Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion.Charla Jones/The Globe and Mail
Feb. 14, 1921: Hazel Journeaux is born in Port Daniel on the Gaspé coast of Quebec, the youngest of five children of a fishing-store owner and a homemaker. The family descends from Huguenots who fled religious persecution in France.
Early 1940s: Attending school in Montreal, Ms. McCallion plays hockey for a professional women's team - earning $5 a game. Her love of hockey, dating from her youth, never wavers: She later sits on the board of the Ontario Women's Hockey League, lobbies to get the Hershey Centre built in Mississauga, helps a group led by Don Cherry establish an Ontario Hockey League franchise there in 1998, and plays a key role in bringing the IIHF Women's World Hockey Championships to the city in 2000.
1942: Ms. McCallion moves to Toronto to work for Kellogg Canada.
1951: Ms. McCallion marries Sam McCallion, whom she'd met in an Anglican youth organization, and the couple move to the village of Streetsville, Ont., settling on a five-acre lot - a gift from Sam's parents. He will eventually become a community newspaper publisher.
1964: Ms. McCallion is appointed to her first political position, a seat on the Streetsville Planning Board. Three years later, she resigns from Kellogg to become the board's chairwoman. She became deputy reeve in 1968 and in 1970 was elected mayor. She served until 1973. The following year, Streetsville was merged into the newly created city of Mississauga.
1978: After two terms as councilwoman, Ms. McCallion is elected mayor of Mississauga, which then had a population of about 200,000, defeating popular incumbent Ron Searle. The city now boasts a population of about 730,000, the sixth largest city in the country.
Nov. 10, 1979: A CP train derails in Mississauga spilling toxic chemicals. Ms. McCallion wins kudos for her management of the orderly evacuation of 220,000 people - no loss of life or serious injuries.
1982: The Ontario High Court of Justice finds Ms. McCallion guilty of a conflict of interest for failing to absent herself from a council meeting discussing development of 3,800 acres of city land. The parcels included a five-acre plot she and her husband owned in the East Credit area. The misstep was deemed an error of judgment and she was not required to vacate her seat, since she did not gain financially from releasing the land and had previously declared her conflict.
1980s: The nickname Hurricane Hazel is appended to Ms. McCallion - a reference both to her relentless political energy and to Toronto's destructive 1954 hurricane of the same name.
1991: Ms. McCallion becomes the first mayor of a major municipality to submit an annual operating budget to residents for their scrutiny. She is also among the first mayors of major municipalities to commit to a pay-as-you-go philosophy. The debt-free city has not borrowed money since 1978.
2003: Burnishing her reputation for indestructibility, Ms. McCallion is knocked down by a pickup truck while crossing the street on a green light. She spends a few days in hospital with a bruised elbow, sprained ankle and sore hip, then returns to work.
2005: Ms. McCallion ranks second in an international mayor poll, behind only Dora Bakoyannis of Athens.
April, 2006: During a tense, five-hour police standoff involving a man threatening suicide, Ms. McCallion appears and persuades the man to surrender peacefully.
April, 2006: En route home from a Peel Police Services Board awards evening, Ms. McCallion, then 85, drives her 2004 Buick into a light pole, causing its airbags to deploy. She is uninjured. She refuses to quit driving her own car.
2009: Ms. McCallion becomes the focus of discussion after allegations that she failed to disclose a conflict of interest while attending council meetings that concerned her son's company, World Class Developments Ltd., and its plans to build condominiums and a four-star hotel in the city centre. A judicial inquiry into the affair is continuing.
March, 2010: Ms. McCallion declares that she intends to seek a 12th consecutive term, saying: "I am running for mayor of Mississauga this fall. I am 100 per cent sure, unless I don't exist."