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Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space on Space Shuttle mission STS-41G aboard Challenger, 5–13 October 1984. He was one of the first six Canadian astronauts, selected in December 1983.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: NASA · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The Canadarm, a Canadian-built robotic arm for NASA’s Space Shuttle, was launched aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-2 on 12 November 1981.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: NASA · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
With the launch of Alouette I on 29 September 1962, Canada became the third nation, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to design and build its own satellite.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: User:Captmondo · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Mistaken Point, on the southeastern tip of Newfoundland, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016. Its fossils, 580 to 560 million years old, include the world’s oldest-known examples of large, architecturally complex organisms.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Alicejmichel · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was shaped by colliding continents and glaciers. Its Tablelands are a rare outcrop of the Earth’s mantle pushed upward about half a billion years ago.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Dunmaghlas · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
In 1885, the government created a 26 km² Hot Springs Reserve around the Cave and Basin hot springs in Banff. On 23 June 1887, the reserve was expanded to 665 km² and became Rocky Mountains National Park, the first national park in Canada.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Sovernigo · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Elections Canada is an independent, non-partisan agency of Parliament, headed by the Chief Electoral Officer. The position of Chief Electoral Officer was created in 1920 by the Dominion Elections Act, largely to end political partisanship in the administration of federal elections.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Can Pac Swire · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
The Supreme Court of Canada was established in 1875 with six judges. The number rose to seven in 1927 and to the present nine in 1949, and the Supreme Court Act requires that three of the nine be appointed from Quebec.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Rleir · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908. Green Gables Heritage Place in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, preserves the farmstead that inspired her.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Hayden Soloviev · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
York Factory, a Hudson’s Bay Company depot on Hudson Bay in Manitoba, was a vital fur trade hub for more than 250 years. It served as the gateway to the vast interior for British trade goods, settlers and soldiers, and lies on Treaty 5 territory.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Travel Manitoba · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
Batoche, a Métis settlement on the South Saskatchewan River north of Saskatoon, was the scene of Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont’s last stand during the Northwest Resistance of 1885. Parks Canada describes it as a symbol of Métis resilience and cultural renewal.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Dave Bonser · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
The Korean War began on 25 June 1950 and fighting ended with an armistice on 27 July 1953. More than 26,000 Canadians served on land, at sea and in the air, and 516 Canadians died.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
On 6 December 1917, SS Mont-Blanc, which was carrying explosives, collided with SS Imo in Halifax Harbour. The resulting explosion, tidal wave and fires killed some 2,000 people. Parks Canada describes it as the largest human-made explosion before the atomic bomb.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
In 1946, Viola Desmond, a successful Nova Scotia businesswoman, refused to leave a whites-only area of a movie theatre; her court case inspired the pursuit of racial equality across Canada. In 2018 she appeared on Canada’s first vertical bank note, the $10 note.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Colin Stepney · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Canadian horse was recognized as the national horse of Canada in April 2002 through the National Horse of Canada Act. The breed’s origins trace to 1665, when the King of France sent horses to New France.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Deinocheirus · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
It was long believed that King George V’s 1921 proclamation of Canada’s coat of arms designated red and white as the national colours, but the proclamation contains no such declaration. Canadian Heritage notes that red and white are not set in law as national colours but have become part of national identity through common use.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Sikander Iqbal · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Nisg̱a’a Treaty, British Columbia’s first modern treaty, took effect on 11 May 2000. It recognizes about 2,000 square kilometres of Nisg̱a’a Lands and was the first treaty in British Columbia to provide constitutional certainty for self-government.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Darren Kirby · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is observed each year on 30 September, honouring Residential School Survivors, their families and communities. It became a federal statutory holiday through Bill C-5, which received royal assent on 3 June 2021; Orange Shirt Day, which began in Williams Lake, British Columbia, in 2013, is observed the same day.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Joli Rumi · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Mackenzie River is Canada’s longest river. Statistics Canada reports that it stretches 4,241 km through the Northwest Territories, Alberta and British Columbia and drains an area of 1,805,200 km².
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Daniel Case · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Wood Buffalo National Park, spanning the Alberta–Northwest Territories border, is the largest national park in Canada. It protects the world’s largest herds of wood bison and vital whooping crane habitat, in the traditional territory of the Dene, Cree and Métis.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Naturedata · Photo licence: CC0 · Credit & context
Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories covers 30,000 square kilometres and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At Náįlįcho (Virginia Falls), the South Nahanni River drops twice the height of Niagara Falls.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Dwayne Reilander · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
In Fundy National Park, New Brunswick, the difference between high and low tide can be as much as 12 metres. At the head of the Bay of Fundy, the tide can rise 16 metres.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Wladyslaw · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Terry Fox began his Marathon of Hope, a cross-Canada run to raise money for cancer research, by dipping his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean on 12 April 1980. After 143 days and 5,373 kilometres, he was forced to stop outside Thunder Bay, Ontario, on 1 September 1980 because cancer had appeared in his lungs.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Canada adopted its first federal Official Languages Act in 1969. It declared English and French to be the two official languages of the Parliament and government of Canada.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Takipoint123 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context