Google honours 140th anniversary of North-West Mounted Police, predecessors of the RCMP

Would any of you have remembered that May 23 was the 140th anniversary of the founding of the North-West Mounted Police if Google hadn't reminded us?

I know I wouldn't. The global search leviathan's Canadian users were treated Thursday to a Google Doodle of a saluting Mountie, prompting surprise, delight and a little befuddlement on Twitter, as CBC News noted.

The RCMP, which grew out of the NWMP, being trained observers spotted the cyber shout-out soon after it went up at midnight:

Not everyone bothered to roll their mouse over the doodle, it seems.

Here's why:

The NWMP was set up in 1873, six years after Confederation, to bring law and order to the wide-open Northwest Territories, which in those days included much of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

[ Related: RCMP responds to female Mountie's sex abuse lawsuit ]

According to the RCMP's history web pages, initially only 150 Mounties trekked west to deal with American whiskey traders, seeing that terms of treaties with First Nations were kept and establishing Canadian sovereignty in an era of aggressive U.S. westward expansion.

The Mounties played a key role in ensuring peace when thousands of Sioux led by Sitting Bull fled north after destroying the U.S. Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. It also helped suppress the Riel rebellion in 1885, and in policing the Klondike Gold Rush that began in 1896.

It was a body of stout-hearted men, the most famous among them was the legendary Col. Sam Steele, a hard-drinking soldier-turned-policeman who rose through the ranks. Can anyone tell my why there isn't a movie or TV mini-series about this larger-than-life Canadian?

[ Related: N.W.T. RCMP youth program gets $10,000 ]

The NWMP received its royal designation in 1904 and merged with the Dominion Police in 1920 to become the RCMP.

It wasn't all glory, though. Wikipedia's entry on the NWMP noted it was involved in crushing the Winnipeg general strike in 1919, at one point killing three strikers when officers fired into a crowd.

Unlike Google's depiction, early Mounties wore pillbox caps and also pith helmets before switching to the familiar Stetsons.