Prehistory

Prehistory

Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...

• Paleo-Amerindians
  Indigenous peoples of the Americas
  The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
  
  , whose presence in Quebec can be traced back 10,000 years, preceded the Algonquian
  Algonquian peoples
  The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
  
   and Iroquoian aboriginal peoples, with whom the Europeans first made contact in the 16th century.
• Some 8,000 years ago, the south of Quebec became habitable when the temperature warmed up on this part of the Earth. The first peoples began to immigrate on what is today the territory of Quebec. They were the ancestors of today's Algonquian
  Algonquian peoples
  The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
  
   and Iroquoian peoples.

15th century

• 1492 - For the Queen of Castile (later, Spain), Christopher Columbus
  Christopher Columbus
  Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
  
   crosses the Atlantic ocean.
• 1497 - John Cabot
  John Cabot
  John Cabot was an Italian navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of parts of North America is commonly held to have been the first European encounter with the continent of North America since the Norse Vikings in the eleventh century...
  
   reaches the island of Newfoundland, which he claims for England. Jacques Cartier is born on Dec. 31st 1491.

16th century

• 1524 - Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian in the service of the French crown explores the East coast of America from Florida
  Florida
  Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
  
   to Newfoundland.
• 1525 to 1530 - Basque
  Basque people
  The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
  
   fishermen and whalers
  Whaling
  Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...
  
   regularly sail in the St. Lawrence
  Saint Lawrence River
  The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...
  
   estuary and the Saguenay River
  Saguenay River
  The Saguenay River is a major river of Quebec, Canada.It drains Lac Saint-Jean in the Laurentian Highlands, leaving at Alma and running east, and passes the city of Saguenay. It drains into the Saint Lawrence River at Tadoussac....
  
  .