Development of the area, which in the 18th and early 19th centuries[citation needed] was the site of a military base, into a governmental precinct began in 1859 after Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the capital of the Province of Canada.

[1] For hundreds of years, the hill was a landmark on the Ottawa River for First Nations people and later for European traders, adventurers, and industrialists, marking their journeys to the interior of the continent.

The team of Thomas Stent and Augustus Laver won the prize for the second category, which included the subsequent East and West Blocks structures.

[7] Workers hit bedrock sooner than expected, necessitating blasting to complete the foundations, which the architects had altered to sit 5.2 metres (17 ft) deeper than originally planned.

[4] By early 1861, the Canadian Department of Public Works reported over $1.4 million had been spent on the venture, leading to the closure of the site in September and the covering of the unfinished structures with tarpaulins until 1863, when construction resumed following a commission of inquiry.

[4] The site was still incomplete when three of the British North American colonies—now the provinces Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—entered Confederation in 1867, and Ottawa remained the capital of the new country.

The newly created government of the Dominion of Canada purchased the cannon in 1869 and fired it on Parliament Hill as the Noonday Gun, which was colloquially known as "Old Chum",[8] for many years.

[12] Despite the ongoing war, Governor General Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, re-laid the original cornerstone on 1 September 1916, exactly fifty-six years after his brother the future King Edward VII had first set it.

[17] Queen Elizabeth II revisited Parliament Hill on 17 April 1982 for the issuing of a royal proclamation of the enactment of the Constitution Act that year.

[18] In April 1989, armed man Charles Yacoub hijacked a Greyhound Lines bus with eleven passengers on board that was travelling to New York City from Montreal, and drove it onto the lawn in front of the Centre Block.

After fatally shooting a Canadian Army soldier stationed as a ceremonial guard at the National War Memorial, a gunman entered the Centre Block of the parliament buildings.

There, the shooter engaged in a firefight with Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons Kevin Vickers and members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

[22][23] Following the incidents, the Parliamentary Protective Service was created to integrate the House of Commons and Senate security forces with RCMP patrols of the grounds.

[35] The fence, which is named the Wellington Wall,[33] has its centre on an axis with the Peace Tower to the north and the formal entrance to Parliament Hill the Queen's Gates, which Ives & Co. of Montreal forged.

[33] The Centre Block has the Senate and Commons chambers, and is fronted by the Peace Tower on the south facade, and the Library of Parliament lies at the building's rear.

Though Parliament Hill remains the heart of the parliamentary precinct, expansion beyond the bounded area began in the 1880s with the construction of the Langevin Block across Wellington Street.