The Algonquin, Huron and Iroquois called the present Québec area home for thousands of years before the arrival of the Europeans. When French explorer Jacques Cartier arrived in present day Québec City, then called Donacona, Iroquois Chief Stadcona befriended him and told him of a shiny stone upriver. So Cartier set out in search of what he thought was gold, which led him to the village of Hochelaga on the Island of Montréal. It turned out that the shiny stone was just quartz.

Seventy years later in 1614, Samuel de Champlain went to Hochelaga but the village no longer existed. He started a fur trading post at Port Royale on the Island of Montréal. It wasn't until 1639 when Jerome Le Royer, a French tax collector, established a settlement on the Island of Montréal. Later, Catholic missionary Paul de Chomedey set up a mission named Ville Marie on Place Royal. Ville Marie became a fur-trading centre under repeated Iroquois attacks. Despite the attacks, the colony prospered as a religious centre, exploration base, and fur centre. In 1701, a peace treaty was signed between the Iroquois and French.

The Treaty of Paris 1763 made Canada a British colony. This brought an influx of English-speaking settlers, and because of this immigration many French Quebecois refer to this time as "the Conquest ". In 1775, American Revolutionist briefly held the city, but they soon left when it was apparent they couldn't take Canada. As more and more English-speaking merchants came to Montréal, more French merchants returned to France. Soon the dominant business language was English.

It was the capital of the United Provinces of Canada from 1844-49 and brought even more English-speaking immigrants. With a large wealthy Anglophone population, they built the first university, McGill, and built lavish homes at the foot of Mont Royal. But with this economic boom came thousands of immigrants from Italy, Russia, Eastern Europe and other parts of French Canada.

By the beginning of the 20th Century Montréal was the commercial and cultural centre of Canada. In 1958, Montréal started development projects for a new subway system and underground city, enlarging the harbour, and opening the St. Lawrence Seaway. New buildings replaced the old, including Montréal's two tallest skyscrapers: the 49-storey Royal Bank of Canada Building and the 46-storey Place Victoria. The Summer Olympics arrived in 1976 and with them, one of Montreal's most recognisable landmarks, the Olympic Stadium.