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The battle of the Plains of Abraham, likely the greatest turning point in our history, has given rise to what historian C.P. Stacey called a "luxuriant crop of popular legends.

Before Confederation, elections were rowdy, highly competitive and even violent.

On the morning of February 29, 1704, a French and First Nations army fell upon the sleeping frontier village of Deerfield, Massachusetts. The raiders had spent a fireless winter night camped across the Deerfield River, —cold, hungry and tired.

On 9 October 1867, in Spotted Island Harbour, Labrador, Captain William Jackman secured his vessel ahead of a vicious storm and went ashore to visit his old friend, John Holwell. Before the day ended, events transpired that earned Jackman a place in Newfoundland history — and legend.

The railway train from Toronto (Canada West) was due at Hamilton at a quarter past six o'clock p.m., Thursday, March the 12th. It came on from Toronto as usual, and was proceeding at a moderate speed to cross the tressle or swinging bridge of the Des Jardins canal….

At 8:00 p.m. on Monday, 4 December 1837, William Lyon Mackenzie set out by horse down Yonge Street to scout the route for his attack on Toronto. At the top of Gallows Hill (below St. Clair Ave.) he met Tory alderman John Powell, himself on patrol from the city. Mackenzie and his men took Powell prisoner. “Do you have a gun?” Mackenzie asked Powell. “No,” Powell replied. Mackenzie took his word as a gentleman and sent him back toward the rebel headquarters at Montgomery’s Tavern.

"Great men are almost always bad men," Lord Acton famously said. If that is so, we are going to have to tolerate flaws if we want to celebrate "great" Canadians. The eugenics movement of the early 20th century particularly tries our tolerance of several of our textbook heroes.

We are accustomed today to sending and receiving messages with little delay. Electronic mail and instant messaging provide almost instantaneous ways to send information over great distances.

Robert Henderson drifted downstream in the shallow waters of the Indian River, heading toward Forty Mile to get supplies for the men panning for gold at Gold Bottom Creek.

Members of the press gallery who took their time going down the winding staircase were quickly immersed in thick black smoke. Along the way they ran into the prime minister, Sir Robert Borden, and his secretary making their way to the exit almost on hands and knees.

March 6, 1834 marked the founding of the city Canadians love to hate: the city of Toronto.

As the schooners arrived home from the Grand Banks in 1920, word spread among the fishermen that the America’s Cup race off Sandy Hook, NY, had been postponed because of a mere “"breeze."” The fishermen had contempt for those effete “"yachts,"” which huddled by the docks when the seas ran high.

On September 29th of 1826 the governor of Canada, the Earl of Dalhousie, turned the first sod for construction of the lowest lock of the Rideau Canal. Later that day the participants gathered at Philemon Wright's tavern in Hull, where they indulged in a lavish dinner and the drinking of numerous toasts. One of the great engineering feats of its time was underway.

At some point in the 1650s, two adventurers from New France embarked on a journey that eventually revolutionized the fur trade and changed the course of Canadian history.

In late October of 1929, terror seized the stock exchanges of North America. Capitalism’s speculative party, with its galloping share prices and its celebrity millionaires, came to an abrupt stop. The Great Crash, it was called, and it was followed by the Great Depression.

The driving of the last spike may have been the great symbolic act of Canada’s first century, but it was actually a gloomy spectacle. The cash-starved Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) couldn’t afford a splashy celebration, and so only a handful of dignitaries and company men convened on the dull, grey morning of 7 November 1885 to celebrate the completion of the transcontinental railway.

On 15 February 1965, at hundreds of ceremonies across the country and around the world, the red and white Maple Leaf Flag was raised for the first time. In Ottawa, 10,000 people gathered on a chilly, snow-covered Parliament Hill. At precisely noon, the guns on nearby Nepean Point sounded as the sun broke through the clouds. An RCMP constable, 26-year-old Joseph Secours, hoisted the National Flag of Canada to the top of a specially-erected white staff. A sudden breeze snapped it to attention.

For most of human history, neither people nor goods could move any faster or in any greater bulk than the feet of humans or beasts could carry them. This did not change until the early 19th century, when simple boiling water was harnessed for use in the steam engine. The happy congruence of steam power and tracks created the railway and the greatest revolution in transportation in the history of the world.