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- June 19, 1816 - **Battle of Seven Oaks - After several years of harassment by agents of the North West Company, Métis led by Cuthbert Grant kill Robert Semple, governor of the Red River settlement, and twenty others at Seven Oaks Massacre.
- August 15, 1816 - Lord Selkirk captures Fort William with private army of discharged veterans; arrests William McGillivray and other Norwesters for Seven Oaks Massacre, and sends them to trial in Montréal, Québec.
- July 18, 1817 - **Lord Selkirk Signs Treaty with Ojibway and Swampy Cree on behalf of King George III; local chiefs surrender lands to the Red River Colony.
- 1817 - Rush-Bagot agreement limits the number of battleships on the Great Lakes to a total of eight.
- 1818 - Canada's border is defined as the 49th Parallel from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.
- 1821 - New Lachine Canal begun; completed in 1824.
- March 21, 1821 - Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company amalgamate; creates unemployment for Métis workforce in he West.
- 1822 - Louis-Joseph Papineau, a member of the legislative assembly since 1814, travels from Montréal to England to oppose an Act of Union identifying the French Canadians as a minority without language rights. The act is not passed in the British Parliament.
- November 30, 1824 - Welland Canal Company president George Keefer turns the first sod to start building of the first Welland Canal; to compete with the new Erie Canal in New York State; opened November 30, 1829.
- 1825 - Great Miramichi Fire breaks out in a hot, dry Summer - Miramichi, New Brunswick - 200-500 killed
- 1826 - Royal Engineers Col. John By builds the Rideau Canal with Thomas Mackay and John Redpath; to 1832.
- August 19, 1826 - Scottish novelist/land agent John Galt gets a charter for the Canada Company, to colonize lands in the western part of Upper Canada (Ontario).
- May 5, 1826 - Red River Flood - Heavy rains follows a severe winter in the Red River Settlement; between May 3 and 4 the Red River rose five feet, then on May 5, the ice broke and the flood swept away 47 houses, killing 5 colonists; the Hudson's Bay Company sent out boats to rescue stranded colonists from roof tops. Manitoba
- November 30, 1829 - **The Opening of the Welland Canal
- 1829 - Start of Cholera Epidemic in the Canadas; to 1832.
- April 29, 1831 - **Royal William Steamship Launched at Québec
- 1832 - Cholera Epidemic hits Montréal , Québec - 947 killed
- June 24, 1834 - **Founding Banquet of the St-Jean-Baptiste Society in Montreal.
- 1834 - William Lyon Mackenzie elected the first Mayor of Toronto.
- 1834 - York is renamed Toronto.
- March 3, 1835 - **Joseph Howe acquitted of Libel; the Halifax printer, owner since 1828 of the weekly Novascotian, is arrested for libel but successfully argues his own case for freedom of the press. A local hero, he begins advocating the kind of responsible government that is only established in 1848.
- July 21, 1836 - Opening of Canada's first railway line, from St-Jean, Québec, to La Prairie, Québec.
- September 5, 1837 - Rebellion of 1837 - Thomas Storrow Brown, André Ouimet and Louis-Joseph Papineau's son Amédée Papineau, together with 500 other young Montréalers, found a new political Society called l'Association des Fils de la Liberté (the Sons of Liberty) at a meeting in the Hotel Nelson
- November 16, 1837 - Rebellion of 1837 - Rebellion Breaks Out in Lower Canada
- November 22, 1837 - William Lyon Mackenzie Issues his Proclamation to the People of Upper Canada
- November 23, 1837- Rebellion of 1837 - **Patriotes Drive Back British at St-Denis
- November 25, 1837- Rebellion of 1837 - **British Crush Patriotes at St-Charles
- December 5, 1837 - Rebellion of 1837 - **Rebellion Breaks Out in Toronto
- December 14, 1837 - Rebellion of 1837 - **Patriotes Defeated at St-Eustache
- December 29, 1837- Rebellion of 1837 - **The Burning of the Caroline
- 1838 - Lord Durham arrives to investigate the circumstances behind the Rebellion of 1837; governor general and high commissioner of British North America.
- 1838 - Rebellion of 1837 - Battle of the Windmill
- 1838 - Hunters Lodges Invade the Canadas
- 1839 - Aroostook War) - Territorial disputes between lumbermen from Maine and New Brunswick lead to armed conflict in the Aroostook River valley.
- February 4, 1839 - Lord Durham Submits Report; recommends establishment of responsible government and the union of Upper and Lower Canada to speed the assimilation of French-speaking Canadians.
- July 17, 1840 - **Cunard's First Steamship Arrives in Halifax
- February 10, 1841 - Act of Union unites Upper and Lower Canada as the Province of Canada under a single government; elected assembly with equal representation from Canada West and Canada East (later Ontario and Québec); also assumption of £1.2 million Upper Canada (Canada West) debt, establishment of a civil list, banning of the French language in the Assembly and in all government departments, and dissolution of French educational and civil law institutions. The Union will soon become unworkable, and the province ungovernable.
- August, 1842 - Webster-Ashburton Treaty ends the Aroostook War, settling once and for all the Maine-New Brunswick border dispute.
- 1842 - Independent Order of Odd Fellows breaks from the Manchester Unity, soon opening lodges in Montréal and Halifax.
- 1843 - Britain's claim to Vancouver Island is assured by Fort Victoria.
- 1844 - Amnesty in Montréal provides for return of Louis-Joseph Papineau and other rebels.
- 1845 - F. X. Garneau Publishes His Histoire du Canada
- May 24, 1846 - Paul Kane sets out from Fort William with the Hudson's Bay Company spring fur brigade; will spend three years in the West, documenting one of the last great buffalo hunts; spent Christmas at Fort Edmonton, and records Canada's native peoples at a time of major transition.
- June 15, 1846 - Oregon Boundary Treaty
- October 22, 1846 - First Telegraph Established in Canada
- 1847 - Egerton Ryerson Publishes His Report on Education
- 1847 - Loss of Franklin Expedition in Nunavut to 1848 - 129 starve to death or die of cold or disease.
- May 14, 1847 - **Tragedy at Grosse-Île as Cholera and Typhoid Fever Epidemics kill 5,200 Irish Immigrants at Grosse Île, Québec
- 1847 - Cholera and Typhoid Fever Kill Irish Immigrants on Partridge Island Quarantine Station Near Saint John, New Brunswick - 600 killed
- December 25, 1847 - **Paul Kane's Christmas Feast at Fort Edmonton
- 1848 - 'Great Ministry' of Robert Baldwin and Louis Lafontaine outlines the principles of responsible government in the Canadas.
- February 2, 1848 - Joseph Howe wins fight for Responsible Government in Nova Scotia.
- October 10, 1849 - **Montreal Businessmen Sign Annexation Manifesto in favour of commercial union with the United States.
- 1849 - Canada-US boundary extended to the Pacific Ocean along the 49th Parallel.
- 1849 - Act of Amnesty allows William Lyon Mackenzie and other rebels return from exile in the U.S.
- 1850 - Town of Bytown incorporated; at terminus of the Rideau Canal; today's Ottawa, Ontario.
- 1850 - Plains Indian culture is at its height, sustained by the use of horses and the exploitation of large game.
- January 10, 1850 - Search for Lost Franklin Expedition.
- April 17, 1851 - **Launch of Marco Polo, the Fastest Ship in the World in Saint John, New Brunswick
- May 20, 1851 - Province of Canada issues its first postage stamps; Britain had transferred control of the colonial postal system to Canada. Kingston, Ontario
- 1852 - The Grand Trunk Railway receives its charter.
- 1852 - Laval's Séminaire du Québec founds Université Laval, North America's oldest French Language university.
- June 6, 1854 - Canada and the U.S. sign a Reciprocity Treaty, ensuring reduction of customs duties (June 6).
- June 27, 1854 - New Brunswick chemist Abraham Gesner awarded US patent for distilling kerosene from petroleum; completely replaces whale oil in lamps in a few years.
- September 11, 1854 - MacNab-Morin Coalition
- 1855 - Bytown is renamed Ottawa.
- 1856 - The Grand Trunk Railway opens its Toronto-Montréal line.
- November 17, 1856 - Grand Trunk Railway completed
- 1857 - Palliser Expedition sent to explore Ruperts Land.
- 1857 - Queen Victoria designates George-Étienne Cartier's choice of Ottawa as capital of the Province of Canada.
- 1857 - Desjardins Canal railway bridge collapse, Hamilton, Ontario - 60 killed
- April 25, 1858 - Start of Fraser River Gold Rush
- November 20, 1858 - - **The Birth of British Columbia
- 1858 - The Halifax-Truro line begins rail service.
- 1858 - Chinese immigrants from California arrive in British Columbia, attracted by the Fraser River Gold Rush.
- February 2, 1859 - - **Ottawa Chosen as the Capital of Canada
- November 9, 1859 - Reformers Hold Convention
- 1859 - James Carnegie, the Earl of Southesk is the first tourist in Western Canada.
- September 1, 1860 - Prince of Wales lays cornerstone of the Parliament buildings.
- June 27, 1860 - First Queen's Plate Horse Race
- November 8, 1861 - **Britain Arms Canada During the Trent Crisis
- 1861 - Joseph Howe becomes Premier of Nova Scotia.
- 1862 - Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick accepts its first woman student.
- 1862 - Start of Canada-wide Smallpox Epidemic - 20,000 killed
- 1862 - Smallpox Epidemic starts to decimate Haida people of Queen Charlotte Islands, BC - 9,400 killed in the next decade, to 1872
- September 1, 1864 - Charlottetown Conference takes the first steps toward Confederation; originally designed to discuss Maritime union; (to Sept. 9).
- October 19, 1864 - St. Albans Raid - 25 Confederate States of America soldiers using Montréal as a base raid St. Albans, Vermont; they rob three banks of $200,000, torch the town and kill one person.
- October 10, 1865 - **Delegates Meet at the Québec Conference to Plan Confederation. They identify the Seventy Two Resolutions that set out the basis for union; to October 27, 1865.
- October 10, 1865 - **Opening of the Acadian Collège St-Joseph.
- 1865 - Crimes of murder, treason and rape carry the death penalty in British North America, and these penalties will remain in Confederation. Capital Punishment
- 1866 - Start of Fenian Raids; the group of radical Irish-Americans was organized in New York in 1859 to oppose British presence in Ireland, begin a series of raids on Canadian territory in the hopes of diverting British troops from the homeland.
- 1866 - Fenian Raids - Battle of Fort Erie
- June 2, 1866 - Fenian Raids - Battle of Ridgeway lends a special urgency to the Confederation movement.
- December 4, 1866 - London Conference passes resolutions which are redrafted as the British North America Act.
- March 8, 1867 - British Parliament Passes BNA Act.
- July 1, 1867 - Confederation. Britain's North American colonies are united by means of the BNA Act to become the Dominion of Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald is Canada's first Prime Minister. Ottawa offically becomes capital of the Dominion. The British North America Act, 1867, passed by the British Parliament, creates a Canada made up of four provinces - - Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The Act is the first major component of Canada's written Constitution.
