Template:Wp-Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador-History

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Gander was chosen for the construction of an airport in 1935 because it is very close to the great circle route between New York and London. In 1936, construction of the base began, and the town started to develop. On 11 January 1938, Captain Douglas Fraser made the first landing at "Newfoundland Airport," now known as Gander International Airport, or "CYQX," in a single-engine biplane, Fox Moth VO-ADE.

During the Second World War, as many as 10,000 Canadian, British and American military personnel resided in Gander. The area became a strategic post for the Air Ferry Command of the Royal Air Force , with approximately 20,000 American- and Canadian-built fighters and bombers stopping at Gander en route to Europe. After the war, the airbase became a civilian airport, and the location of the town was moved a safe distance from the runways. Construction of the present town site began in the 1950s, and the present municipality was incorporated in 1958; the settlement around the airport was eventually abandoned.

After the Second World War, the town grew as the airport was used as a refuelling stop for transatlantic flights, earning its name "Cross-roads of the world." Efforts have been made to diversify the economy from being dependent on the airport, particularly as new aircraft designs permitted longer-range flights without the need for landing to refuel.

Gander was the site of a major aircraft accident, Arrow Air Flight 1285, on 12 December 1985. 256 people were killed in the disaster, probably caused by ice contamination on the wings, making it the deadliest air crash ever to happen in Canada.

In 2001, Gander International Airport played an integral role in world aviation in the hours immediately following the September 11 attacks when all of North America's airspace was closed by Transport Canada and the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). As part of Operation Yellow Ribbon, 38 civilian and 4 military flights bound for the United States were ordered to land at the airport—more flights than any Canadian airport other than Halifax International. More than 6,600 passengers and airline crew members—equivalent to 66 percent of the local population at the time—were forced to stay in the Gander area for up to six days until airspace was reopened. Gander received the third highest volume of passengers following Operation Yellow Ribbon, behind Vancouver International Airport, which received 8,500, and Halifax International. Residents of Gander and surrounding communities volunteered to house, feed, and entertain the travellers as part of Operation Yellow Ribbon. This was largely because Transport Canada and Nav Canada asked that transatlantic flights avoid diverting to major airports in central Canada, such as Toronto Pearson and Montréal-Dorval.

Lufthansa named one of its Airbus A340 (registration D-AIFC) aircraft Gander/Halifax to thank both cities for their handling of rerouted travellers on 11 September. A book, The Day the World Came to Town, included several stories about Gander's role during that and subsequent days. A radio play, The Day the Planes Came, by Caroline and David Stafford, dealing with the effect on Gander of the 11 September passengers was first broadcast in June 2008 on BBC Radio 4 and was repeated in October 2009. A TV movie, Diverted, was made in 2009. In February 2010, NBC aired a report by Tom Brokaw covering Gander's part in the grounding of hundreds of planes on 9/11 during coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. A musical by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come from Away, which retells the stories of passengers and Newfoundlanders in Gander after Operation Yellow Ribbon, was mounted on Broadway in 2017. The same year, Come From Away was nominated for 7 Tony Awards and won the Tony for Best Direction of Musical. The town was also profiled in Moze Mossanen's 2018 documentary film You Are Here. National Geographic Episode "9/11: Control The Skies" tells the story of the air traffic controllers, first broadcast on 11 September 2019.

The Town of Gander continues to pursue business opportunities in the aerospace industry.