Historica Canada

Scientists Banting, Best, Collip and Macleod at the University of Toronto as they race for a treatment to cure 13-year-old Leonard Thompson of his life-threatening diagnosis of diabetes.

A team of Icelandic-Canadians serve in the First World War before bringing home the very first gold medal in Olympic hockey.

This Heritage Minute follows Canada’s most honoured jazz musicians from his humble beginnings in the Black neighbourhood of Little Burgundy in Montréal to his rise to fame.

Mohawk Chief John Norton and 80 Grand River warriors hold off American soldiers until reinforcements arrive and the Battle of Queenston Heights is won (1812).

Nursing Sisters serve at the No. 3 Canadian Stationary Hospital in France during the First World War.

This Heritage Minute follows the life of Onondaga long-distance runner Gagwe:gih, whose name means “Everything.” Known around the world as Tom Longboat, he was one of the most celebrated athletes of the early 20th century.

This Heritage Minute celebrates Saskatchewan’s Mary “Bonnie” Baker, an all-star catcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and a pioneer for women in sports.

A family escapes persecution in Vietnam, traveling by boat to a Malaysian refugee camp before finding a new home in Montreal.

On June 6, 1944, Canadian Forces landed on Juno Beach. D-Day, as this day would become known, was the largest amphibious invasion of all time, led to the liberation of France, and marked the beginning of the end of the Second World War.

Pioneering gay activist Jim Egan publicly challenged a culture of rampant homophobia in the press starting in the late 1940s, when it was dangerous to speak out.

Mary Riter Hamilton painted the battlefields after the First World War as a testament to its devastating cost. She would suffer mental and physical illnesses as a result of documenting the experiences of Canadian soldiers.

From 1914-1941, the Vancouver Asahi were one of city’s most dominant amateur baseball teams, winning multiple league titles in Vancouver and along the Northwest Coast.

As a pioneering trans soul singer in the 1960s, Jackie Shane’s unapologetic and authentic presence in Toronto contributed to the local R&B music scene and made her an enduring queer icon in Canada.

The Acadians are descendants of early French settlers who arrived in Nova Scotia in 1604 and built a distinct culture and society over generations. Their peaceful existence was uprooted in 1755 when over 10,000 Acadians were ripped from their homeland to ensure British rule in North America. This Heritage Minute portrays the deportation through the eyes of an Acadian mother.

At 68, a formerly enslaved Black Loyalist enlists men for the Coloured Corps, an instrumental company in the War of 1812.

Canada's first Prime Minister outlines his vision for Confederation en route to the Charlottetown Conference.

This Heritage Minute celebrates Norman Kwong, the first CFL player of Chinese heritage and 4x Grey Cup winner.

This Heritage Minute follows Chloe Cooley, an enslaved Black woman in Upper Canada in 1793. Her acts of resistance in the face of violence led to Canada’s first legislation limiting slavery.

Elsie MacGill was the world’s first female aeronautical engineer and Canada’s first practicing woman engineer.

The making of Treaty 9 from the perspective of historical witness George Spence, an 18-year-old Cree hunter from Albany, James Bay.