History of Quebec

🪶c. 10,000 BCECliche-Rancourt site, near Lac-MéganticIndigenous

First people arrive as the glaciers retreat

As the ice sheet melted, the first nomadic groups reached what is now Quebec about 12,000 years ago. At the Cliche-Rancourt site near Lac Mégantic, found in 2003, archaeologists recovered fragments of fluted Clovis-style points. It is the only known site in Quebec from this early Paleo-Indian phase.

💡 Fun fact

🪶c. 9,000–3,000 years agoSt. Lawrence ValleyIndigenous

Archaic peoples spread across the land

Archaeologists have recorded more than 800 sites from the Archaic period. They group them into three traditions: the Laurentian in the St. Lawrence Valley, the Shield tradition in the north and the Maritime Archaic on the Lower North Shore. People of this period made ground-stone tools and worked native copper by hammering.

🪶c. 2000 BCENunavikIndigenous

Paleo-Inuit peoples settle the Far North

About 4,000 years ago, Paleo-Eskimo groups (today often called Paleo-Inuit) moved east across the Arctic, and their occupation of northern Quebec became permanent about 2,500 years ago. Dorset sites reach as far as Newfoundland and the Lower North Shore.

🪶c. 400 BCEPointe-du-Buisson, MelochevilleIndigenous

Pottery and fishing camps at Pointe-du-Buisson

The Woodland period, from about 3,000 years ago, is represented by more than 1,000 known sites. In the Middle Woodland, about 2,400 years ago, pottery became common. At Pointe-du-Buisson near Beauharnois, researchers identified 24 species of fish, and fish bones make up 83 per cent of the animal remains found there.

🪶c. 1000 CENunavikIndigenous

Thule ancestors of the Inuit reach Nunavik

Around 1,000 years ago a second migration from the western Arctic brought the Thule people east. They replaced the earlier Paleo-Inuit and are the ancestors of most Inuit today. Inuit now live in 14 northern villages of Nunavik, north of the 55th parallel, along Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay.

🪶c. 1000–1600Stadacona (Quebec City)Indigenous

St. Lawrence Iroquoians farm corn in palisaded towns

From about 1000 CE, corn-growing societies appeared in the St. Lawrence Valley, including the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. They lived in longhouses inside palisaded villages, some with more than 2,000 people, among them Stadacona (Quebec City) and Hochelaga (Montreal). By the time Champlain arrived in the early 1600s they had disappeared from the valley, and the cause is still unknown.

🪶Before 1534QuebecIndigenous

Homelands of many nations

When Europeans arrived, the land now called Quebec was home to many peoples. Today the province recognizes 11 Indigenous nations: the Abenaki, Algonquin (Anishinabeg), Atikamekw, Cree (Eeyou), Wendat, Innu, Inuit, Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), Mi'kmaq, Mohawk (Kanien'kehá:ka) and Naskapi. The Innu, whose name means 'human being,' lived by hunting, fishing and gathering across the North Shore; the Naskapi relied on caribou; and the Mohawk were one of the nations of the Five Nations (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy.

🧭October 2, 1535Hochelaga (Montreal)Exploration

Cartier visits Hochelaga and winters at Stadacona

On his second voyage Cartier reached Hochelaga on October 2, 1535, a town of nearly 2,000 people on the island of Montreal. Back at Stadacona, his ships were frozen in from mid-November; about 25 of 100 sick Frenchmen died of scurvy before the Iroquoians shared a cedar remedy called anedda. On May 3, 1536, Cartier seized about ten people, including Donnacona, and took them to France, where Donnacona died.

🪶May 27, 1603TadoussacIndigenous

An alliance is sealed at Tadoussac

French traders had built a post at Tadoussac in 1600; only 5 of the 16 men left there survived the first winter. On May 27, 1603, Samuel de Champlain and François Gravé met about 1,000 Innu (Montagnais), Algonquin and Etchemin people at Pointe Saint-Mathieu. The Innu leader Anadabijou welcomed them with a feast, and the alliance between the French and these nations was confirmed.

🏘️May 17, 1642Pointe-à-Callière, MontrealSettlement

Ville-Marie (Montreal) is founded

Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve took possession of the island of Montreal for the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal on May 17, 1642, with Jeanne Mance among the founders. The missionary colony began with about 56 people. Haudenosaunee attacks began in 1643 and became so frequent by 1651 that settlers sheltered inside the fort.

🪶July 28, 1650WendakeIndigenous

Wendat refugees arrive at Quebec

Epidemics of smallpox and influenza between 1634 and 1639 cut the Wendat population from an estimated 30,000 to about 12,000, and Haudenosaunee attacks in 1649 destroyed their villages near Georgian Bay. A group of survivors left Christian Island in June 1650 and reached Quebec on July 28. They settled on Île d'Orléans in 1651 and, from 1673, at the Lorette mission, the origin of today's Wendake.

⚔️August 5, 1689LachineWar

The Haudenosaunee attack Lachine

France and England went to war in 1689, and the English in New York told their Haudenosaunee allies before New France knew. At dawn on August 5, about 1,500 warriors struck the village of Lachine, home to some 375 settlers. Twenty-four colonists were killed, more than 70 were taken prisoner and 56 of 77 houses were burned; some captives were later adopted into Haudenosaunee families.

🪶August 4, 1701MontrealIndigenous

The Great Peace of Montreal

In the summer of 1701 more than 1,300 delegates from about 40 nations, from the Great Lakes to Acadia, gathered near Montreal at Governor Louis-Hector de Callière's invitation. The Wendat leader Kondiaronk, already ill, gave a long speech for peace on August 1 and died the next night. After his funeral the treaty was signed by 38 nations, including the Haudenosaunee, who promised to stay neutral in future wars between France and England.

⚖️April 10–11, 1734Rue Saint-Paul, MontrealRights

Fire in Montreal and the execution of an enslaved woman

On the night of April 10–11, 1734, a fire on Rue Saint-Paul destroyed 46 houses and the Hôtel-Dieu hospital. Marie-Joseph-Angélique, a Black woman enslaved by the Francheville household, was accused of setting it, possibly to cover an escape. She was tortured and hanged on June 21, 1734; whether she set the fire is still debated.

⚖️ Established fact

⚖️1760WendakeRights

A British general signs a peace with the Wendat

As the war ended in 1760, British General James Murray gave the Wendat (Huron) a document promising peace and protection of their religion and customs. Two centuries later four Wendat brothers were charged with cutting trees, camping and making fires in Jacques-Cartier park. On May 24, 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Sioui that the 1760 document is a treaty that still protects Wendat customs, and upheld their acquittal.

🏛️1763Quebec CityGovernment

The Royal Proclamation

After France ceded Canada in 1763, King George III issued a proclamation setting out how the Crown would deal with Indigenous peoples in its new North American territories. It recognized Indigenous rights to land not yet ceded and said only the Crown could acquire it, after admitting 'great frauds and abuses' in earlier land purchases. It became a guide for later treaty-making, and its influence is felt in the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

🏛️1774Quebec CityGovernment

The Quebec Act restores French civil law

Parliament in London passed the Quebec Act in 1774, while Guy Carleton was governor. It restored French civil law and the seigneurial system, and let the Catholic Church collect tithes again. The seigneurs and clergy welcomed it, many habitants were uneasy about renewed dues, and British merchants, denied English law and an elected assembly, opposed it.

⚔️December 31, 1775Près-de-Ville, Quebec CityWar

American forces attack Quebec

During the American Revolution, the Continental Army invaded the province and besieged Quebec for about six months. The only assault, in a snowstorm before dawn on December 31, 1775, was driven back; Richard Montgomery was killed, 60 to 100 Americans were killed or wounded and about 400 were captured, against fewer than 20 British casualties.

🚂1821–1825Lachine Canal, MontrealTransport

The Lachine Canal bypasses the rapids

The idea of a canal around the Lachine Rapids dated to the 1670s, but work began only in 1821 and the canal was finished in 1825. It was enlarged in 1843–48 and 1873–84 and became the heart of Montreal's industrial growth. The canal closed to shipping in November 1970 and reopened to pleasure boats in 2002.

⚔️November 23 – December 14, 1837Saint-Denis-sur-RichelieuWar

The Patriote rebellion

After years of conflict between the elected assembly of Lower Canada, led by Louis-Joseph Papineau's Patriotes, and the appointed colonial government, fighting broke out in 1837. Patriotes under Wolfred Nelson forced British troops to retreat at Saint-Denis on November 23, but were defeated at Saint-Charles on November 25. On December 14, troops crushed the rebels at Saint-Eustache, where Jean-Olivier Chénier was killed.

⚖️1838–1839Pied-du-Courant prison, MontrealRights

A second uprising, hangings and exile

On February 28, 1838, Robert Nelson declared Lower Canada independent, and the secret Frères chasseurs kept the movement alive until their defeat at Odelltown in November 1838. Patriote leaders, including François-Marie-Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier, were hanged at Montreal's Pied-du-Courant prison on February 15, 1839. On September 27, 1839, the transport Buffalo left Quebec carrying 58 Patriotes to exile in New South Wales.

⚖️ Established fact

🔥1847Grosse ÎleDisaster

Typhus at the Grosse Île quarantine station

Grosse Île, downstream from Quebec City, served as the port's quarantine station from 1832 to 1937. In 1847, at the height of the Irish Famine, more than 100,000 immigrants arrived at Quebec, many weakened and sick with typhus. More than 5,000 people died at sea and 5,424 were buried on the island.

🏛️April 25, 1849Place d'Youville, MontrealGovernment

A mob burns the Parliament in Montreal

Lower and Upper Canada had been merged into a single Province of Canada in 1841, and its parliament sat in Montreal. When Lord Elgin gave royal assent to the Rebellion Losses Bill on April 25, 1849, which compensated people for property lost in 1837–38, a mob broke into the parliament building and set it on fire.

🏛️November 1885Champ-de-Mars, MontrealGovernment

Riel's execution shakes Quebec politics

Louis Riel was hanged on November 16, 1885, after the North-West Resistance. Many French Canadians saw the execution as an attack on their community, and a large protest gathered on the Champ-de-Mars in Montreal. Honoré Mercier rode the backlash to build the Parti National and became premier of Quebec on January 29, 1887.

🔥August 29, 1907Quebec BridgeDisaster

The Quebec Bridge collapses

On August 29, 1907, the south arm of the unfinished Quebec Bridge gave way, and at least 75 of the 86 workers on site were killed. Among the dead were 33 Mohawk ironworkers from Kahnawake. The centre span fell again during lifting on September 11, 1916; the bridge was completed in 1917 and officially opened in 1919, and it remains the world's longest cantilever span.

💡 Fun fact

⚔️1917QuebecWar

Conscription divides the country

The Military Service Act, passed in August 1917, made men aged 20 to 45 liable for overseas service. French Canadians widely opposed it; tens of thousands of young men did not register, and 93 per cent of those who did asked for exemptions. Robert Borden's Unionists won the December 1917 election but lost heavily in francophone Quebec.

⚔️March 28 – April 1, 1918Rues Saint-Vallier and Saint-Joseph, Quebec CityWar

Soldiers fire on anti-conscription crowds in Quebec City

Protests against the hunt for draft evaders began in Quebec City on March 28, 1918, and continued for five days. On April 1, soldiers brought in from Ontario and Western Canada fired on a crowd in the Saint-Roch district after reading the order to disperse in English. Four civilians were killed, including a 14-year-old, and dozens were wounded (a memorial gives about 70).

⚖️ Established fact

⚖️1933–1991Fort George (Chisasibi)Rights

Residential schools open in Quebec

Quebec's first residential schools, Anglican and Catholic, opened at Fort George on James Bay in 1933 and 1937. Ottawa opened four more as resource development pushed into the north: Sept-Îles (1952), Amos (1955), Pointe-Bleue in Mashteuiatsh (1960) and La Tuque (1962 or 1963; sources differ), along with federal hostels in Inuit communities such as Kangiqsualujjuaq, Kuujjuarapik and Inukjuak. Children were punished for speaking Cree, Algonquin and other languages; the last school, Pointe-Bleue, closed in 1991.

⚖️ Officially acknowledged

🏛️August 17, 1936Parliament Building, Quebec CityGovernment

Maurice Duplessis takes power

Maurice Duplessis's Union nationale won the election of August 17, 1936. His first government passed the 1937 Act respecting communistic propaganda, known as the Padlock Law, used to close premises linked to communists. Defeated in 1939, he returned to power in 1944 and governed until he died in Schefferville on September 7, 1959; in 1948 his government adopted the fleur-de-lys flag.

⚖️April 25, 1940Parliament Building, Quebec CityRights

Quebec women win the provincial vote

Quebec was the last province to let women vote. After campaigns led by Marie Lacoste-Gérin-Lajoie, Idola Saint-Jean and Thérèse Casgrain, Premier Adélard Godbout's government passed Bill 18 by 67 votes to 9, and it received assent on April 25, 1940. Women first voted in a provincial general election on August 8, 1944, and Marie-Claire Kirkland became the first woman elected to the legislature in 1961.

⚔️1942–1944MontrealWar

The second conscription crisis

In the plebiscite of April 27, 1942, about 80 per cent of voters outside Quebec released Prime Minister Mackenzie King from his promise not to conscript for overseas service, while about 72 per cent of Quebec voters said no. King delayed until November 22, 1944, when he agreed to send home-defence conscripts overseas, angering Quebec. Only about 2,400 conscripts reached the front lines before the war ended.

💰April 14, 1944MontrealEconomy

Hydro-Québec is created

On April 14, 1944, Godbout's government passed the law creating the Quebec Hydro-Electric Commission and expropriated the Montreal Light, Heat and Power Company. The new public utility hired its first French-speaking engineer, Robert Boyd, later that year.

⚖️1940s–1950sMontrealRights

The Duplessis Orphans

In the 1940s and 1950s thousands of children, many born to unmarried mothers, were placed in church-run orphanages and psychiatric institutions; some orphanages were reclassified as mental hospitals, which brought in more federal funding. Estimates of the number confined run from 5,000 to 6,000. Survivors later described beatings, sexual abuse, forced labour, electroshock and lack of schooling.

⚖️ Officially acknowledged

💰February 14, 1949Asbestos (Val-des-Sources)Economy

The Asbestos strike

About 5,000 miners at Asbestos and Thetford Mines began an illegal strike against the American-owned Johns-Manville company on February 14, 1949. Premier Duplessis backed the employers; on May 6 provincial police raided strikers, dragging some from a church. Archbishop Joseph Charbonneau of Montreal supported the workers, Le Devoir reporter Gérard Pelletier covered it, and a young Pierre Elliott Trudeau spoke to the strikers; the strike lasted more than five months.

⚖️1950sInukjuakRights

Inuit families are moved from Inukjuak to the High Arctic

In the 1950s the federal government relocated Inuit families from Inukjuak (then Port Harrison) and Pond Inlet to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay, more than 1,000 kilometres from home. The families lacked adequate shelter and supplies, were not told how different their new homes would be, and were split into two communities. A promise to return those who wished to go home was not kept.

⚖️ Officially acknowledged

🏒March 17, 1955Montreal ForumSport

The Richard Riot

NHL president Clarence Campbell suspended Canadiens star Maurice Richard on March 16, 1955, for the rest of the season, including the playoffs. When Campbell attended the next game at the Montreal Forum on March 17, a crowd gathered, the game was forfeited and a riot spread along Sainte-Catherine Street.

💰1962–1963MontrealEconomy

"Maîtres chez nous": electricity is nationalized

Natural Resources Minister René Lévesque argued in 1962 that a single public power company was the key to a modern economy. Lesage called an election on the slogan Maîtres chez nous ('Masters in our own house'), which included Quebec's first televised leaders' debate, and won. In 1963 Hydro-Québec bought out close to 80 private, municipal and co-operative electricity distributors, unifying rates and hiring more French-speaking engineers.

🎭April – October 1967Île Notre-Dame, MontrealCulture

Expo 67

Montreal's world's fair, the centrepiece of Canada's centennial, drew more than 50 million visits to islands in the St. Lawrence, one of them built from scratch with landfill. More than 60 national pavilions were built; the Indians of Canada pavilion told of broken promises and lost land. During a visit in July, French President Charles de Gaulle cried 'Vive le Québec libre!' from Montreal City Hall.

🏒Summer 1976Olympic Stadium, MontrealSport

Montreal hosts the Olympic Games

Montreal staged the 1976 Summer Olympics. The Olympic Stadium's costs left a debt of about $1.5 billion, largely repaid through a special tobacco tax, and the stadium was nicknamed 'the Big Owe' until the debt was cleared in 2006.

🏛️August 26, 1977Quebec CityGovernment

The Parti Québécois and Bill 101

René Lévesque left the Liberals and founded the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association, from which the Parti Québécois was born. On November 15, 1976, the PQ won power, its caucus jumping from 6 to 71 seats. Its Charter of the French Language, proposed by Camille Laurin and sanctioned on August 26, 1977, declared French the province's official language and limited English schooling mainly to children whose parents had studied in English in Quebec; a major revision, Bill 96, was sanctioned on June 1, 2022.

🏛️May 20, 1980Paul Sauvé Arena, MontrealGovernment

The first sovereignty referendum

Lévesque's government asked voters for a mandate to negotiate sovereignty-association with the rest of Canada. On May 20, 1980, the No side won 59.56 per cent (2,187,991 votes to 1,485,851), with turnout of 85.61 per cent. Lévesque conceded at the Paul Sauvé Arena in Montreal.

🏛️April 17, 1982Quebec CityGovernment

The Constitution is patriated without Quebec

After the referendum, Trudeau pushed to bring the Constitution home with a charter of rights. Nine premiers then reached a deal with Ottawa at a late-night meeting that Quebec was not part of, and Quebec never signed. Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed the Constitution Act, 1982, in Ottawa on April 17, 1982; its section 35 affirmed existing Indigenous and treaty rights.

🔥December 6, 1989École Polytechnique, MontrealDisaster

The École Polytechnique massacre

On December 6, 1989, a gunman entered a classroom at Montreal's École Polytechnique, separated the men from the women and opened fire. In less than 20 minutes he killed 14 women, most of them engineering students, before killing himself, and left a note blaming feminists. December 6 is now the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

🪶July 11 – September 26, 1990The Pines, Kanehsatà:keIndigenous

The Oka Crisis (Kanehsatà:ke resistance)

The town of Oka planned to expand a golf course into a pine forest claimed by the Mohawks of Kanehsatà:ke, part of a land dispute nearly 300 years old. On July 11, 1990, Sûreté du Québec officers raided the protest camp and Corporal Marcel Lemay was killed in an exchange of gunfire; Mohawks at Kahnawà:ke blocked the Mercier Bridge in solidarity. Premier Robert Bourassa called in the army, and the standoff ended after 78 days on September 26.

⚖️ Established fact

🔥January 5–9, 1998Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu (Montérégie)Disaster

The great ice storm

From January 5 to 9, 1998, freezing rain coated southern Quebec in up to 110 millimetres of ice. About 1,500 Hydro-Québec transmission towers were damaged, and at the peak nearly 1.4 million households were without power, some for weeks. Damage and losses ran into the billions of dollars.

🪶February 7, 2002WaskaganishIndigenous

The Paix des Braves

For 25 years after 1975 the Cree fought Quebec and Canada in court over unfulfilled treaty commitments, heavy logging on their traplines and the proposed Great Whale project. On February 7, 2002, the Cree and Quebec signed the 'Paix des Braves,' a nation-to-nation agreement giving the Cree more autonomy and funding for economic and community development in Eeyou Istchee.

⚖️Spring 2012Downtown MontrealRights

The Maple Spring student strike

Tens of thousands of students went on strike against a plan to raise university tuition by $325 a year for five years, a total increase of $1,625, or about 75 per cent. On March 22, 2012, a march stretching for kilometres filled downtown Montreal. A new Parti Québécois government elected later that year shelved the increase.

🔥July 6, 2013Lac-MéganticDisaster

The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

Shortly after 1 a.m. on July 6, 2013, an unattended Montreal, Maine and Atlantic train carrying crude oil rolled downhill into Lac-Mégantic and derailed in the town centre. The fire and explosions killed 47 people and destroyed much of downtown. The Transportation Safety Board's report of August 19, 2014, found 18 contributing factors.

⚖️ Established fact

🕊️January 29, 2017Centre culturel islamique de QuébecFaith

The Quebec City mosque shooting

On January 29, 2017, a gunman opened fire at the Centre culturel islamique de Québec, killing six men. The gunman pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder; in 2019 he was sentenced to life with no parole for 40 years, which the courts later reduced to 25 years after striking down consecutive parole ineligibility periods.

⚖️September 30, 2019Quebec CityRights

The Viens Commission and a premier's apology

Quebec set up a public inquiry into relations between Indigenous peoples and public services in December 2016, chaired by retired judge Jacques Viens. Its report, released September 30, 2019, examined the discrimination First Nations and Inuit faced in provincial services; the Atikamekw of Manawan, for example, had testified about treatment at the Joliette hospital.

⚖️ Officially acknowledged

⚖️June 2019Quebec CityRights

Bill 21, the secularism law

In June 2019 the Coalition Avenir Québec government passed the Act respecting the laicity of the State, which bars many public employees in positions of authority, including teachers, police officers and government lawyers, from wearing religious symbols at work. It pre-emptively invoked the notwithstanding clause to shield the law from Charter challenges.

⚖️ Disputed

🔥Spring 2020CHSLD Sainte-Dorothée, LavalDisaster

COVID-19 in long-term care

The first wave of COVID-19 hit Quebec's long-term care homes (CHSLDs) and seniors' residences especially hard. At CHSLD Sainte-Dorothée in Laval, 55 residents died between March 17 and April 16, 2020. Quebec asked for 1,000 soldiers in April, and by mid-May about 1,350 Canadian Armed Forces members were working in 25 homes around Montreal.

⚖️September 28, 2020Centre hospitalier de Lanaudière, JolietteRights

The death of Joyce Echaquan

Joyce Echaquan, an Atikamekw mother from Manawan, filmed hospital staff insulting her at the Joliette hospital shortly before she died on September 28, 2020. The video set off outrage and protests and renewed long-standing complaints from Manawan about treatment at the hospital.

⚖️ Established fact

⚖️November 24, 2022Rouyn-NorandaRights

A study documents forced sterilizations of Indigenous women

A study co-authored by Atikamekw researcher Suzy Basile of UQAT gathered 35 accounts and found 22 cases of imposed sterilization of First Nations and Inuit women in Quebec between 1980 and 2019. The women came from the Atikamekw, Innu, Anishinaabe, Eeyou (Cree) and Inuit nations; most had not signed a consent form.

⚖️ Disputed

🔥June 2023Lebel-sur-QuévillonDisaster

Record wildfires burn across Quebec

In early June 2023 the provincial fire service said it could not control all 153 fires burning at once, and about 14,000 people were evacuated, including from Sept-Îles, the Innu community of Mani-Utenam and Lebel-sur-Quévillon. Later in June the Cree community of Mistissini, home to about 4,000 people, evacuated because of smoke.

🏛️October 5, 2026Quebec CityGovernment

The Parti Québécois returns to power

François Legault announced on January 14, 2026, that he would resign after more than seven years as premier, and Christine Fréchette succeeded him as CAQ leader and premier. In the general election of October 5, 2026, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon's Parti Québécois won 60 seats with 28.02 per cent of the vote, short of a majority, and formed a minority government. The CAQ, in power since 2018, was left without a single seat, and Fréchette lost her own riding in Trois-Rivières.