"What do you think you're doing?" shouted chief clerk William Lovett as train dispatcher Vince Coleman turned back towards the office. "We've only got a minute or two left! Anyone in the office won't stand a chance, and you're a married man with a family to think of!" But Vince Coleman was thinking about the passenger trains speeding towards the threatened harbour. He had to stop them.

What thoughts ran through Louis Riel's mind as he stood on the scaffold, waiting for the trap door to open to his death? Perhaps he thought about the turmoil that surrounded him, a turmoil that still surrounds the controversial Métis leader today. Even now, Louis Riel is a hero to many, a visionary, the fiery leader of a downtrodden people. To others he is a madman, a traitor, or a misguided zealot.

New France, under the leadership of French governor Louis de Buade de Frontenac, repels the British invasion at the Battle of Quebec (1690).

A look at the importance of midwives in early Canada.

Agnes Macphail began her career as a country schoolteacher. Interested in agricultural problems, she became a member and active spokesperson for the United Farmers of Ontario. Her move into politics stemmed from her desire to represent the farmers of her region. In 1919 women gained the right to run for Parliament, and Macphail was elected in 1921, the first federal election in which women had the vote.

The British Columbia painter discovers the artistic muse that will drive her life's work.

Geologist and cartographer Joseph Tyrrell discovers a plethora of dinosaur bones in Alberta.

Sports coach James Naismith's invention of Basketball is tested by a group of young students in Springfield Illinois.

One family's quick thinking helps them to survive the 1870 fire in the Saguenay, Quebec.

Joseph Casavant, world renowned organ maker, builds his first organ.

French coureur des bois and explorer Jean Nicolet becomes the first European to reach Lake Michigan, but thinks it's the Pacific.

The formation of the Iroquois Confederacy presented by a First Nations grandfather explaining the significance of the Great Peace to his granddaughter.

The formation of the Iroquois Confederacy presented by a First Nations grandfather explaining the significance of the Great Peace to his granddaughter.

Teacher Kate Henderson sways school trustees to embrace new methods, and the event is represented in the famous painting by Robert Harris: A Meeting of the School Trustees.

"The world loves a peaceful man," declared Emily Murphy, "but it gives way to a strenuous kicker." Murphy herself was a strenuous kicker, one who opened the path of reform in the legal landscape of Canada. Emily Murphy began her career as a writer of sunny, patriotic travel sketches, which she published under the pseudonym Janey Canuck. Known for its liveliness and humour, her writing also expressed serious concern for the welfare of women and children. Increasingly she found herself speaking out frankly and publicly on behalf of the disadvantaged.

L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland is settled by Norsemen (Vikings) around the year 1000 CE.

Lawyer and politician Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine build inter-lingual cooperation.

Superintendent Sam Steele of the North West Mounted Police was no stranger to action. The big, burly Mountie had helped rid the west of whisky traders, policed the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and averted war between natives and white settlers in British Columbia. At last, as commanding officer at Fort Macleod, married, with three children, he thought he might settle into peaceful retirement.