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.

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).

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.

The story of Chanie "Charlie" Wenjack, whose death sparked the first inquest into the treatment of Indigenous children in Canadian residential schools.

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

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

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

Lucy Maud Montgomery battled depression, rejection, and sexism to become known around the world for Anne of Green Gables and 19 other novels. This Heritage Minute tells her story in her own words, as drawn from her journals.

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.

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

Between 1944 and 1945, the Canadian Army was given the important yet deadly task of liberating the Netherlands.

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.

The Grads challenge the self-proclaimed 'world champions' the Cleveland Favorite Knits to a two game tournament in 1923.

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.

KENSINGTON MARKET depicts the evolution of a small shop within a vibrant community as new arrivals make their home in Canada. This is the 88th short in the Heritage Minute series and the first to be fully animated.

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

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.

The story of Viola Desmond, an entrepreneur who challenged segregation in Nova Scotia in the 1940s.