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John Diefenbaker (1895–1979) led Canada as its 13th Prime Minister, serving from June 21, 1957 to April 22, 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative party leader between 1930 and 1979 to lead it to an election victory, doing so three times, although only once with a majority of the seats in the Canadian House of Commons. Diefenbaker was born in southwestern Ontario in 1895. In 1903, his family migrated west to the portion of the Northwest Territories which would shortly thereafter become the province of Saskatchewan. Diefenbaker contested elections through the 1920s and 1930s with little success until he was finally elected to the House of Commons in 1940. In the House of Commons, he was repeatedly a candidate for the party leadership. He was finally successful in 1956, and led his party for eleven years. In 1957, he led the party to its first electoral victory in 27 years and a year later called a snap election and led it to one of its greatest triumphs. Diefenbaker appointed the first woman minister to his Cabinet and the first aboriginal member of the Senate. During his six years as Prime Minister, his government obtained the passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights (which he introduced on July 1, 1960) and granted the vote to members of the First Nations and Inuit peoples. (more...)

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July 1: Canada Day; Feast of the Most Precious Blood in the Roman Catholic Church

• 1569 – The Union of Lublin was signed, merging the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
• 1867 – The British North America Act came into effect, uniting the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia into the Canadian Confederation.
• 1916 – World War I: The first day of the Battle of Albert (the explosion of the Hawthorn Ridge mine pictured), the opening phase of the Battle of the Somme, became the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army, with 57,470 casualties of which 19,240 were killed or died of wounds.
• 1948 – The State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank of Pakistan, commenced operation.
• 1997 – The United Kingdom transferred sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China, ending over 150 years of British colonial rule.
• 2002 – The Rome Statute entered into force, establishing the International Criminal Court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression.

More anniversaries: June 30 – July 1 – July 2