🌆 Chapter 4: Modern Canada
4.6.2 Great Canadian Discoveries and Inventions
3 paragraphs · 11 questions
Insulin is one of Canada's greatest gifts to medicine. Sir Frederick Banting of Toronto and Charles Best discovered this hormone, which is used to treat diabetes. As of 2012 it was credited with saving 16 million lives around the world. Another famous name is Alexander Graham Bell. The idea for the telephone came to him at his Canadian summer home. Joseph-Armand Bombardier invented the snowmobile, a light vehicle built for travel in winter.
Key Facts
- Banting and Best discovered insulin, used to treat diabetes
- Insulin credited with saving 16 million lives, as of 2012
- Bell conceived the telephone at his summer house in Canada
- Bombardier invented the snowmobile
Everyday life around the world was changed by Canadian inventors too. Standard time zones, used across the globe, were the work of Sir Sandford Fleming. The first electric light bulb was built by two men working together, Mathew Evans and Henry Woodward. They later sold their patent to Thomas Edison, and it is Edison who is remembered, because he turned the bulb into a product people could buy. Radio owes something to Reginald Fessenden as well: nobody before him had sent a voice message by wireless.
Key Facts
- Sandford Fleming created the global standard time-zone system
- Evans and Woodward built the first electric light bulb
- Thomas Edison bought the patent and commercialized the bulb
- Fessenden sent the world's first wireless voice message
Medicine and technology offer more examples. At McGill University in Montreal, Dr. Wilder Penfield led the way in brain surgery, and people called him "the greatest living Canadian." The first cardiac pacemaker was the invention of Dr. John A. Hopps; the device still saves lives today, in people with heart disorders. The Canadarm - a robotic arm that works in outer space - came from SPAR Aerospace and the National Research Council. And the BlackBerry was the most famous product of Research In Motion, the wireless communications company of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.
Key Facts
- Wilder Penfield: brain surgeon at McGill, called "the greatest living Canadian"
- John A. Hopps built the first cardiac pacemaker
- SPAR Aerospace and the National Research Council built the Canadarm
- Lazaridis and Balsillie of RIM created the BlackBerry
Test yourself on this topic
11 practice questions from “Great Canadian Discoveries and Inventions”, each with the answer explained.
- Which two people discovered insulin?
- Insulin is a hormone used to treat which illness?
- How many lives around the world has insulin saved?
- Where was Alexander Graham Bell when he first conceived of the telephone?
- Who invented the snowmobile?
- Sir Sandford Fleming gave the world which system?
- Which two Canadians invented the first electric light bulb?
- Reginald Fessenden sent the world's first what?
- Dr. Wilder Penfield was a pioneer in which kind of surgery?
- Who invented the first cardiac pacemaker?
- Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie of Research In Motion are known for which invention?
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