MONTREAL HISTORY |
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The area had already been inhabited for over 8000 years when De Maisonneuve
founded the village of Ville-Marie in 1642, near Hochelaga, an Iroquois fort.
Ville-Marie grew to become an important centre for fur trade, and was
fortified 1725.
It was surrendered to Great Britain in 1760, but remained mostly Francophone
until about the time it was incorporated as the City of Montreal, named
after Mount Royal, in 1832.
Beginning with the 1860s, Montreal entered its Golden Age, that lasted until
the Great Depression, and was the most important economic centre of Canada.
Numerous smaller towns of the Montreal Island were merged with it, making it
again a mainly French-speaking city. |
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| The mergers went on and, in 2002, the city included the whole island. Some
older towns though opted out by way of referendum and will be "unmerged" in
2006. |
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