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The Battle of the Atlantic lasted from 3 September 1939 to 8 May 1945 and has been called the longest battle of the Second World War. Canadian naval and air forces helped protect the vital flow of Allied shipping across the Atlantic.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
The raid on Dieppe, on the French coast, took place on the morning of 19 August 1942. Canadians made up the great majority of the attackers: nearly 5,000 of the 6,100 troops.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Herbert Frank from Wien (Vienna), AT · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · 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 1996, Canada’s two-dollar paper note was replaced by a coin as a cost-saving measure: a two-dollar note lasted about a year, while coins can last more than 10 years. The coin, known as the toonie, has carried a polar bear by nature artist Brent Townsend since 1996.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: TravelingOtter from Houston, Texas, USA · Photo licence: CC BY 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
The Rideau Canal is North America’s best-preserved slackwater canal and the only one from the great 19th-century canal-building era that still operates along its original route with most of its original structures intact. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · 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
The King is Canada’s head of State, and the Governor General is his representative in Canada. The Governor General carries out the duties of the head of State on behalf of the Sovereign and represents Canada at home and abroad.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Hayden Soloviev · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Canada’s Senate has 105 seats. Senators examine legislation and propose amendments; a federal bill must be passed by the Senate before it can become law.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: AsifaliWiki · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Bank of Canada Act received royal assent on 3 July 1934, and the Bank of Canada opened in March 1935 as a privately owned institution with shares sold to the public. It became publicly owned in 1938 and remains so today.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
Frederick Banting and John Macleod shared the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for the discovery of insulin.” Banting, born in Alliston, Ontario, was affiliated with the University of Toronto at the time of the award.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Adam Bishop · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Gold was discovered at Discovery Claim on Bonanza Creek, Yukon, on 16 August 1896, triggering the Klondike Gold Rush. Accounts vary, but Parks Canada notes it is generally held that Keish (Skookum Jim Mason) of the Tagish First Nation discovered the gold.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: JKBrooks85 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
L’Anse aux Meadows, at the tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula, holds the first known evidence of European presence in the Americas. Norse expeditions from Greenland built a small timber-and-sod encampment there over 1,000 years ago; the site was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Pierre Gingras · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
On 6 June 1944, some 14,000 Canadians came ashore at Juno Beach in Normandy, under heavy enemy fire, to help establish an Allied beachhead. Veterans Affairs Canada reports that 359 Canadian soldiers were killed on D-Day.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: remiforall · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The Battle of Vimy Ridge began on Easter Monday, 9 April 1917. It was the first time all four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together as one formation.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: 0x010C · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context