC is owned jointly by radio station CKAC and the newspaper La Presse.[22]
1939–44 – During World War II, Mayor Camillien Houde protests against conscription and urges Montrealers to disobey the federal government's orders. Ottawa is furious over Houde's insubordination and holds him in a prison camp until 1944, when the government is forced to institute conscription (see Conscription Crisis of 1944).
1944 – Hydro-Québec founded on April 14 as the Quebec Hydroelectric Commission by nationalizing Montreal Light, Heat and Power.
1944 – A RAF Liberator Bomber, fully loaded for a flight to England, crashes into a row of houses in Griffintown on April 25. 15 to 20 fatalities noted.
1940s – Gibeau Orange Julep first built - original orange-shaped building will be torn down for the construction of the Decarie autoroute and rebuilt in 1965.
1959 – On August 30, having completed its route along the Papineau-Rosemont line, the last streetcar entered the station at 4:50 p.m., ending 67 years of tram service in the city.
1971 – Montreal receives the biggest snowfall recorded for a year: 383.3 centimetres (12.58 ft).
1972 – Blue Bird Café fire kills 37; deliberately set by patrons angry they were not admitted to the Wagon Wheel Bar upstairs for being too drunk.
1972 – Armed robbers steal 18 paintings, including a Rembrandt, along with 38 pieces of jewellery, from the Museum of Fine Arts in Canada's largest art theft, and indeed largest theft of private property, ever; with the exception of one returned during ransom negotiations, none of the missing works has ever been found nor the thieves publicly identified
2002 – Montreal is merged with the 27 surrounding municipalities on the Île de Montréal on January 1. The merger creates a unified city covering the entire Île de Montréal.
2002 – Official reopening of the Lachine Canal exclusively for pleasure boating, May 17.
2004 – Several former municipalities, totalling 13% of the population of Île de Montréal, vote to leave the newly unified city in separate referendums in June.
2006 – Dawson College shooting on September 13. Kimveer Gill kills one student and wounds nineteen others before being winged by a police sniper and committing suicide.
2012 – Charbonneau Commission begins examining corruption in Montreal civic governance and collusion among major engineering and construction firms bidding for municipal contracts.
2012 – Gérald Tremblay steps down as mayor in November after allegations of serious irregularities in party financing. Michael Applebaum becomes interim mayor until municipal elections in November 2013
2013 – Michael Applebaum is arrested and indicted with 14 charges including fraud and corruption. He steps down. City councillors elect Laurent Blanchard to serve as mayor for the four months remaining before the municipal elections.
2013 – Denis Coderre elected mayor of Montreal
2015 – Some matches of the FIFA Women's World Cup are held in Montreal at the Olympic stadium.
^"CRTC Origins". Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. 2008-09-05. Archived from the original on 2012-01-10. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
