Tommy Douglas

                                      Tommy Douglas

Tommy Douglas. You know his name, not his story. He was born in a small town just outside of Scotland and then moved to Saskatchewan and became a Baptist minister, politician, and the premier of Saskatchewan. But then in 1935 he was elected into the Canadian House of Commons as a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Tommy Douglas had a dream. Douglas's dream was to bring medicare to his province.In 1947 Tommy Douglas introduced universal hospitalization in Saskatchewan and in 1959 announced a Medicare plan for Saskatchewan. After setting up medicare for Saskatchewan, he stepped down from premier and then went into the election. Douglas was then elected as its first federal leader in 1961. Some people could say Tommy Douglas was Canada's greatest Canadian for bring his own idea for health care to Canada and keeping people healthy and alive.

Juno Beach

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com
JJuno Beach was one of five Allied invasions of German-occupied France in Normandy on 6 June 1944. This battle consisted of Canada and the United Kingdom against Germany. During this war The allies suffered 359 dead, 574 wounded, and only 47 men captured. On the first day on the Juno Beach invasion. Canada was very Unprepared losing most of their men on the first day. When they got to the beach there was no artillery or tanks on the beach supporting them. All the tanks but 1 that had launched from the ships had either sank or got lost due to extreme weather conditions. Also, when they got onto the beach there was no where to hide, just an open beach. But after some troops got out of the water and up off the beach, they found a way to take out the pill box, and get behind enemy lines. Ultimately  The allies ended up wining the first day by taking 73 prisoners and killing 35 Germans.                                                    

American prisoners of war camps

                                    Prisoners of war in WWII

www.world-war-2-diaries.com

  During World War 2 there were many prisoners of war camps all over the world but the one I'm going to talk about is the Japanese camp that in-prisoned the "allies". There were more than 140,000 white prisoners in Japanese prisoner of war camps. Of these, one in three died from starvation, work, punishments or from diseases for which there were no medicines to treat them with.Camps were encircled with barbed wire or high wooden fencing and those who attempted escape would be executed in front of other prisoners. In total there were 257 prisoner of war camps in Japan alone. Around 61,000 prisoners from camp Iizuka (one of the Japanese biggest camps) were put to work on the railroad. Of those 13,000 died. Prisoners in these camps with treated with such dis-respect. They would get only two meals a day which would be, very thin soup and black bread. Also many of the guards didn't speak English and the prisoners did not understand Japanese, so if they didn't listen to the orders the guard has given, they got beat. 

Vimy Ridge

Vimy Ridge
http://www.photosofwar.net
Some people say that the battle of Vimy Ridge was the war that Canada proved themselves as not just a colony, but a nation. This battle was three days long. It went from April 9th to April 12th in the year of 1917. The battle took place in Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France. Canada was now considered it's own independent nation because Canada was the only   nation to successfully capture the German high grounds. Beginning in 1915, the French repeatedly tried to take this strategically important high ground. For two years they failed and lost 150,000 men during their attempts. After the French, The British then tried to take the high grounds. But the also failed. Canada succeded because for months Canadian Major-General Sir Arthur William Currie had researched and planned for his troops inevitable assault on Vimy Ridge. Also Canada used taticts that the other nations hadn't tried before. The Canadians fire heavy arteliary on the Germans and then climbed out of the trenches battling their way closer to the high grounds. Another tactic they used was digging tunnels under to try and attack Germany from behind inside of the high grounds. The Canadians called back the British army, and advanced throughout the day. The Germans faced heavy casualties and were forced to retreat, and be forced out of Vimy Ridge. 

Canadian Freedom

                                                http://www.chronofhorse.com

This is a picture of a Candian riding a moose in his hockey gear. This picture represents Candians freedom, and the love of the game Hockey. This shows Candian freedom because Canada is a free Country and we can do anything we would like as long as it's not against the law. Such as when Sir Winston Churchill says "There are no limits to the majestic future which lies before the mighty expanse of Canada". We can ride a moose if we want to! Also this shows Canada's love of the game for hockey because, we wear our hockey gear around with us everywhere because we love to show our support for the game and wearing our countries colours with pride. Such as when Jordan Eberle says, "Every boxing day i'd miss any events i had planned, and sit down with the family and watch team Canada play".