Canada In The Twentieth Century

The 20th Century was a time of turmoil, war and peace. In such a world all the countries played a different role (i.e. bystander, resistor, contributor, aggressor and perpetrator) in world events and contributed to the society in their own way. Canada’s contribution to the global society have all been diverse and in different sectors but the one thing that most of them have in common is that Canadians have always acted in the best interest of others and helped them. Due to these contributions, Canada has attained the identity of a peacekeeping nation. Canada has progressed in different directions and some of these were technology, medicine and war effort. In the field of technology, Canadian scientists invented SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging)

The first major invention was the Hypo gas mask or the British Smoke hood by Dr. Cluny Macpherson in 1915. It was made from a German soldier’s helmet, to which a canvas hood, eyepieces and a breathing tube was added. Chemicals such as glycerine and sodium thiosulphate were put on the mask that would absorb the chlorine, preventing the soldiers from inhaling it. It was adopted by the British army in 1915 after certain improvements. In the battle of Ypres, the most unconventional and cruel weapon was used, chlorine gas. The gas not only killed several hundred people, but also injured many soldiers severely on both sides of the front. It had the ability to cause blindness, lung diseases, disfiguration and burns. In this situation, the only defense the soldiers had against the gas was a handkerchief soaked in urine (as the ammonia crystallised the chlorine gas). The gas mask was a simple invention but for the soldiers, it was miraculous and a ray of hope that they could survive the war. The inventor had seen people suffering due to this deadly weapon and he chose to be a resistor rather than a bystander and he contributed to not only the Canadian war effort but the Allied war effort as a whole. This invention encouraged governments and people all around the world to work towards improving the technology and is used by armed forces around the world today. The second major invention during this time was the development of SONAR(Sound Navigation and Ranging), the code name for which was Asdic. This project was started in 1916 and was completed in 1918. During the war, the German U-boats had destroyed many Allied ships. This technology could detect U-boats and submarines by the “echo method”, using sound waves of high frequency that would reflect of the object and reveal the exact location of the vessel. This is the way that bats survey their