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CANADA : The Pioneer
Discover what makes Canada unique and
what Canada was first to bring to the world...
- The Trans-Canada Highway is the longest national highway in the world:
from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia, it
stretches 7821 kilometers (4860 miles).
- The worlds longest covered bridge is located in Hartland, New
Brunswick. It spans 390.8 meters (1282 feet).
- In 1879, Sanford Fleming, a Canadian, first originated the idea of
implementing an international Standard Time system.
- The telephone was conceived in Brantford (Ont.) in 1874 by Alexander
Graham Bell. He made the first long-distance call to his uncle from
Brantford to Paris, Ontario, on August 10th, 1876, a total distance
of 13 km.
- The first wireless voice message was transmitted December 23rd, 1900,
by Quebec-born radio inventor Reginald Aubrey Ressenden.
- Canada also had the first batteryless radio and the first radio station
that was launched in April 1925, by inventor Edward Samuel Rogers.
- Dr. Abraham Gesner discovered Kerosene and demonstrated it for the
first time on Prince Edward Island in 1846.
- In 1888, Ontario Hydro supplied a paper mill with energy, the first
plant to run on hydro-electricity in the world.
- In 1925, Swedish-born inventor Gideon Sundback came to Canada and
invented the zipper.
- Charles Fenerty of Halifax, N.S., discovered a process for making
paper from wood fibers in the early 1800s.
- The discovery of Insulin for diabetics was discovered by Frederick
Banting and his student Charles Best at the University of Toronto in
1921. This was at a time when over 1 million North Americans had the
fatal disease. Banting won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
- On April 12th, 1980, Terry Fox began his cross-country "Marathon
of Hope" to raise money for cancer research. He had lost his leg
to cancer in 1977, and succeeded in running a total of 5,373 km before
the cancer spread to his lungs. A large portion of money raised for
cancer research continues to come from the annual Terry Fox Runs held
across the country.
- Pablum, the vitamin-enriched breakfast cereal for babies was invented
in the late 1920s by doctors T.G.H. Drake, Alan Brown and Frederick
F. Tisdall from Toronto.
- Canada has also been a leader in childrens care with the world's
first Hospital For Sick Children being opened in Toronto in 1875 by
a group of women.
- The active international environmental group Greenpeace was formed
in Vancouver in 1970.
- The widely-used Geographical Information Systems (GIS) computer-based
mapping program originated in Canada in the early 1960s.
- The first film to be titled a "Documentary" was produced
in Canada in 1920/1921. It was entitled Nanook of the North and was
used for many years in schools and educational facilities.
- Similarly, a Canadian produced the first commercial motion picture.
In 1897, James Freer made a film about the life of a prairie farmer;
this was used in Britain in 1898/1899 to promote and encourage immigration
to Canada.
- The National Film Board of Canada is now a world leader in documentary
films, and hosts Studio D, the only womens English film studio
in the world.
- Basketball was invented by a Canadian in 1892. Dr. James A. Naismith
developed the game and made it popular with a touring womens team.
- The ever-popular Superman is another Canadian creation. The comic
was created in 1938 by a Canadian newspaper artist, Joe Shuster, and
Jerome Siegel, an American.
- Todays Hockey originated from Halifax in 1853.
- Kurt Browning performed the first Quadruple Jump in figure skating
in 1990.
- The game loved by all, Trivial Pursuit, was conceived and created
by Canadians Scott Abbott and Chris Haney in 1979. Today, more than
fifty million games have been sold throughout the world.
- From Ralph Naders Canada Firsts. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart,
1992
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