1. The Dominion of Canada was formed July 1, 1867, by Ontario, Quebec (Upper and Lower Canada), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Other provinces joined Confederation over the years, the last being Newfoundland in 1949.
2. Dominion Day was officially renamed Canada Day on Oct. 27, 1982.
3. Canada has 10 provinces and three territories. The third territory came about in 1999: Nunavut, with 25,000 mostly Inuit people and almost one-quarter of Canada's land mass.
4. Canada is the world's second largest country, surpassed only by Russia. At 10 million square kilometres, Canada has seven per cent of the world's land mass and nine per cent of its fresh water supply.
5. Canada's Constitution, the British North America Act of 1867, was patriated from Britain without Quebec's endorsement in 1982, incorporating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
6. Anthropologists believe North American aboriginal groups migrated over the Bering Sea from Siberia 10,000 to 30,000 years ago. Canada's aboriginal population in the 1996 census was 799,010.
7. Canada's population in the 1996 census was 28.8 million, with 10.6 million in the most populous province, Ontario.
8. The first known European colony in the Americas existed about 1,000 years ago, when the Norse settled at L'Anse aux Meadows, Nfld.
9. On June 24, 1497, Italian Giovanni Caboto, or John Cabot, landed on the Atlantic coast of North America, claiming it for England. France claimed possession in 1534 with the explorations of Jacques Cartier.
10. In 1603, Samuel de Champlain began historic exploration and mapping of New France, including parts of what are now New England and Ontario.
11. British forces, led by Gen. James Wolfe, defeated the French under the Marquis de Montcalm in a 10-minute battle on the Plains of Abraham, at Quebec City, in 1759. Four years later, France ceded New France to Britain.
12. The first person to navigate the Northwest Passage was the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, in 1903-06.
13. Canada's first known execution occurred in New France in 1649 after a 16-year-old girl was found guilty of theft.
14. An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 Canadians fought in the American Civil War.
15. A company of freed black slaves fought for Britain at Queenston Heights, Ont., in the War of 1812.
16. Emily Murphy of Edmonton became the first woman judge in the Commonwealth in 1916.
17. Women won the right to vote in Canadian federal elections in 1918. In 1929, less than four per cent of women worked outside the home; in 1994, 54 per cent of females aged 15 and up worked outside the home.
18. In 1864, John A. Macdonald voted against Confederation. He later became Canada's first prime minister and was knighted by Queen Victoria.
19. In 1858, British Columbia was declared a British colony. B.C. joined Canada as the sixth province in 1871.
20. On Dec. 6, 1921, Agnes MacPhail became the first woman elected to the House of Commons. She promoted the co-operative movement, civil liberties and social reform.
21. On Oct. 18, 1929, women were declared "persons" under the British North America Act and thus eligible for Senate appointments. The ruling came from Canada's highest court at the time, the judicial committee of the British Privy Council.
22. The most common family name in Canada is Tremblay: 180,000, including one in 50 Quebecers.
29. Canada's highest mountain is Mount Logan, Yukon: 5,959 metres.
24. Niagara Falls is the largest waterfall in the world by volume, but its vertical drop is just one-eighth that of Canada's highest waterfall: Della Falls, B.C., which is 440 metres high.
25. Canada's oldest English speaking university is the University of King's College, established at Windsor, N.S., in 1789 and now in Halifax as part of Dalhousie University.
26. Manitoba has the largest population of Icelanders outside Iceland. The Gimli area, nicknamed Little Iceland, was settled by pioneers from Iceland in 1875.
27. Creation of the North-West Mounted Police was expedited after 36 Assiniboine were massacred by a gang of U.S. and Canadian wolf hunters in 1873 in the Cypress Hills of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
28. The world's largest explosion before the nuclear era occurred in Halifax harbor on Dec. 6, 1917. The French munitions ship Mont Blanc collided with the Belgian relief ship Imo, causing a blast that killed more than 1,600 people and injured 9,000.
29. Quebec is Canada's largest province, at 1.5 million square kilometres.
30. The Mackenzie River is Canada's longest, flowing 4,241 kilometres through the Northwest Territories.
31. O Canada, composed by Calixa Lavallee, was proclaimed the national anthem on July 1, 1980, a century after being sung for the first time. Lavallee, born in Quebec, fought for the North in the U.S. Civil War.
32. Martin Luther King called Canada the "North Star" for black slaves. The Underground Railway enabled 30,000 runaway slaves to reach Canada from 1840 to 1860.
33. The most common non-official mother tongue in the Atlantic region is Mi'kmaq. Most common in Central Canada: Italian. Prairie provinces: German. B.C.: Chinese. Northwest Territories: Inuktitut. Yukon: Athapaskan languages of Dene.
34. Canada's first woman prime minister was Kim Campbell (1993). The first woman governor-general was Jeanne Sauve (1984).
35. The most northern point of land in Canada is at Cape Columbia, N.W.T. The most southern community is Pelee Island South and the most southern point is on Middle Island, Ont., both on Lake Erie. The most southern city is Windsor, Ont.
