Nova Scotia artist Frances Jones Bannerman (1855–1944), was the first Canadian artist to exhibit her work at the Paris Salon. She was one of the first North American artists to incorporate impressionism into her paintings. She was the daughter of the Honourable Alfred Alpin Jones (1824–1906), a successful Halifax-based businessman, who served as lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia from 1900 to 1906. In 1886, Frances married a fellow artist, Englishman Hamlet Bannerman. (Painting:  The Conservatory, by Francis M....

Sir Charles Tupper (1821–1915) formed the federal government in Ottawa as the sixth prime minister of Canada seven days after Parliament had been dissolved. He had led Nova Scotia into Confederation and was Premier of Nova Scotia from 1864 to 1867. He lost the June 23 election and resigned on July 8, 1896, making his sixty-nine day term as prime minister the shortest in Canadian history. He became the last living Father of Confederation. (Image: Charles and Lady Tupper, October 1896.)

Award-winning Nova Scotian author Budge Wilson was born in Halifax. Author of thirty-four books, she started being published in 1984, with many of her works encompassing stories for young people. She has won over twenty-three Canadian Children’s Book Centre “Our Choice” selections, as well as a Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award and many other recognitions. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2004, and the Order of Nova Scotia in...

Judson Graham Day was born in Halifax. After appearing as a singer on Singalong Jubilee, he went on to become a corporate lawyer and a director of numerous companies, later serving as chairman and CEO of British Shipbuilders in the mid-80s and later the Rover Group, and in Canada, was a chairman of Hydro-One. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1989, received the Order of Nova Scotia in 2011, and appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2014....

Father Greg MacLeod died in Sydney (b. in Sydney Mines, 1935). He was a lifelong educator, ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1961 and become involved in community economic development initiatives in Cape Breton. He founded the Tompkins Institute in 1974 at the University College of Cape Breton (now Cape Breton University — CBU) and had a close association with the founding of CBU’s Centre for Community Economic Development in 1986. He is best known as the founder of New Dawn Enterprises in 1976, the oldest...

A fire in North Sydney destroyed over forty-one businesses. It was noted to be similar to a fire that took place in December of 1881. (Image: Beaton Institute).

Edwin Borden (1869–1953) was the first African Nova Scotian to graduate from Acadia University. He was also among the first athletes of African descent to graduate from a Canadian university. He went on to complete his master’s and doctorate degrees.

Academy Award–winning actress (and six-time nominee) Shirley MacLaine received an honorary doctorate from Acadia University. MacLaine’s mother, Kathlyn Corinne (née MacLean) was a drama teacher who had been born in Wolfville and educated at Acadia (1928). Her grandmother was also a former dean of women at Acadia. MacLaine grew up in Wolfville till the age of twelve when she moved with her family to the United States. Sister to well-known actor Warren Beatty. (Photo: Former Wolfville resident and Academy...

Black refugees (upwards of 200) from the War of 1812 Chesapeake Bay area were quarantined on Melville Island due to concerns about the spread of disease. Many later settled in Hammonds Plains, Beechville, Lucasville and the Campbell Road Settlement area, which later became known as Africville (est. in 1848). Gabriel Hall was amongst those who arrived at that time. (Photo: Gabriel Hall, in the only known image of a black refugee from the War of 1812. N.S....

Terry Fox (age 21) arrived in North Sydney from Port aux Basques on his cross-country Marathon of Hope. He had started from St. John's on April 12. Due to his illness, he had to stop the marathon on September 1 in Thunder Bay. (Photo: Terry Fox. terryfox.org).

Germany surrendered and VE Day Riots occurred on May 7 to 8 in Halifax. Several thousand servicemen, merchant seamen and civilians went on a looting rampage of the City of Halifax. Twenty-five thousand servicemen were in the city at the time and wanted to celebrate the war’s end — the only problem was authorities decided to shut down the liquor commission outlets to prevent “trouble,” and restaurants, retailers, and movie theatres followed suit. (Photo: The unofficial VE Day celebrations and riots in Halifax, May...

Harry Bruce was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 Atlantic Journalism Awards. His family roots in Nova Scotia stretch back to the late eighteenth century. He began his journalism career in 1955 in Ottawa, later working for Maclean’s, Saturday Night, the Canadian, and the Star Weekly. Moving to Nova Scotia in 1971, he wrote for national and regional newspapers and magazines. He was the founding editor of Atlantic Insight magazine in April 1979. He authored...

While en route from New York to Liverpool, England, the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German submarine, U-20, with 1,198 lives lost. Fears for the safety of Lusitania and other liners that also sailed from ports such as Halifax ran high during this time due to the state of war with Germany. There were a number of Canadians as well as American citizens, onboard the ship. It...

Mi’kmaq and Maliseet warriors raided two islands on the northern outskirts of the fortified Township of Lunenburg, (John) Rous Island and Payzant Island (later renamed Covey Island). French reports tell of twenty settlers being killed and five taken prisoner. This raid was the first of nine the warriors would conduct against the peninsula over a three-year period. Louis Payzant was killed in one attack, while his wife, Marie-Anne, and their four children were kidnapped to Aukpaque (near what became Fredericton, NB), and taken later to...

Irish-born Canadian artist Forshaw Day (1831–1903) presented his work, The Waverley Goldfields, Nova Scotia, at the international Dublin exhibition. Gold had been discovered in Waverley in 1861 and the Waverley Gold Mining Company included Day’s work in the provincial submission to the exhibition. Day had arrived in Halifax in 1862, opening a studio in the city and teaching art for a number of years. He later taught drawing at the Royal Military College in Kingston. In 1880 he was a founding member of the Royal Canadian...

The first recorded flight at the Halifax Airport, Chebucto Road, took place — now known as Saunders Park in the West End of Halifax. (Photo: The Halifax Municipal Airport, 1931. N.S. Archives).

Hank Snow was born in Brooklyn, Queens County, NS. He grew up in Liverpool. He later became a celebrated Canadian and US country music artist, known as The Yodelling Ranger and The Singing Ranger. He got his start performing live on CHNS radio in Halifax. Later he began touring and went to Nashville. He had a career spanning fifty years, 140 albums and eighty-five singles on Billboard from 1950 to 1980. He died in Nashville...

The British Parliament passed the Tea Act, taxing the US colonies. By December 16, it would ignite the American Revolution when the Sons of Liberty, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded three ships in Boston Harbour and destroyed 92,000 pounds of British East India Company tea. Within ten years, in the heat of the American conflict, Nova Scotia would receive a flood of more than 25,000 Loyalist refugees, adding to the...

Nova Scotia’s first radio station, CHNS, broadcast for the first time from a tiny room at the Carleton Hotel in Halifax using a 500-watt transmitter. The station was created by the Halifax Radio Listeners’ Club with technical assistance from the Northern Electric Co. Later in November, Bill Borrett, who also was a member of the club, would do the first live hockey broadcast. Later that year, station ownership came under...

The Cape Breton Causeway opened with 40,000 people in attendance and twenty-five lines of pipers. (Photo: The Cape Breton Causeway.)

The French and Indian War begins — later (1756) officially becoming The Seven Years’ War between England and France. In Nova Scotia, it started with a series of conflicts in June of 1755, namely the Battle of Fort Beauséjour, with the deportation of the Acadians in the fall. By July 1757, there were in excess of 20,000 soldiers and sailors in Halifax with plans to attack the French at Louisbourg....

Joseph Howe spoke to the idea of constructing an intercolonial railway at the Mason’s Hall in Halifax. “I am neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, yet I will venture to predict that in five years we shall make the journey hence to Quebec and Montreal, and home through Portland and St. John, by rail; and I believe that many in this room will live to hear the...

Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons (de Monts), with Baron de Poutrincourt, Samuel de Champlain and their crew, sailed into what is now known as the Annapolis Basin. They later crossed the Baie Françoise (Bay of Fundy) and settled for their first winter on the island of St. Croix (located on what became the border between New Brunswick and eastern Maine). After much hardship, in the spring of 1605 they moved...

The Kambria is abandoned at sea. It had been built in 1882 at Kingsport, Nova Scotia by Peter R. Creighton and registered at Windsor. (Painting from N.S. Archives.)

A picture was taken of Molly Muise, Mi’kmaq elder, who lived to a great age at Annapolis Royal. It is considered one of the earliest portraits of a Mi’kmaw person by a photographic process.

Nova Scotia declared the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever to be the provincial dog. (Photo: The Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. YouTube.com.)

Pumpkin king Howard Dill died in Windsor (b. 1934). He was a legendary farmer and winner of largest pumpkin weigh-offs, as well as a world-renowned grower of giant gourds. Dill was also an avid hockey historian and enabled Windsor’s claim to the title “Birthplace of Hockey.” (Also see Garth Vaughan, September 1, 1996.). (Photo: Howarddill.com.)

First Jesuits arrived in Port Royal, Father Pierre Biard and Father Énemond Masse. An earlier Jesuit mission had been established in 1609 on Penobscot Bay. In 1632–33, two Jesuits would also reside at St. Anne’s Bay in Cape Breton. The Jesuit Order, known as the Society of Jesus, had been approved by Pope Paul III in 1540.

The Halifax Yacht Club was renamed the Royal Halifax Yacht Club (and, later, again renamed the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron). The club was the oldest yacht club in North America having come into being on July 27, 1837. In 1860, as a nineteen-year-old, His Royal Highness Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, had visited Halifax. An enthusiastic yachtsman, he participated in a regatta in his...

While in Halifax preparing for the British attack on Fortress Louisbourg, Brigadier General James Wolfe (age thirty-one) hosted a party for forty-seven of his men at the Great Pontack Inn (built prior to 1754, located at the corner of Duke and Water Streets). The event included ten musicians and plenty of food and liquid refreshments. Wolfe would return to the Pontack a year later on a stopover on his way...

The Habitation at Port Royal was designated a National Historic Site by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board. It was established by France in 1605 as the first successful settlement in North America, serving as the capital of Acadia till its destruction by British military forces in 1613. A replica of the Habitation, based on Champlain’s original plans, was constructed from 1939 to 1941 and was the first National Historic...

Reverend Dr. William Pearly Oliver died died (b. 1912). He was a leading African Nova Scotian who, with his wife, Pearleen Borden Oliver, was a strong advocate for social justice. A graduate of Acadia University (1934), and minister at Cornwallis Street Baptist Church (1937–1962), he was instrumental in developing many progressive organizations, including the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1945), the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission...

On CBC Radio this day, Nora Bateson, the former Nova Scotia Director of Libraries (1938–1945), championed a vision of libraries as agents of personal and community development. It was twenty days after Germany had surrendered, and the VE Day riots had occurred earlier in the month in Halifax. A month earlier, Premier Macmillan had fired her when she had made a public remark that Nova Scotia was a “library desert.”...

During the American Revolution, the Battle of Halifax took place between the American privateer Jack and the 14-gun Royal Naval brig HMS Observer off Halifax Harbour’s Sambro Light. The Jack lost the battle, striking its colours the next day. The battle was one of several in the area. (Painting: The American privateer Jack and the 14-gun Royal Navy brig HMS Observer engage in battle off Halifax Harbour’s Sambro Light. From...

George Wylie Hutchinson was born in Great Village, NS (d. 1942). He left the province as a young ship-cabin’s boy. Later he studied art at the Royal Academy School in London (1880–1885). He became a noted painter and an illustrator in Britain, working for such publications as the Illustrated London News, as well as illustrating many works for authors who were at the centre of London literary circles — such...

Symphony Nova Scotia (SNS) was created, beginning with thirteen full-time players for a January–May season, under the direction of conductor Boris Brott and board president Brian Flemming. In the past, orchestras had been formed in Halifax, beginning in 1897 with the Halifax Symphony Orchestra (disbanded in 1908). SNS grew to employ thirty-seven full-time musicians for a 33-week season under the direction of Bernhard Gueller. (Photo: Symphony Nova Scotia).