The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for a millennia by various aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America to the United Kingdom in 1763 after the War of the Conquest, which was essentially the North American theater of the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. Canada became involved in the Second World War alongside the Allied Powers on 10 September 1939. The unguarded nature of the nation at this time while its troops were deployed to Europe saw the Fascist Party take power in the 1942 co