Certainly space exploration didn't just happen in the U.S.  In the
     1950s, Canada was on the leading edge of avaition technology, with
     A. V. Roe Canada designing a fighter aircraft, the CF-105 Avro Arrow,
     that was 30 years ahead of it's time.  When the project was cancelled
     by the Canadian government (for various complex reasons), a pool of
     highly skilled and innovative group of engineers was left unemployed,
     just when NASA needed them.  The designer of the Gemini space capsule,
     Jim Chamberlain, was Avro's chief areodynamicist on the Arrow.  A good
     deal of Avro's engineers found work in the American space program--a
     NASA official later said the cancellation of the Arrow project was the
     best thing that ever happened to them (NASA).

     Jim Floyd, Avro's vice-president of engineering, designed a civilian
     jet airliner (Avro's C-102 Jetliner) that missed being the first jet-
     airliner into the air by mere weeks, and had the distinction of
     delivering the first jet airmail in North America.  Jim Floyd went on
     to contribute significantly to the design of the Concorde.

     So, if you think trans-continental flight and space exploration are
     among the defining "events" of the 20th century, we owe the debt to
     A. V. Roe Canada for recruiting, training and encouraging this
     talented pool to find unique solutions to perpetual problems; to go
     "where no one has gone before."



     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
     Tim McShane
     Curatorial Assistant, Parks Canada
     (also, Co-Chair of the Museum Division, Arrow 2000 Project)



______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Your TOP EVENT / DECISION that shape
Author:  Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]> (Nora Weiser
<[log in to unmask]>) at PCH
Date:    2/3/99 1:23 PM







 I wouldn't say that WWI or WWII "happened" in the US.
 Or that space exploration was solely a US undertaking.
 Please feel free to cite examples of Canadian events that steered the course
 of the 20th century.

 I agree that it is a shame that the US television news so often focuses only
 on US events, but print media (NY Times or the Globe & Mail, for example,
 seem to cover an international array of news stories.)  Instead of getting
 all of one's news from the tube, there are other options.