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Chronology of
William Lyon Mackenzie King
(1874-1950)
ОглавлениеCompiled by Lynne Bowen
| KING AND HIS TIMES | CANADA AND THE WORLD |
| 1791 | |
| John Graves Simcoe becomes first governor of Upper Canada; his attempts to create an aristocracy will lead eventually to the formation of the so-called Family Compact. | |
| 1793 | |
| In Upper Canada, Governor Simcoe orders a small town to be laid out at the site of Fort Rouillé and names it York. | |
| 1795 | |
| William Lyon Mackenzie (maternal grandfather) is born in Dundee, Scotland. | |
| 1805 | |
| In Upper Canada, Mennonites from Pennsylvania purchase land and establish the German-speaking settlement of Berlin. | |
| 1809 | |
| Louis-Joseph Papineau is first elected to the Assembly of Lower Canada; he emerges as the leader of a group of young nationalists known first as the Parti Canadien and later as the Parti Patriote | |
| 1814 | |
| John King (paternal grandfather) is born at Tyric in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. | |
| 1820 | |
| William Lyon Mackenzie arrives in Upper Canada. | |
| 1824 | |
| The Colonial Advocate, published by William Lyon Mackenzie, is the leading voice of the Reform movement; Mackenzie moves to York. | |
| 1828 | |
| Mackenzie is elected to the Upper Canada House of Assembly; he will be expelled for his attacks on the ruling Family Compact and be re-elected repeatedly. | |
| 1832 | |
| the headquarters of the Law Society of Upper Canada, is completed; it will later be expanded to house law courts and the Osgoode Hall Law School. | |
| 1834 | 1834 |
| Mackenzie is elected the first mayor of Toronto. | In Upper Canada, York is incorporated as the city of Toronto. |
| In Lower Canada, Papineau campaigns to force the British government to grant independence to French Canadians. | |
| 1835 | |
| Sir Francis Bond Head becomes Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. | |
| 1836 | |
| Mackenzie fails to win re-election to the House of Assembly. | |
| 1837 | 1837 |
| Embittered by his electoral defeat, Mackenzie leads a poorly conceived revolt; he escapes to the United States (U.S.). | Queen Victoria assumes the throne of Great Britain and the Empire. |
| Rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada; Papineau flees to the U.S. | |
| 1838 | 1838 |
| ohn King participates in the Battle of the Windmill. expanded to house law courts and the Osgoode Hall Law School. | In November, British troops and local Canadian militia prevent the invasion of Upper Canada by American troops and Canadian rebels in the Battle of the Windmill near Fort Wellington. |
| 1841 | |
| The Act of Union unites Upper and Lower Canada as equals; together Canada West and Canada East, as they are now called, form the Province of Canada. | |
| 1843 | |
| John King (father) is born. | |
| Isabel Grace Mackenzie (mother) is born in New York State, where her mother and siblings have joined her father in exile. | |
| 1845 | |
| Having been granted amnesty, Papineau returns to Canada East from exile in France. | |
| 1848 | |
| otato famines in Ireland and a series of European rebellions send waves of immigrants to North America. | |
| 1849 | |
| Mackenzie is pardoned and returns to Canada; he is elected to the Legislative Assembly and continues to work as a journalist. | |
| 1858 | |
| Ottawa is chosen as the capital of the Province of Canada. | |
| 1861 | |
| Mackenzie dies in Toronto | |
| 1867 | |
| Canadian Confederation unites Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick; John A. Macdonald becomes the first prime minister and is knighted by Queen Victoria. | |
| 1871 | |
| apineau dies in Montebello, Quebec. | |
| English historian and journalist Goldwin Smith arrives in Toronto. | |
| 1872 | 1872 |
| John King marries Isabel Mackenzie on December 12; they will reside in Berlin, Ontario. | Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant is elected president of the U.S. for a second term in spite of public scandals during his administration. |
| 1873 | 1873 |
| Isabel “Bella” Christina Grace King (sister) is born. | Having added three provinces (Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island) to Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald’s government is forced to resign over a scandal involving the funding of the proposed transcontinental railway. |
| 1874 | 1874 |
| William “Willie” Lyon Mackenzie King is born in Berlin, Ontario to John and Isabel King on December 17. | In Britain, Winston Churchill (future statesman) is born. |
| In Quebec, Wilfrid Laurier is elected to the House of Commons for the first time. | |
| 1876 | |
| Janet “Jennie” Lindsey King (sister) is born. | |
| 1878 | 1878 |
| Dougall Macdougall “Max” King (brother) is born. | Macdonald returns triumphantly to power in Ottawa and remains prime minister for the rest of his life. |
| 1880 | |
| 1882 | William Ewart Gladstone becomes prime minister of Great Britain |
| Willie King attends a meeting where Sir John A. Macdonald is speaking. | |
| 1883 | |
| Arnold Toynbee, a British economist and humanitarian, dies at the age of 31. | |
| 1885 | |
| The Canadian Pacific Railway is completed. | |
| Former U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant dies. | |
| 1886 | |
| The King family rents and moves into Woodside, a large house on 5.66 wooded hectares. | |
| 1888 | 1888 |
| King has taken on more responsibilities and even looks after his father’s business. | American Jane Addams visits Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London, before returning to Chicago and establishing a similar facility at Hull-House a year later. |
| 1889 | |
| In Canada, the Royal Commission on the Relations of Labour and Capital describes the new system of worker exploitation or the “sweat shop system.” | |
| 1891 | 1891 |
| King moves to Toronto and enrolls at the University of Toronto (U of T) in political science – a relatively new area of study – and economics. | Canada and the Canadian Question by Goldwin Smith is published; the book advocates union with the U.S. |
| Sir John A. Macdonald dies in Ottawa. | |
| 1893 | 1893 |
| King is awarded the Blake Scholarship and is voted president of his class; on September 6, he begins to keep a journal and will do so for the rest of his life. | The Earl of Aberdeen becomes Canada’s Governor General; Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen, becomes the first president of the National Council of Women. |
| 1894 | |
| King sits at the bed of a dying child; he has conducted religious services and read to the patients at the Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto ever since he came to the city; like his hero, Gladstone, he tries to help the underprivileged. | |
| 1895 | |
| Protesting U of T hiring policies, King addresses a large crowd of students; he graduates with a Bachelor of Arts, but the U of T refuses to give him a scholarship to study for his master’s degree; the University of Chicago (U of C) offers him a scholarship, but family financial difficulties prevent him from accepting it; he decides to work as a tutor and a journalist for a year and study law in the evenings. | |
| 1896 | 1896 |
| King receives a Bachelor of Laws degree from U of T. | Liberal Wilfrid Laurier becomes the first French-speaking Roman Catholic prime minister of Canada; he appoints Clifford Sifton minister of the interior with instructions to encourage immigration to the organized North-West Territories; he appoints William Mulock as postmaster general. |
| Mrs. Menden, a fortuneteller, accurately prophesies King’s future; the U of C again offers him a scholarship to study political economy; he moves to Chicago and briefly moves into Hull-House, where he works as a volunteer. | |
| 1897 | 1897 |
| With the encouragement of Postmaster General William Mulock, a family friend, King studies the sweat shop system; he writes his thesis on the International Typographical Union and receives his Master of Arts from U of T. | While he is in London attending a colonial conference, Canadian prime minister Wilfrid Laurier is knighted by Queen Victoria. |
| Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen, founds the Victorian Order of Nurses in Canada. | |
| 1898 | 1898 |
| King goes to Harvard University and receives a master’s degree. | William Gladstone, former British Liberal prime minister and social reformer, dies. |
| Having met nurse Mathilde Grosset the previous year while recovering from typhoid fever, King contemplates marriage; his family reminds him that his “first duty is to those at home;” he recovers from his love affair while holidaying in Rhode Island where he tutors the sons of a wealthy family and meets Julia Grant, the granddaughter of Ulysses S. Grant. | The Earl of Minto becomes Canada’s Governor General. |
| 1899 | |
| King completes the oral part of his PhD at Harvard; the university grants him a travelling scholarship, which he uses to go to Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy; he receives a telegram in Rome from Mulock offering him the editorship of the new government Labor Gazette. | |
| 1900 | 1900 |
| ing becomes deputy minister of labour, the youngest in the history of Canada; he brings his expertise to the country-wide unstable labour situation; his friend and roommate, Henry Albert “Bert” Harper, is assistant deputy minister of labour; they have an active social life but also read aloud to each other from the works of Matthew Arnold, William Morris, and Alfred Tennyson. | William Mulock becomes Canada’s first minister of labour. |
| A head tax on Chinese workers entering Canada is raised from $50 (1885) to $100 because of white workers’ fears in B.C.; Canada asks Japan to restrict the number of its immigrants. | |
| 1901 | 1901 |
| King begins to travel the country serving on Royal Commissions on Industrial Disputes; returning from British Columbia (B.C.) he gets off the train in Toronto to read in the newspaper that Bert Harper has drowned while trying to rescue a skater on the Ottawa River; King is devastated and is unable to write in his diary for three weeks. | Theodore Roosevelt becomes the twenty-sixth president of the U.S. when he succeeds William McKinley, who has been assassinated. |
| 1902 | |
| The largest boatload of immigrants Canada has ever seen arrives Halifax; most of the immigrants are Jewish. | |
| 1903 | |
| William Mulock is instrumental in connecting Canada and the United Kingdom through the radio. | |
| The Chinese head tax rises to $500 in Canada | |
| 1904 | |
| In Canada, J. S. Woodsworth (future politician) moves to Winnipeg, Manitoba, and begins his work at the All-People’s Mission with immigrant slum dwellers. | |
| Earl Grey becomes Canada’s Governor General. | |
| 1905 | 1905 |
| A statue of Galahad is erected on Wellington Street in Ottawa as a monument to Bert Harper; the inscription, chosen by King, is from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King: “Galahad… cried, ‘If I lose myself, I save myself’” | The organized North-West Territories in the Canadian west are divided into the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. |
| King meets Violet Markham, a wealthy British woman with a social conscience. | |
| 1906 | |
| The Secret of Heroism, King’s book about his friend Bert Harper, is published. | |
| 1907 | 1907 |
| King drafts the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, which is designed to solve disputes between management and labour before strikes occur. | American president Theodore Roosevelt bars Japanese from immigrating to the U.S. |
| After riots in Vancouver’s Japanese quarter, Laurier sends King to B.C. to enquire into Japanese losses and into the larger issue of Asian immigration; Japan agrees to limit emigration; American president Theodore Roosevelt invites King to hear his country’s concerns; King goes to Britain to meet with officials in the India and colonial offices; he pleases Laurier when he points out that the Indian Emigration Act forbids Indians to emigrate under contract to work in Canada. | |
| King becomes a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. | |
| 1908 | |
| King wins the House of Commons seat for the riding of North Waterloo in Ontario. | |
| 1909 | 1909 |
| Harvard University grants King a PhD. | J.S. Woodsworth publishes Strangers Within Our Gates, which says that non-English-speaking immigrants are undesirable. |
| King becomes the minister of labour in Laurier’s cabinet. | |
| 1910 | |
| King and his family vacation at Kingsmere. | |
| 1911 | 1911 |
| The Liberals’ loss of the general election means that King’s efforts to prevent the incidence of phosphorous necrosis and his bill to prohibit the manufacture, importation, and sale of matches made with white phosphorous is not passed. | In the Canadian federal election Robert Borden’s Conservatives defeat Laurier’s Liberals. |
| Violet Markham offers to provide King with a yearly income. | The Duke of Connaught becomes Canada’s Governor General. |
| 1913 | |
| More than 400,000 immigrants – the largest number in one year – arrive in Canada. | |
| American millionaire John D. Rockefeller, Sr. endows the Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organization that focuses on public health and medical education at first and later supports the sciences, agriculture, and the humanities. His son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is elected president of the Foundation. | |
| Coal miners employed by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, a Rockefeller interest in Ludlow, Colorado, strike for union recognition. | |
| 1914 | 1914 |
| Unemployed after his electoral defeat and too old to join the army, King seeks work in the U.S.; he becomes director of industrial investigation for the Rockefeller Foundation. | Britain declares war on Germany and Austria-Hungary; as a part of the British Empire, Canada is automatically at war. |
| King’s hometown of Berlin changes its name to Kitchener. | The ship Komogata Maru, bringing 350 East Indians to work in B.C., is not allowed to land at Vancouver; after two months in the harbour, Canadian warships escort the ship and its passengers out of the harbour. |
| In Ludlow, Colorado, open warfare ensues between the striking miners and the militia; and the militia; fourteen people are killed in the “Ludlow Massacre”; federal troops arrive. | |
| 1915 | |
| King vists his brother, Max, who is in Colorado being treated for tubeculosis (TB), and receives the news that his sister, Bella, has died. | |
| King uses his knowledge of labour relations to find a solution to the Ludlow, Colorado strike; he persuades the company and the miners to compromise and accept company unions. | |
| 1916 | 1916 |
| In August, King’s father dies | The Duke of Devonshire becomes Canada’s Governor General. |
| 1917 | 1917 |
| King takes his invalid mother to Kingsmere he works on a book about labour relations; in December she dies in his Ottawa apartment while he is out of town electioneering. | In France, Canadian soldiers, fighting as a unit for the first time, suffer heavy losses but capture Vimy Ridge. |
| In the “conscription” election, King does not win his seat. | In Canada, Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden prepares a conscription bill, a measure particularly unpopular in Quebec; in August the Military Service Act brings in conscription; Borden becomes leader of the Union government, which is a coalition with Liberals opposed to Laurier’s anti-conscription platform; the Wartime Elections Act gives the vote to female relatives of soldiers. |
| In Russia, the Bolshevik Party seizes power in the October Revolution. | |
| 1918 | 1918 |
| King’s book Industry and Humanity is published. | In Quebec City, soldiers kill four protesters during anti-conscription riots; the Canada Elections Act gives the vote to all women in federal elections. |
| The First World War ends on November 11; 60,000 have died and many more are permanently injured. | |
| 1919 | 1919 |
| At the Liberal Party leadership convention in August, King offers to heal the divisions caused by the conscription crisis and to find new solutions to the problems of tariffs, freight rates, labour and the concerns of the newly developing Left; he wins the leadership. | In February, Sir Wilfrid Laurier dies in Ottawa. |
| King is elected to represent the riding of Prince in Prince Edward Island. | The Winnipeg General Strike, which begins on May 15, climaxes on “Bloody Saturday” on June 21. |
| The first radio broadcasting licence in Canada is issued to | |
| XWA, an experimental station in Montreal | |
| 1920 | |
| Canada is a founding member of the League of Nations; farmers from Ontario and the Prairies unite with dissident Liberals to form the Progressive Party; Borden retires and Arthur Meighen becomes prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party. | |
| Unemployment insurance is introduced in Great Britain and Austria. | |
| 1921 | 1921 |
| King runs in his grandfather’s old riding of North York in the general election in December and his Liberals win a majority of the seats; he becomes the tenth prime minister of Canada and chooses to serve as minister of external affairs too. | Representing the Independent Labour Party, J.S. Woodsworth is elected to the House of Commons where he becomes the “conscience of Canada”; Agnes Macphail is the first woman elected to the Canadian Parliament. |
| Lord Byng becomes Canada’s Governor General. | |
| 1922 | |
| In March, King’s brother Max, who is afflicted with muscular dystrophy and TB, dies. | |
| 1923 | |
| King sends his fisheries minister and Quebec lieutenant, Ernest Lapointe, to Washington to sign the Halibut Treaty, the first treaty independently negotiated and signed by a Canadian government. | |
| King attends the Imperial Conference in London; he is determined that the Dominion of Canada will be more independent. | |
| 1925 | 1925 |
| In the October federal election, King loses his majority and his seat; but the Conservatives do not have a clear majority and so King decides to govern with the support of the Progressives; he asks for a vote of confidence from Parliament. | In Canada, Lady Byng donates the Lady Byng Trophy to the National Hockey League to reward sportsmanship combined with excellence. |
| King appoints O.D. Skelton undersecretary of state for external affairs; Skelton will become a key adviser on domestic as well as foreign affairs. | |
| 1926 | 1926 |
| King runs in a by-election in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and wins. | Viscount Willingdon succeeds Lord Byng as Governor General of Canada. |
| With his support dwindling because of a customs scandal, King asks the Governor General, Lord Byng, to dissolve Parliament; Byng refuses; King resigns; Meighen becomes prime minister on June 29 but quickly loses a vote of confidence and must call a general election. | Ernest Lapointe leads the Canadian delegation to the Imperial Conference committee chaired by former British prime minister, Lord Balfour, which deliberates on relations between self-governing parts of the British empire. |
| On September 25, King becomes prime minister again with the help of the Liberal-Progressives; in October he sails for England and another Imperial Conference. | |
| J.S. Woodsworth bargains with King: his vote in return for an old age pension plan; Agnes Macphail of the United Farmers of Ontario Party also supports the plan. | |
| 1927 | 1927 |
| King entertains Charles Lindbergh, who is the honoured guest at Canada’s Diamond Jubilee birthday celebrations, which include the dedication of the Carillon in the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill. | American Charles Lindbergh flies his monoplane “Spirit of St. Louis” nonstop from New York to Paris in thirty-three and a half hours. |
| King’s book The Message of the Carillon and Other Addresses is published. | R.B. Bennett becomes the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. |
| 1928 | |
| In Britain, Lord Byng becomes Chief Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police. | |
| 1929 | |
| With the collapse of the U.S. Stock Exchange in October, the ten-year-long Great Depression begins. | |
| 1930 | |
| King appoints Cairine Wilson to the Senate; she is the first female senator. | |
| King and Lapointe campaign throughout the West for the general election; although Mrs. Bleaney, a fortuneteller, promises victory, King is defeated by R.B. Bennett and his Conservatives. | |
| 1931 | 1931 |
| In June, the Beauharnois Scandal becomes public; Opposition Leader King denies any knowledge of the affair but says it has thrust the Liberals into “the Valley of Humiliation.” | The Statute of Westminster, based on the Balfour Report of 1926, recognizes the autonomy of the self-governing parts of the British Empire – Britain, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the Irish Free State – and creates the concept of the Commonwealth. |
| 1932 | 1932 |
| Having met a medium named Etta Wriedt, King invites her to come to Ottawa to conduct a seance with him and his friend Joan Patteson; they believe they are speaking to King’s mother and grandfather. | Fear of another incident like the Beauharnois Scandal prompts the Liberal Party of Canada to create the National Liberal Federation to separate fundraising from the parliamentary leadership. |
| 1933 | 1933 |
| King and Joan Patteson try to communicate with the dead without going through a medium. | In Canada, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) is founded under the leadership of J.S. Woodsworth. |
| Franklin Delano Roosevelt becomes the thirty-second president of the U.S. | |
| 1934 | |
| Mitch Hepburn becomes premier of Ontario. | |
| The Earl of Aberdeen, former Governor General of Canada, dies; his widow, Ishbel, seeks solace in automatic writing. | |
| 1935 | 1935 |
| Campaigning on the slogan “It’s King or Chaos,” the Liberals sweep back into power in the federal election | Two new parties win seats in the Canadian general election: Social Credit and CCF; included among the new MPs is Tommy Douglas, future father of medicare. |
| Lord Tweedsmuir becomes Canada’s Governor General. | |
| 1936 | 1936 |
| King purchases the pillars from a bank building about to be torn down and installs them as an “Arc de Triomphe” at Kingsmere to celebrate his recent successes, which include civic beautification projects in Ottawa, the closing of relief camps, and his work with the League of Nations in Geneva. | The Spanish Civil War begins. |
| Mussolini and Hitler declare the Rome-Berlin Axis. | |
| Maurice Duplessis and the Union Nationale win a landslide victory in the Quebec election. | |
| In Great Britain, King George VI succeeds his brother, Edward VIII, who has abdicated in order to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. | |
| 1937 | 1937 |
| King attends the Imperial Conference and the coronation of King George VI in Britain; he visits Hitler in Berlin and is impressed by the dictator. He predicts that Hitler will deliver his people. | John D. Rockefeller, Sr., founder of the Rockefeller family fortune, dies in Florida. |
| In Canada, the drought in southern Saskatchewan is the worst in its history; left-wing Canadians volunteer for the international brigades fighting in Spain; the Rowell-Sirois Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations hears submissions from delegations across the country. | |
| 1938 | |
| Hitler marches into Austria; Britain tries to appease Germany at Munich. | |
| 1939 | 1939 |
| In March, King declares that Canada regards any act of aggression against Britain as an act of aggression against the whole Commonwealth; in the same month he promises that “conscription of men for overseas service will not be a necessary or effective step;” in August he is feted by the Liberal Party. | King George and Queen Elizabeth visit Canada and the U.S. |
| Though his spirits have assured him that Hitler does not want war, King’s government declares war on Germany and Italy; in December he signs the document creating the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. | The Spanish Civil War ends; the Second World War begins in September; the U.S. is officially neutral. |
| General Andrew G.L. McNaughton becomes commander of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division; he will be the senior Canadian officer in Britain as the force grows to an army by 1942. | |
| Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen, dies. | |
| 1940 | 1940 |
| Mitch Hepburn passes a resolution in the Ontario legislature criticizing King’s war effort; King calls an election and wins a huge majority; the Unemployment Insurance Act passes. | In Canada, after many unsuccessful attempts, John Diefenbaker wins a seat in the federal election; James L. Ralston becomes the minister of defence and begins to campaign for conscription for overseas service. |
| The National Resources Mobilization Act introduces conscription for military service within Canada; the men conscripted under the act are sometimes called Zombies. | The Earl of Athlone becomes Governor General of Canada. |
| Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of Great Britain. | |
| 1941 | 1941 |
| In his maiden speech in the House of Commons, future Conservative prime minister, John Diefenbaker, taunts King, who happens to be his MP. | In December, Canada declares war on Japan following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; Canadian troops surrender to Japan in Hong Kong a few days later; the U.S. and Canada forcibly move citizens of Japanese descent away from the west coast of the continent. |
| Pat, King’s dog and companion, dies. | In Canada, O.D. Skelton and Ernest Lapointe die. |
| After flying to Britain in a Liberator bomber, a reluctant King addresses the Canadian Corps; he meets with Churchill, Who reassures him that conscription for overseas duty will not be necessary. | |
| 1942 | 1942 |
| King continues to consult the spirits with his friend Joan Patteson; he worries about dividing French and English Canadians; Minister of Defence Ralston threatens to resign over conscription; as a compromise King agrees to hold a plebiscite in April to find out if the people of Canada will release him from his promise of no conscription. | The Allies launch a disastrous attack on the French port of Dieppe; 5,000 Canadian troops are involved, 900 are killed. |
| In Canada, Progressives and Conservatives link to form the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada; J.S. Woodworth dies in Vancouver. | |
| 1943 | 1943 |
| The plebiscite having freed King from his promise, he continues to vacillate because Quebec has voted against it; all King’s Quebec ministers have promised to oppose conscription; King adopts the motto “Conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription.” | Canadian infantry and a tank brigade take part in the invasion of Sicily in July; Canadian forces attack Ortona, Italy in December. |
| General McNaughton resigns from the Canadian army. | |
| 1944 | 1944 |
| King invites Louis St. Laurent to become minister of justice and attorney general; although he is from Quebec, St. Laurent agrees to support King in whatever measures he thinks are necessary to win the war. | Allied forces land on the Normandy beaches of France in the D-Day invasion on June 6; the Canadian army loses 5,000 men in the Battle of Normandy. |
| Ralston resigns; retired General McNaughton, a favourite of King’s, replaces him as minister of defence; King announces that conscription is now necessary; thousands of Zombies are sent overseas. | President Roosevelt of the U.S. dies and Harry S. Truman succeeds him. |
| 1945 | 1945 |
| Family Allowance legislation having been passed by the King government in the previous year, families with children sixteen years old and under begin to receive the “baby bonus” on July 1. | In May, Canadians liberate western Holland; Germany’s surrender ends the war in Europe; in September Japan surrenders after atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. |
| In San Francisco to work on the draft charter of the United Nations (UN), King hears from his valet that the war is over. | In Britain, family allowances are introduced; Lady Byng publishes Up the Stream of Time, which includes a moving tribute to Canada. |
| In the general election, the Liberals win a strong majority; King now represents the riding of Glengarry, Ontario. | Soviet intelligence officer Igor Gouzenko defects and reveals a widespread espionage network operating in Ottawa. |
| 1946 | |
| Winston Churchill, no longer prime minister of Britain, gives a speech in the U.S. in which he uses the term “Iron Curtain” to describe the developing Cold War. | |
| 1947 | 1947 |
| The Canadian Citizenship Act, which defines the country’s people as Canadian instead of British subjects, comes into force on January 1; King receives certificate 001. | India is proclaimed independent and is divided into India and Pakistan. |
| King goes to England for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth; he meets spiritualist Geraldine Cummins. | |
| 1948 | 1948 |
| On a visit to London, England, a frail King visits his old friend, Violet Markham; when King falls ill, distinguished statesmen visit him at his hotel: King George VI, three prime ministers – Nehru of India, Fraser of New Zealand, and Liaquat Ali Khan of Pakistan – Nehru’s sister Madame Pandit of India, and Eric Louw of South Africa. Spiritualist friends whom he has met through Lady Aberdeen also call on King at his hotel. | General McNaughton becomes Canada’s permanent delegate to the UN. |
| In April, King becomes the longest-serving elected statesman in the English-speaking world; in July, Joan Patteson informs Violet Markham (Mrs. James Carruthers) of King’s weakened condition; on November 15 he retires as leader of the Liberal Party. | The Liberal Party of Canada chooses Louis St. Laurent as its new leader in August. |
| 1949 | |
| Canada is one of the founders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). | |
| Senator Cairine Wilson is Canada’s first woman delegate to the UN. | |
| 1950 | 1950 |
| King dies on July 22 at Kingsmere. | The Korean War begins in June; Canada will send men to support the UN initiative. |
