On April 10, 1865, Canadian naturalist, Jack Miner was born. At 39, he established the Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary for the conservation of migrating Canada geese and ducks on an Ontario peninsula between Lake Erie to the south and Lake Saint Clair to the…
On April 7, 1795, France introduced the metric system of measurement with the original units for length, area, volumes and mass. The main feature of the metric system is the standardized set of interrelated base units that include a standard set of prefixes in…
On March 27, 1905, aeronautical engineer Elizabeth Muriel Gregory “Elsie” MacGill was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Attracted first to the red-hot field of radio, she became the first woman electrical engineering graduate from the University of Toronto. Working her first job at the…
On March 23, 1950, the World Meteorological Organization was created as a specialized agency of the United Nations. The WMO speaks on the state of Earth’s atmosphere and reports its interaction with oceans, the climate it produces, and the resulting distribution of water resources.…
On March 22, 2026, we celebrate World Water Day, a special day for focusing upon the most vital food for life on Earth. Each year, the United Nations Organization chooses a special water focus that has included water for cities, groundwater, health, disasters, scarcity,…
On March 21, 1971, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization declared this as World Forestry Day to share information, research, and project updates on forests and forestry around the world. This day was chosen because it is the vernal equinox in the Northern…
On February 19, 1473, astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus [Mikołaj Kopernik] was born in Prussia [present day Poland]. He studied mathematics, optics, and canon or church law. Thanks to an interested and protective uncle, Copernicus was appointed a canon to the Frauenburg cathedral where he spent…
On February 14, 1852, Dr. Charles West opened London England’s The Hospital for Sick Children. It was the first hospital in the country to provide inpatient care only to children. West was determined to reduce the approximate 20,000 children’s deaths occurring yearly in the…
On February 2, 1997, World Wetlands Day was first celebrated. Grown from an international convention held in Ramsar, Iran, on the present and future of the world’s wetlands, the organization is headquartered in Switzerland. Each year on this date, government agencies, citizen groups, and…
On January 30, 1903, British-American zoologist George Evelyn Hutchinson was born. His growth as a preeminent ecologist was perhaps foreshadowed when the young Hutchinson set up his own aquarium “pond” with red water mites and other aquatic insects to observe their behaviour. And kept…