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Dateline
1615 Étienne Brûlé travels the Toronto Trail. "Toronto" is derived from a Huron term for "place of meeting."
1720 France establishes post at Toronto.
1751 French build Fort Rouillé.
1759 Fort Rouillé burned during British conquest.
1763 Treaty of Paris effectively ends French rule in Canada.
1787 Lord Dorchester, British governor of Québec, purchases land from Scarborough to Etobicoke from the Mississauga tribe.
1793 Governor of Upper Canada, Col. John Simcoe, arrives and names settlement York. It becomes capital of Upper Canada.
1796 Yonge Street laid out, a 53km (33-mile) oxcart trail.
1812-15 War of 1812, between United States and England, uses Canada as a battleground. In 1813, Americans invade, blow up Fort York, and burn Parliament buildings. In 1814, U.S. troops are driven out of Canada.
1820s Immigration of nonconformists and Irish Catholics fosters reform politics.
1828 Erie Canal extended to Oswego on Lake Ontario.
1830s Orange Order becomes prominent influence in politics.
1832-34 Cholera epidemics.
1834 City named Toronto; City Council replaces magistrates; William Lyon Mackenzie becomes first mayor.
1837 Former Mayor Mackenzie leads rebellion sparked by economic downturn.
1840s-50s Mass Irish immigration.
1841 Act of Union establishes the United Province of Canada, with Kingston as ruling seat; Toronto loses status as a capital.
1843 King's College opens.
1844 City hall built. George Brown founds the Globe.
1849 Fire destroys much of city. Anglican King's College converts to secular University of Toronto.
1851 Population 30,000 (33% Irish). Anglican Trinity College founded. St. Lawrence Hall built.
1852 Toronto Stock Exchange opens. Grand Trunk Railroad charted, linking Québec, Montréal, Toronto, Guelph, and Sarnia.
1853 St. James' Cathedral completed.
1858 Storm creates the Toronto Islands.
1861 Horse-powered street railway runs along Yonge to Yorkville.
1867 Canadian Confederation created; Toronto becomes capital of new province of Ontario.
1868 Canada First movement begins.
1869 Eaton's department store opens.
1871 Population 56,000.
1872 Simpson's department store opens.
1876 John Ross Robertson starts Evening Telegram, which wields influence for next 90 years.
1886 Provincial parliament buildings erected in Queen's Park.
1893 First Stanley Cup played.
1896 Maclean's newsmagazine started.
1901 Population 208,000.
1903 Dramatic short film Hiawatha is the first movie made in Canada.
1904 The Great Fire burns much of downtown.
1906 First autos produced by Canada Cycle and Motor Company. Toronto Symphony founded.
1907 Bell strike broken. Royal Alexandra opens. The Lord's Day Act forbids all public activity except churchgoing on Sunday.
1909 Florence Nightingale Graham drops out of nursing school in Toronto, changes her name to Elizabeth Arden, and founds the first cosmetics empire.
1911 Founding members of the Group of Seven meet at the Toronto Arts and Letters Club.
1912 Garment workers' strike broken. Royal Ontario Museum founded.
1914 New Union Station built.
1914-18 World War I; 70,000 Torontonians enlist, and 13,000 die.
1920 The Art Gallery of Toronto mounts the first Group of Seven exhibit.
1921 Population 521,893.
1922 University of Toronto researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best discover insulin.
1923 Dr. Banting is awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine. Parliament passes the Chinese Exclusion Act. Ernest Hemingway moves to Toronto to become a reporter for the Star.
1930s The Great Depression; thousands go on relief.
1931 Maple Leaf Gardens built as home base for the Maple Leafs.
1938 Toronto native Joseph Shuster co-creates Superman with Cleveland friend Jerry Siegel.
1939 Canada enters World War II; thousands of troops leave from Union Station.
1940-45 Toronto functions as war supplier.
1947 Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 repealed; cocktail lounges approved.
1950 Sunday sports allowed.
1951 Population 31% foreign-born.
1954 Metro created; Toronto becomes a model for urban consolidation. Toronto native Marilyn Bell, 16, becomes first person to swim across Lake Ontario. In October, Hurricane Hazel kills 83 people in Toronto.
1959 York University, Toronto's second major institution of higher education, opens.
1960 Movies are shown in Toronto on Sunday for the first time.
1961 Forty-two percent population foreign-born.
1963 Ryerson Polytechnic University founded.
1965 New city hall at Nathan Phillips Square is unveiled. Canada and the United States sign the Autopact, creating boom times in Toronto and nearby Oshawa.
1966 U.S. draft dodgers start fleeing to Canada; many settle in Toronto.
1970s Influx of immigration from Asia, Africa, India, Pakistan, the Caribbean, and Latin America.
1974 Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the USSR during a trip to Toronto.
1975 Toronto International Film Festival founded. CN Tower becomes the world's tallest freestanding structure on land.
1980s Creation and expansion of the greater Toronto area, including nearby cities of Hamilton and Oshawa.
1981 Population 3,898,933.
1984 City's 150th anniversary.
1989 SkyDome opens, drawing wide criticism of its C$570-million cost.
1992 Residents of Toronto Islands win 40-year struggle to retain their homes. Blue Jays win World Series for the first time.
1993 Blue Jays repeat as World Series champions.
1995 Progressive Conservative Government elected in Ontario.
1996 Population 4,263,757. Fortune magazine names Toronto best city in the world to live and work. University of Toronto professor John Polanyi wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
1997 Protests in Queen's Park target social-services cuts and the passage of Bill 103, creating a megacity.
1998 Toronto becomes a megacity anyway.
1999 Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton discover unusual characteristics of Einstein's brain. The new Air Canada Centre becomes home to the Maple Leafs and the Raptors.
2001 Toronto loses its bid to host the 2008 Olympics to Beijing.
2002 Toronto hosts the first World Youth Day ever held in Canada; the event includes a visit by Pope John Paul II.
2003 Toronto gains several new attractions, including the Distillery historic district, the Yonge-Dundas Square, and the Carlu Theatre. Toronto tourism drops due to the SARS scare. Same-sex marriage is legalized in Ontario in June.
2006 A group planning terrorist bombings in Toronto and Ottawa is arrested in June. The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto's new opera house, opens the same month.
2007 Ireland Park opens at Eireann Quay on Toronto's waterfront. The Royal Ontario Museum unveils the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, which was designed by Daniel Libeskind.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
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