Chronology of John George Diefenbaker (1895–1979)

Compiled by Lynne Bowen

DIEFENBAKER AND HIS TIMES	CANADA AND THE WORLD
	1837 Gabriel Dumont, Métis leader, is born at the Red River Colony.
	1867 The British North America Act establishes the Dominion of Canada.
	1870 Richard Bedford Bennett (future Canadian prime minister) is born in Hopewell Hill, New Brunswick.
	1873 Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, is defeated in the first general election since Confederation.
	1874 William Lyon Mackenzie King (future Canadian prime minister) is born in Berlin (Kitchener), Ontario; Arthur Meighen (future Canadian prime minister) is born in Anderson, Ontario.
	The newly formed North West Mounted Police (NWMP) trek from Dufferin, Manitoba to Fort Macleod in the District of Alberta to establish a police presence in the North-West Territories.
1875 William Diefenbaker (Diefenbaker’s father) is born; Mary Bannerman (Diefenbaker’s mother) is born.
	1878 Sir John A. Macdonald’s Conservative party regains power.
	1881 Rapid construction of the newly incorporated Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) begins.
	1882 Louis St. Laurent (future Canadian prime minister) is born in Compton, Quebec.
	Robert Koch discovers the tubercle bacillus and demonstrates its role in causing tuberculosis (TB).
	1885 The Northwest Rebellion begins at the Battle of Duck Lake; twelve North West Mounted Policemen (NWMP) and six Métis rebels are killed; Métis commander Dumont is wounded.
	Canadian Prime Minister John A. Macdonald orders the Canadian army to the territories; they engage the Métis at Batoche; Dumont flees to the United States (U.S.); rebel leader Louis Riel surrenders, is found guilty of treason, and is hanged on November 16 at Regina.
	The “Last Spike” ceremony at Craigellachie, B.C. symbolizes the completion of the CPR.
	1886 Honore Mercer is elected premier of Quebec on a wave of French Canadian nationalism strengthened by the execution of Louis Riel.
	1891 Canada’s Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, dies in office.
1894 William Thomas Diefenbaker, a schoolteacher, marries Mary Bannerman.
1895 John George Diefenbaker is born to William and Mary Diefenbaker on September 18 at Neustadt, Ontario.	1895 Cree outlaw Almighty Voice escapes from the Duck Lake jail and murders a NWMP sergeant.
	1896 Liberal Wilfrid Laurier becomes the first Canadian prime minister of French ancestry; Clifford Sifton, the new minister of the interior, will encourage mass immigration to the prairies.
1897 Elmer Diefenbaker, Diefenbaker’s brother, is born.	1897 In the last battle between whites and Aboriginal Peoples in North America, Almighty Voice and five others are killed near Batoche.
	The British Empire celebrates Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
	Laurier is knighted.
	Lester Bowles Pearson (future Canadian prime minister) is born in Newtonbrook, Ontario.
	1899 The Boer War begins in South Africa; Canada sends troops to support Britain; the war divides Canadians along French and English lines.
	1900 The mortality rate for TB in Canada is 180 per 100,000.
	1902 Bob Edwards launches the Calgary Eye-Opener newspaper.
1903 William Diefenbaker is diagnosed with TB; a doctor advises him to move to a dry prairie climate; he and his family move to the District of Saskatchewan in the North-West Territories.	1903 The Chinese head tax, originally imposed in 1885, rises to $500, preventing Chinese women from joining their immigrant husbands in Canada.
Gabriel Dumont visits the Diefenbaker home.
c. 1904 Diefenbaker tells his mother, “Someday I am going to be prime minister.”	1904 “Royal” is added to the name of the North West Mounted Police (RNWMP).
	1905 Alberta and Saskatchewan become provinces of the Dominion of Canada. Ellen Louks Fairclough (future Canadian politician) is born in Hamilton, Ontario.
	Ellen Louks Fairclough (future Canadian politician) is born in Hamilton, Ontario.
1910 After several moves, the Diefenbaker family settles in Saskatoon so the two boys can get a good education; Diefenbaker finds a job as a newspaper boy; he sells Sir Wilfrid Laurier a newspaper.	1910 Laurier’s Liberals introduce a bill to establish a Canadian navy; the proposal satisfies neither the English Canadian imperialists nor the French Canadian nationalists.
1911 Diefenbaker is swept up in the federal election campaign; he decides to be a Conservative.	1911 In an election fought in part over a reciprocal trade treaty with the U.S., Laurier’s Liberals lose to Robert Borden’s Conservatives.
	In the previous ten years, the population of western Canada has grown from 250,000 to 2,000,000 due largely to immigration.
1912 Diefenbaker graduates from Saskatoon Collegiate and enrolls at the University of Saskatchewan.
	1914 Britain declares war on Germany; Canada is automatically at war.
	Robert Lorne Stanfield (future Canadian politician) is born in Truro, Nova Scotia.
	Robert Bickerdike’s private member’s bill to abolish capital punishment is defeated in the Canadian Parliament.
1915 The Sheaf, a student newspaper, predicts that Diefenbaker will be the leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons in forty years.	1915 In the U.S., the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist outlaw organization, is revived in Atlanta, Georgia.
1916 Diefenbaker volunteers for the Canadian Army; with the rank of lieutenant he sails for England.	1916 In Canada, Manitoba is the first province to give women the right to vote.
1917 A “disordered action of the heart” makes Diefenbaker unable to serve; he returns to Canada and attempts unsuccessfully to enlist in the Royal Flying Corps; he enrolls in law school at the University of Saskatchewan.	1917 At the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April, Canadian soldiers fight as a unit for the first time and achieve victory where the British and French have failed.
	Conscription divides Canadians along French/English lines and leads to the formation of the Union government.
	In the October Revolution in Russia, the Bolshevik (later the Communist) party seizes power.
	1918 World War One ends; a worldwide influenza epidemic kills almost 22 million people in two years.
1919 Diefenbaker completes his law degree and is called to the Saskatchewan bar; he sets up a law office in Wakaw, Saskatchewan.	1919 In the Winnipeg General Strike, federal troops occupy the city after RNWMP charge a crowd on “Bloody Sunday.”
1920 Diefenbaker is able to afford to move into a larger office and buy a Maxwell touring car.	1920 In Canada, farmers from the Prairies and Ontario unite with dissident Liberals led by Thomas Crerar to form the Progressive party; Arthur Meighen succeeds Borden as prime minister.
1921 Diefenbaker asks Olive Freeman for a date.	1921 In Canada, Agnes Macphail is the first woman elected to Parliament; Liberal William Lyon Mackenzie King defeats Meighen and becomes prime minister; the election of the Progressives ends the tradition of the two-party system.
Diefenbaker drives his car to Vancouver, B.C.
Diefenbaker is elected to city council; the Liberal party invites him to join them, but he declines.
	The Ku Klux Klan is reported to be active in Montreal.
	1922 In Italy, Mussolini marches on Rome and later forms a fascist government.
	The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) is formed from the Russian empire.
1923 Diefenbaker drives his car to Los Angeles, California.	1923 Canada signs its first treaty independent of Britain.
1924 Diefenbaker’s fiancée, Beth Newell, dies of TB; he moves to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.
1925 In his first official act as a Conservative, Diefenbaker addresses a small meeting; he is unopposed in his bid to be the party’s candidate in the October federal election; although he is a lively campaigner and opposes the unpopular views of his party’s leader, he loses.	1925 In the Canadian general election in October, Meighen’s Conservatives win the most seats but the Progressives support King’s Liberals and thereby keep them in power.
	The Ku Klux Klan has established locals all across Canada.
1926 In the second election in two years, Diefenbaker runs against Prime Minister King; Diefenbaker is opposed to some of his own party’s views and is gaining ground during the campaign until racist remarks in eastern Canada turn the tide in King’s favour.	1926 A scandal forces Prime Minister King to seek dissolution of Parliament, but Governor General Viscount Byng refuses; King resigns and Meighen takes power again for three months until he is defeated in another general election; King becomes prime minister again.
	James Garfield (Jimmy) Gardiner is elected premier of Saskatchewan.
	1927 American organizers of the Ku Klux Klan steal $100,000 of Canadian Klan funds; the Saskatchewan Klan regroups.
1928 At a Liberal meeting during a provincial by-election meeting, Premier Gardiner reluctantly yields the platform to Diefenbaker for ten minutes; the Liberals barely win the by-election; the Conservative party is impressed with Diefenbaker.	1928 West Coast artist Emily Carr exhibits her work in central Canada, establishing herself as a major artist.
1929 Diefenbaker marries Edna May Brower in Toronto; they return to Prince Albert, where his law practice is thriving; he is named King’s Counsel.	1929 In the June Saskatchewan election, the Ku Klux Klan is instrumental in the defeat of the Liberals but soon declines in strength, as does the Klan in the rest of Canada; the Imperial Privy Council declares Canadian women to be legally “persons.”
Diefenbaker switches to provincial politics and runs against the attorney general; the Liberals accuse him of having links to the Ku Klux Klan; although his party wins, Diefenbaker loses by several hundred votes.	With the collapse of the U.S. Stock Exchange in October, the ten-year-long Great Depression begins.
1930 Diefenbaker defends John Pasowesty, who is found guilty of murder; the death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.	1930 In Canada, the Conservatives under R.B. Bennett defeat King’s Liberals in the August federal election.
Although he is suffering from a gastric ulcer, Diefenbaker defends Alex Wysochan, who is found guilty and is hanged on June 20.
While Diefenbaker is in Toronto on a holiday, the federal Conservatives offer him the nomination in the riding of Long Lake, but he is too ill to accept.
1930–1936 In four more murder cases, Diefenbaker hones his courtroom style using his penetrating eyes, his voice, and a thrust of his finger; the hanging of two of his clients strengthens his opposition to the death penalty
	1931 The Statute of Westminster grants Canada full legal freedom from Britain except for amending the Constitution.
	1932 Franklin Roosevelt is elected president of the U.S. for the first of four terms.
	The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) is founded in Calgary.
1933 Diefenbaker is elected vice-president of the provincial Conservative party; he runs for mayor of Prince Albert but loses.	1933 Adolf Hitler is appointed German Chancellor; he suppresses labour unions and harasses Jews.
1935 By now president of the Conservative party in Saskatchewan, Diefenbaker declines the nomination in Prince Albert and supports a farmer as candidate.	1935 In Canada, the RCMP halts the On-to-Ottawa Trek in Regina; in the federal election, King leads a Liberal landslide back into power; the CCF’s Tommy Douglas wins his first election; former Saskatchewan premier, Jimmy Gardiner, becomes federal minister of agriculture.
1936 Diefenbaker travels to France for a holiday; he visits the Canadian war memorial at Vimy Ridge; he attends the Olympic Games in Berlin.	1936 The Spanish Civil War begins; Hitler and Mussolini proclaim the Rome-Berlin Axis; Germany hosts the Olympic Games.
Diefenbaker becomes leader of the Saskatchewan Conservative party.
1938 In the Saskatchewan election, Diefenbaker runs in Arm River; he pays the deposits of twenty-two candidates, but not one Conservative is elected; the party rejects his offer to resign as leader.	1938 Hitler marches into Austria; Britain appeases Germany at Munich.
1939 At the Conservative nominating convention for the federal election in Imperial, Saskatchewan, the man chosen to be the candidate steps down in favour of Diefenbaker.	1939 World War II begins in September; Canada declares war on Germany.
	Charles Joseph Clark (future Canadian prime minister) is born in High River, Alberta.
1940 Diefenbaker defends Isobel Emele on the charge of murdering her Nazi-sympathizer husband; she is found not guilty.	1940 Germany invades Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
	Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.
In the federal election Diefenbaker wins Lake Centre and wins his seat by 280 votes; he and Edna move to Ottawa where she is constantly by his side; he takes his seat in the House of Commons on May 16; his speeches are seldom prepared in advance but they reflect his concerns about the equality of all Canadians.	Prime Minister King calls a snap election for March 26 and wins a huge majority; the Unemployment Insurance Act passes.
1941 Diefenbaker makes a special point in his speeches of taunting Prime Minister King, who is also his member of Parliament.	1941 Japan bombs Pearl Harbor on December 7; U.S., Britain and Canada declare war on Japan
1942 Diefenbaker fights against the proposal to remove Japanese residents of British Columbia (B.C.) from their homes.	1942 U.S. and Canada forcibly move Japanese citizens inland away from the west coast of North America.
Diefenbaker runs for the leadership of the Conservatives, but John Bracken, a member of the Progressive party and former premier of Manitoba, wins; the two parties join to become the Progressive Conservative (PC) party.	Canada joins the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which aids people displaced by the war.
	1944 The D-Day invasion by the Allies under the command of General Eisenhower begins the liberation of Europe on June 6.
	In Canada, Prime Minister King introduces family allowances; a conscription crisis again divides Canadians along French/English lines, but is less divisive than the one during World War I.
1945 William Diefenbaker, having never given up hope that his son would be prime minister, dies.	1945 The United Nations (UN) Charter is signed on June 26; Canada is one of the fifty signatories.
Edna Diefenbaker is diagnosed with a psychiatric illness and is quietly hospitalized in a Guelph sanatorium.	Germany surrenders on May 8; the U.S. drops atomic bombs on Japan on August 6 and 9; Japan surrenders on September 2.
In the June federal election, Diefenbaker promises to fight for the construction of a South Saskatchewan River Dam and wins by a landslide.	Prime Minister King wins a slim majority in the Canadian election; the CCF wins twenty-eight seats.
1946 edna is released from hospital apparently cured.	1946 Winston Churchill uses the term “Iron Curtain” to describe the alienation between the Eastern Bloc and the West that is developing into the Cold War.
1948 At the September leadership convention of the PC party, Diefenbaker places second after George Drew; Paul Martin, Liberal minister of national health and welfare, sends best wishes.	1948 In Canada, Louis St. Laurent replaces King as leader of the Liberal party and prime minister; Lester Pearson becomes minister of foreign affairs; John Bracken resigns as leader of the PC party.
1949 In the June federal election, Diefenbaker wins his seat.	1949 In Canada, the St. Laurent Liberals win the federal election; Canada joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
	The South African government establishes apartheid, which prevents the black majority from voting.
1950 Diefenbaker attends a conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Australia; when he returns he receives news that Edna has acute lymphatic leukemia; Paul Martin arranges for an experimental drug to be imported but it proves ineffective.	1950 North Korea invades South Korea; the UN mounts a police action, which Canada supports.
	Former Canadian prime minister King dies.
1951 Though near death, Edna pleads with Diefenbaker to defend Alfred John (Jack) Atherton, a telegrapher charged with causing the collision of two passenger trains loaded with troops bound for Korea; he passes the B.C. bar exam and, though tired and stricken with grief, goes to Prince George to successfully defend Atherton.	1951 In Canada, the Massey Commission recommends greater government support of the arts through creation of an arts funding body.
1952 With Jimmy Gardiner in charge of redistribution of parliamentary seats in Saskatchewan, Diefenbaker sees the parts of his riding that support him most strongly removed; a coalition of Liberals, CCFers, Social Crediters, and Conservatives in Prince Albert organize Diefenbaker Clubs and rally around the slogan, The North Needs John; in the August federal election, he wins the seat by 3001 votes.	1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes U.S. president.
	King George VI dies and is succeeded by his daughter, who becomes Elizabeth II.
	Lester Pearson is president of the UN General Assembly.
1953 Diefenbaker marries his long-ago date Olive Freeman Palmer in Toronto.	1953 Armistice is signed in Korea.
	A rocket-powered U.S. plane is flown at more than 1600 mph.
	1954 The U.S. tests a hydrogen bomb at Bikini atoll; the U.S. and Canada agree to build the Distant Early Warning (D.E.W.) line across northern Canada.
1956 George Drew resigns as PC party leader; Diefenbaker coyly allows himself to be a candidate for the leadership; on December 14, at the Ottawa Coliseum, he wins on the first ballot; the Quebec delegation is not asked to second his nomination.	1956 Lester Pearson proposes a UN peacekeeping force as a means of easing Britain and France out of Egypt and solving the Suez Crisis; Canada begins to think of itself as a peacekeeping nation.
1957 Diefenbaker tours the country; he becomes known as “Dief” and “Dief the Chief”; support grows.	1957 Lester Pearson wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
On June 10, while flying to Regina, Diefenbaker hears over the pilot’s radio that the PC party will form a minority government; at the swearing-in on June 22, Ellen Fairclough becomes the first woman appointed to a federal cabinet.	The U.S.S.R. launches Sputnik I and II, the first earth satellites.
Diefenbaker and Olive move into the prime minister’s residence at 24 Sussex Drive.	Canada and the U.S. announce the North American Air Defence Agreement (NORAD), which will integrate their air defence forces.
Diefenbaker attends the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in London and meets with Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth; he visits the U.S., speaks to the UN General Assembly, and establishes a good relationship with President Eisenhower.	The Canada Council is established to encourage the study, production, and enjoyment of the arts and social sciences.
	Canada provides free passage to refugees from the failed Hungarian uprising against Soviet control.
1958 Diefenbaker delivers a two-hour tirade against Pearson and the Opposition Liberals; he calls an election on February 1; his campaign works voters into a frenzy; he promises that his New Frontier Policy will open the North; he wins the election with the largest majority in Canadian history.	1958 On January 16, Lester Pearson is chosen leader of the Liberals over Paul Martin
Diefenbaker fails to include any of the new members from Quebec in his cabinet; he appoints James Gladstone as the first Aboriginal person to be a senator.	Khnischev becomes Chairman of the Council of Ministers in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.); Sputnik III is launched.
Diefenbaker and Olive leave on a world tour which includes visits to London. France. Germany, Rome. Pakistan. India. Ceylon, Malaya, Australia, and New Zealand	The U.S. launches an earth satellite, Explorer I; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is established; in the southern U.S., desegregation of schools is opposed by the Governor of Arkansas.
	In Cuba, Communist rebel Fidel Castro begins “total war” against President Batista.
	Pope John XXIII is elected.
1959 Diefenbaker makes the difficult decision to cancel the Avro Arrow project; 14,548 people lose their jobs; many go to the U.S.; the U.S. installs Bomarc anti-bomber missiles in Ontario and Quebec.	1959 Castro becomes premier of Cuba.
Diefenbaker appoints Georges Vanier to be the first French Canadian Governor General.	Pope John XXIII calls the first Ecumenical Council since 1870.
1960 The Canadian Bill of Rights is passed, enshrining equality for all Canadians; an amendment to the Elections Act guarantees the vote to Aboriginal People.	1960 Brezhnev becomes President of the U.S.S.R.; the Cold War intensifies as the U.S. admits to aerial reconnaissance flights over the U.S.S.R.
On September 26, Diefenbaker addresses the UN on disarmament; he challenges the behaviour of the U.S.S.R.; he is denounced by Moscow radio and the newspaper Isvestia.	John F. Kennedy is sworn in as President of the U.S.
RCMP report to Diefenbaker regarding the affair of associate minister of defence Pierre Sévigny and Gerda Munsinger, a German immigrant, prostitute, and possible security risk; Sévigny assures him that he gave no secrets away; Diefenbaker does not request Sévigny’s resignation.	In Quebec, Jean Lesage and his Liberals defeat the Union Nationale, and the Quiet Revolution begins.
1961 In March, Diefenbaker plays a leadership role at a Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference in London, which draws up a statement of racial equality aimed particularly at South African apartheid.	1961 On April 17, Cuban exiles attempt an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs; President Kennedy takes full responsibility.
The Canadian government decides not to support an American trade embargo against Cuba.	The construction of the Berlin Wall divides the Soviet Bloc from Western Europe and intensifies the Cold War.
Diefenbaker’s mother, Mary, dies.	U.S.S.R. pilot Yuri Gagarin orbits the earth in a satellite; U.S. pilot Alan Shephard makes the first U.S. space flight.
President Kennedy visits Ottawa in May; the already strained relationship with Diefenbaker worsens further when Kennedy injures his back while planting a symbolic tree.	In Canada, the CCF changes its name to the New Democratic Party (NDP) and elects Tommy Douglas as its leader.
James Coyne, governor of the Bank of Canada, resigns after criticizing Diefenbaker’s government for spending beyond its means.
1962 Diefenbaker calls an election; he protests to the U.S. ambassador over Kennedy’s apparent support of the Liberals; the Canadian dollar is sinking; Diefenbaker is haunted by budget deficits and recession; the Liberals circulate phony “Diefenbucks”; protesters interrupt his speeches; on election day, June 18, he wins only a minority.	1962 At a dinner for Nobel Prize winners hosted by U.S. President Kennedy, Lester Pearson and the president talk for forty minutes in private.
During the Cuban missile crisis, Diefenbaker stalls when asked for support by the Americans; Defence Minister Douglas Harkness orders the Canadian military to Defcon 3 (a degree of military preparedness) despite Diefenbaker’s order to wait.	In Canada, the last execution of a murderer takes place.
1963 Diefenbaker is unable to decide whether to allow the Bomarc missiles to be armed with nuclear warheads; in January, the U.S. state department criticizes the Canadian government; rebellion grows within PC party ranks; George Hees, minister of trade and commerce, tells Diefenbaker that the cabinet and the people of Canada have lost confidence in him; Diefenbaker demands and receives an expression of loyalty; only defence minister Harkness resigns.	1963 A nuclear testing ban is signed by the U.S., U.S.S.R., and Great Britain.
The government is defeated on two non-confidence motions; Diefenbaker calls an election; two more cabinet ministers (Hees and Sévigny) resign; he attempts to use anti-Bomarc missile information to swing the electorate his way but it fails; the PC party loses the election; Diefenbaker becomes leader of the Opposition and he and Olive move into Stornoway.	In Washington, D.C. 200,000 black and white “freedom marchers” demonstrate.
	Pope John XXIII dies.
	U.S. President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas on November 23, 1963; he is succeeded by Lyndon Baines Johnson.
1964 Justice Emmett Hall, a classmate of Diefenbaker’s, presents his report on a national health scheme for Canada.	1964 Dalton Camp becomes national president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
A new flag for Canada is introduced into the House of Commons in June; Diefenbaker demands that the flag honour the “founding races” with the Union Jack in the place of honour; in December, by evoking closure, the Liberal government adopts a flag with a red maple leaf and no British references.	The UN intervenes to separate Greeks and Turks on the island of Cyprus; Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Paul Martin is instrumental in creating the Cyprus UN force.
	American civil rights leader Martin Luther King wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1965 In the federal election campaign in November, Diefenbaker is energized but he is seventy years old, partly deaf, and his hands shake; the results of the election change the party standings very little.	1965 In the U.S., racial violence occurs in Selma, Alabama and the Watts district of Los Angeles; American students demonstrate against the escalating war in Vietnam
	In Britain, Winston Churchill dies.
PC dissenters headed by Dalton Camp demand Diefenbaker’s resignation as party leader.	In France, Charles De Gaulle wins his second seventeen-year term as president of France.
1966 The name of Gerda Munsinger is raised in the House of Commons; a royal commission criticizes Diefenbaker for not demanding Sévigny’s resignation in 1960.	1966 In Canada, the Medical Care Act is passed.
Television broadcasts a meeting in the ballroom of the Chateau Laurier engineered by anti-Diefenbaker forces within the PC party to discredit him; few applaud his fiery speech; he turns on Dalton Camp; the audience boos; the next day, after a close vote, Camp announces a leadership convention, but Diefenbaker does not resign.	Indira Gandhi becomes prime minister of India.
1967 In July, Diefenbaker attends the dedication of Diefenbaker Lake, an artificial body of water created by two dams, the larger of which has been named after Jimmy Gardiner.	1967 Canada celebrates the 100th birthday of Confederation; Expo 67 opens in Montreal as part of the festivities; De Gaulle visits Canada and shouts “Vive le Québec libre!” in Montreal.
At the PC party leadership convention in Toronto on September 9, a small army of bagpipers leads the Diefenbakers in; Robert Stanfield wins the leadership in the first ballot and Diefenbaker places fifth.	The Six-Day War between Israel and Arab nations takes place.
	In Washington, D.C., fifty thousand people demonstrate against the Vietnam war.
1968 Now a loner on the Opposition side of the house, Diefenbaker disapproves of Prime Minister Trudeau’s eccentric manner of dress.	1968 Pierre Elliott Trudeau succeeds Pearson as leader of the Liberal party and prime minister of Canada; he calls a June election; “Trudeaumania” takes the country by storm; Canada becomes officially bilingual; René Lévesque founds the Parti Québécois.
In the June election Diefenbaker holds on to his seat; the PC party wins twenty-five fewer seats than when he was leader.	Civil rights leader Martin Luther King and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy are assassinated in the U.S.
	1969 American astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first man to walk on the moon.
	1970 In Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act during the FLQ crisis.
1972 In the general election, Diefenbaker campaigns using a helicopter; he wins his seat.	1972 In Canada, Trudeau retains power in a general election only by enlisting title support of the NDP for his minority government.
1974 Because Olive is sick, Diefenbaker campaigns without her by his side.	1974 In Canada, the Trudeau Liberals win a majority in the general election.
1976 Olive Diefenbaker, having suffered a stroke earlier, dies of a heart attack; her funeral is on Christmas Eve in Ottawa.	1976 In Canada, a divided PC party convention chooses Joe Clark as leader; in Quebec, the separatist Parti Québécois is elected under René Lévesque; Canada abolishes hanging for all but a few offences.
1978 In April, Diefenbaker accepts the nomination once more in Prince Albert; he receives a standing ovation.
1979 During the general election campaign, he suffers a stroke during the night; after several days he recovers and returns to campaigning; he wins by 4200 votes; he takes his seat in late July and on August 16 dies in his study at the age of eighty-three.	1979 In Canada, Clark’s PC party wins a minority government in May; Clark is the youngest prime minister ever and the first native westerner to hold the office; his decision to rule as if he has a majority is a mistake and his government falls on a vote of non-confidence in the budget.
Diefenbaker’s body lies in state for three days in the Hall of Honour of the Parliament Buildings; ten thousand people file past the open casket in Ottawa; a train takes his body to Prince Albert, then Saskatoon, where he lies in state at Convocation Hall of the University of Saskatchewan; he and Olive are buried beside the right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker Centre at the University of Saskatchewan.
	1980 The Trudeau Liberals return to power; in Quebec, 60 per cent of the electorate vote in favour of unity with the rest of Canada.