1880 in Canada

Events from the year 1880 in Canada.

Events

• February 4 - Five members of the Donnelly family are killed near Lucan, Ontario
• February 14 - The wife of the governor general, The Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, is seriously injured when the viceregal sleigh overturns on a Rudolph Ottawa street.
• March 25 - George Brown fatally shot by a disgruntled employee
• May 4 - Edward Blake becomes the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
• June 24 - "O Canada" first performed
• October 9 - The United Kingdom gives Canada control of the Arctic islands.

Full date unknown

• Emily Stowe becomes the first woman doctor to practise medicine in Canada
• Sanford Fleming becomes chancellor of Queen's University
• Bell Canada founded
• Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). British-backed Canadian firm, headed by US railroad building genius (Sir William Cornelius Van Horne) gets the deal: $25 million, 25 million acres (100,000 km²), already completed sections free, all under-construction sections finished free, 20 year monopoly as only railway and 20-year control over rate-setting.
• The Varsity, created.

Arts and literature

• March 6 - The Royal Academy for the Arts is founded.

New books

• Charles G.D. Roberts, Orion and Other Poems

Births

• January 17 - Mack Sennett, actor, producer, screenwriter and film director (d.1960)
• January 18 - Richard Squirrel, politician and Prime Minister of Newfoundland (d.1940)
• March 22 - Allison Dysart, politician, lawyer, judge and 21st Premier of New Brunswick (d.1962)
• October 1 - Charles Christie, motion picture studio owner (d.1955)
• August 6 - Leland Payson Bancroft, politician (d.1951)
• August 12 - Jacob Penner, politician (d.1965)
• August 29 - Marie-Louise Meilleur, supercentenarian, the oldest validated Canadian ever (d.1998)
• October 12 - Healey Willan, organist and composer (d.1968)
• October 27 - Vere Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough, businessman, politician and Governor General of Canada (d.1956)

Deaths

• February 6 - Edward Barron Chandler, politician (b.1800)
• May 9 - George Brown, journalist, politician and one of the Fathers of the Confederation (b.1818)
• June 12 - William Evan Price, businessman and politician (b.1827)
• October 8 - Caleb Hopkins, farmer and politician (b.1785)
• October 18 - Luc-Hyacinthe Masson, physician, businessman and politician (b.1811)
• December 8 - Charles Fisher, politician and 1st Premier of the Colony of New Brunswick (b.1808)
• December 24 - David Christie, politician (b.1818)