When the French traveller Jacques Cartier arrived at the small village near the river St. Lawrence called Hochelaga, he asked the natives to take him to the nearby mountain. On October 2, 1535 when he climbed up the mountain with the help of the natives, he named it "Mount Royal". He wrote in his journal: "Et au parmy d'icelles champaignes, est scituée et assise ladicte ville de Hochelaga, près et joignant une montaigne... Nous nommasmes icelle montaigne le mont Royal." Mount Royal or MontReal (in Italian it is Monte Reale) is Montreal as it stands today.
The island of Montreal was not colonized by the French until May 1642, when Montreal (initialy known as Ville-Marie) was founded by Sieur de Maisonneuve.
France lost its colony of New France to the British in 1763 pursuant to the Traité de Paris, but the French culture has been predominant here ever since, with many newcomers and immigrants from other countries expanding the city's identity more and more; today it is truly a multi-cultural city.
Montreal was the capital of Canada from 1844 to 1849, until the Parliament building was set on fire by an angry mob. A significant point in its history came in the early 19th century with the construction of the Lachine Canal , which greatly expanded opportunities for maritime trade, perhaps at the expense of Quebec City, located much further up the St. Lawrence River. Montreal has long been the largest city in Canada and has been characterized by a number of ambitious engineering projects over the years, including a major expansion of its harbour, the city's underground malls along with the metro system, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and various highway and skyscraper projects. Unlike many other North American cities, Montreal does not have very tall skyscrapers because a city by-law prohibits buildings to be taller than the Mont-Royal mountain (really a big hill) in the middle of the city. As a result, the tallest building is Montreal is about 50 storey high. Montreal also hosted the International and Universal Exposition in 1967 ( Expo '67 ), and the Summer Olympics in 1976 . Thirty years later, Montreal hosted the first ever Outgames in the same stadium.
