Portal:Transport/Selected anniversaries/May 14

1847 – First ship of the season arrives at the Grosse Ile, Quebec quarantine station near the port of Quebec; beginning of the most terrible summer of its 105-year history, as the Great Famine (Ireland) reaches its peak, and over 100 000 immigrants, many infected with typhus, arrive in a single season. Over 5000 perish at sea, 5424 are buried on Grosse Ile and thousands die in Quebec, Montreal and Kingston, Ontario.
1872 – The Parliament of Canada passes the General Charter of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR); authorizes private construction of a transcontinental railway.
1880 – Andrew Onderdonk sets off a dynamite blast to start construction of the British Columbia portion of the CPR.
1988 – Carrollton bus collision: a drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, United States (US) hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. The crash and ensuing fire kill 27.
1991 – Angry truck drivers blockade Parliament Hill; can't compete due to higher Canadian taxes than US; diesel also 10-20¢ a litre cheaper.
2007 – The Alaskan cruise ship Empress of the North strikes an underwater rock on day two of a seven-day tour, and evacuates all 281 passengers on board.

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