Alexander Graham Bell, teacher of the deaf, inventor, scientist (b at Edinburgh, Scot 3 Mar 1847; d at Baddeck, NS 2 Aug 1922).

Mihal (Mike) Lazaridis, OC, O Ont, FRS, entrepreneur, business executive, philanthropist (born 14 March 1961 in Istanbul, Turkey).

Sir Frederick Grant Banting, KBE, MC, FRS, FRSC, co-discoverer of insulin, Nobel laureate, medical scientist, painter (born 14 November 1891in Alliston, ON; died 21 February 1941 near Musgrave Harbour, Newfoundland).

Henry Norman Bethune, surgeon, inventor, political activist (born 3 March 1890 in Gravenhurst, ON; died 12 November 1939 in Huang Shiko, China).

Knowing the time in different places is not an issue today, but long ago it was a complicated matter. Communities used their own solar time, which differed by one minute per 18 km of east-west separation between communities, the later time to the east.

Rybczynski's quest for the origins of this most common tool did not prove easy. Some tools, such as the frame saw, had obvious origins since they were developed in a logical response to a particularly vexing problem.

McCurdy had dubbed the machine “Silver” for the coating on its wings and “Dart” just because it seemed obvious. Someone cracked the propeller and McCurdy signaled to the crowd to get out of the way.

Diabetes is a debilitating illness caused by the body’s inability to metabolize food. Other researchers knew that the disease was related to the pancreas, but had no idea how. The prognosis for those who developed the disease early was dismal.

On a lazy summer day in 1874, resting in his favourite spot along the Grand River in Brantford, Ont., Alexander Graham Bell conceived of the telephone. He would write years later that "one observation leads to another.

Elijah McCoy, engineer, inventor (born 2 May 1843 or 1844 in Colchester, Canada West; died 1929 in Detroit, Michigan.) McCoy was an African-Canadian mechanical engineer and inventor best known for his groundbreaking innovations in industrial lubrication.

Herbert Marshall McLuhan, communication theorist (born at Edmonton 21 Jul 1911; died at Toronto 31 Dec 1980).

Joseph-Armand Bombardier, engineer, entrepreneur, inventor of the snowmobile and Ski-Doo (born 16 April 1907 in Valcourt, QC; died 18 February 1964 in Sherbrooke, QC).

Louis Shickluna, shipbuilder (b at Senglea, Malta 16 June 1808; d at St Catharines, Ont 24 Apr 1880). By 1835 he was engaged in ship construction at Youngstown, NY. He later moved to St Catharines and from 1838 leased a shipyard on the WELLAND CANAL which he purchased in 1845.

Sir Sandford Fleming, civil engineer (b at Kirkcaldy, Scot 7 Jan 1827; d at Halifax 22 July 1915).

His studies in 1924 with the Madrid neurohistologist Pio del Rio-Hortega provided him with metallic staining techniques that yielded new information on the glia, the supporting cells of the nervous system.