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Canada’s recorded population history begins in the 16th century with the arrival of Europeans. Indigenous peoples were subsequently depopulated, due largely to epidemic disease. High rates of fertility and immigration caused the country’s overall population to grow rapidly until the mid-19th century, when it slowed slightly. Population growth continued to be slow through the First World War, Great Depression and Second World War. Following this period growth rates began to increase again. Today, Canada’s population growth is dependent on international migration. As of the 2021 census, Canada’s population was nearly 37 million (36,991,981).

The Hypo Helmet (or “Smoke Helmet”) was an early gas mask developed by Newfoundland doctor Captain Cluny Macpherson during the First World War. Macpherson began working on the Hypo Helmet after the Germany army launched its first chlorine gas attack at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915. The British army began issuing the Hypo Helmet to Canadian and British soldiers in May 1915. The design was soon modified, resulting in the P, PH and PHG Helmets. By war’s end, 2.5 million Hypo Helmets had been issued. The gas mask was one of the most important innovations of the First World War.

In Canada the Gregorian calendar is in use under the terms of the 1750 British Act for Regulating the Commencement of the Year, and for Correcting the Calendar Now in Use, which switched the official English calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian form in 1752.

Smallpox is an infectious disease caused by the variola virus. The disease arrived in what is now Canada with French settlers in the early 17th century. Indigenous people had no immunity to smallpox, resulting in devastating infection and death rates. In 1768, arm-to-arm inoculation became more widely practised in North America. By 1800, advances in vaccination helped control the spread of smallpox. Public health efforts also reduced rates of infection. In the 20th century, Canadian scientists helped the World Health Organization eradicate smallpox. Eradication was achieved in 1979, but virus stocks still exist for research and safety reasons.

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Civil Code is a fundamental legislative enactment which contains a compendious statement of a country's private law. It is typically found in legal systems whose traditions are traceable to Roman law. In Canada, only Quebec has a Civil Code.

The Canadian Corps, a force of 100,000 soldiers by late 1916, fought for the entire war on the Western Front, along a static trench system that ran 700 kilometres from Switzerland to the North Sea.

The film Incendies, written and directed by Denis VILLENEUVE and inspired by Wajdi MOUAWAD's play, opened in 2010. A Canada-France coproduction shot in Montréal and Jordan, it describes the shattering quest of a pair of twins.

Canadian newspapers and broadcast stations depend heavily on news agencies for a regular supply of news from outside their immediate geographical area. One-third to one-half of news and editorial content comes from news agencies, also called wire services or press associations.

The Champlain Society was founded 1905 in Toronto by Sir Edmund Walker to increase public awareness of, and accessibility to, Canada's rich store of historical records. Membership, limited at first to 250, is now approximately 800.

The Canadian Museum of History (CMH) in Gatineau, QC, is the leading museum of human history in Canada and one of the country’s oldest public institutions. Previously called the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the crown corporation’s name was changed to the Canadian Museum of History, and its mandate rewritten, in 2013. Recognized for its spectacular architecture, which is designed to reflect features of the Canadian landscape, the CMH is Canada's most visited museum, with an average 1.2 million visitors each year.

In a monarchy, the Crown is an abstract concept or symbol that represents the state and its government. In a constitutional monarchy such as Canada, the Crown is the source of non-partisan sovereign authority. It is part of the legislative, executive and judicial powers that govern the country. Under Canada’s system of responsible government, the Crown performs each of these functions on the binding advice, or through the actions of, members of Parliament, ministers or judges. As the embodiment of the Crown, the monarch — currently Queen Elizabeth II — serves as head of state. The Queen and her vice-regal representatives — the governor general at the federal level and lieutenant-governors provincially — possess what are known as prerogative powers; they can be made without the approval of another branch of government, though they are rarely used. The Queen and her representatives also fulfill ceremonial functions as Head of State.

The fur trade was a vast commercial enterprise across the wild, forested expanse of what is now Canada. It was at its peak for nearly 250 years, from the early 17th to the mid-19th centuries. It was sustained primarily by the trapping of beavers to satisfy the European demand for felt hats. The intensely competitive trade opened the continent to exploration and settlement. It financed missionary work, established social, economic and colonial relationships between Europeans and Indigenous people, and played a formative role in the creation and development of Canada.

(This is the full-length entry about the fur trade. For a plain-language summary, please see Fur Trade in Canada (Plain Language Summary).)

York Factory, also known as York Fort, Fort Bourbon by the French, and Kischewaskaheegan by some Indigenous people, was a trading post on the Hayes River near its outlet to Hudson Bay, in what is now Manitoba. During its life, it served as a post and later as a major administrative centre in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trade network. It also bore witness to the largest naval battle to take place in Arctic Canada, the Battle of Hudson Bay in 1697.

The Iroquois Wars, also known as the Beaver Wars and the French and Iroquois Wars, were a series of 17th-century conflicts involving the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also known as the Iroquois or Five Nations, then including the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca), numerous other First Nations, and French colonial forces. The origins of the wars lay in the competitive fur trade. In about 1640, the Haudenosaunee began a campaign to increase their territorial holdings and access to animals like beaver and deer. Hostilities continued until 1701, when the Haudenosaunee agreed to a peace treaty with the French. The wars represent the intense struggle for control over resources in the early colonial period and resulted in the permanent dispersal or destruction of several First Nations in the Eastern Woodlands.

​Representative government is a political system in which an elected assembly governs. Members of the assembly act as the people's representatives in government.

Among Canada’s defining events, the Battle of Vimy Ridge in the First World War ranks high. It was a triumph — a major victory for the Allied side after a long, bloody stalemate — and a tragedy. In the four-day battle, 3,598 Canadians died and another 7,004 were wounded. In the century since it ended, on 12 April 1917, it has become something else: an event bordering on myth. “In those few minutes,” said Canadian Brigadier-General A.E. Ross of the victory, “I witnessed the birth of a nation.”

Singing schools. A New-World echo of an English movement to renovate psalm-singing. The schools appeared first in New England in the early 18th century.

In 1963 the first detection of a molecule (the hydroxyl radical OH) at centimetre-wavelength radio frequencies was made by Weinreb, Barrett, Meeks and Henry of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After the fall of Québec in 1759, an urgent appeal was sent to France for 4000 troops and food supplies. Not until Apr 19 did 5 merchant ships and a frigate leave Bordeaux with 400 troops and some supplies.