The site of the city was first visited by Cartier on his second voyage in 1535-1536. Later in 1611 Champlain founded the settlement of Place Royale; however, it could not be maintained. Thirty years later, in 1642, Paul de Chomedy, Sieur de Maisonneuve, arrived to lay the foundations of a permanent settlement which was named Ville Marie de Montréal. In 1644, Louis XIV of France granted the first civic charter to the settlement. Much later, under the British regime, in June 1832, the city was granted an act of incorporation by royal assent.

The Montreal Star was an English-language newspaper. Montreal Star owned and published the Family Herald from 1869 until 1968. Subtitled "Canada's National Farm Magazine," the Family Herald published articles on farming subjects as well as fiction and poetry. A memoir about the Family Herald and its last days was published by its last editor, Peter Hendry: Epitaph for Nostalgia (Montréal 1968).