By Brian Boone

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada, and we’re giving our thanks to Canada for creating the environment that led some Canadians to invent some things that truly changed the world.

Road lines

Driving most anywhere in the world was made safer in 1940 when the idea of clearly delineated and mark traffic lanes was introduced. To tell drivers where they should go, and to avoid hitting others, Ontario Department of Transport engineer John D. Millar came up with the idea of painted lines on the road. He tested it out by drawing lines on a bit of highway that stretched between Ontario and Quebec, and it worked so well it was adopted province-wide, and then all over the place.

Hawaiian pizza

Pizza with ham and pineapple on it is only nicknamed “Hawaiian pizza” because of the pineapple. Greek-Canadian restaurateur Sam Panopoulos put the dish on the menu of the Satellite in Chatham, Ontario, in 1962. Inspired by the rising popularity of American pizzas, he wanted to do something new, and paired fruit with Canadian bacon, i.e., ham.

The paint roller

Also in 1940, Norman Breakey of Toronto invented the paint roller. It allowed for speedy and even painting of large and hard to reach surfaces. While Breakey couldn’t get a patent or companies interested before he died, manufacturers later took his idea and didn’t change it much: a fabric-covered cylindrical roller that would absorb paint from a tray. 

Instant replay

On a 1955 installment of Canada’s long-running Hockey Night in Canada, producer George Retzlaff wanted to show the TV audience a particularly impressive goal right after it happened. So, he took a roughly recorded kinescope (a film capture obtained by training a camera on a TV monitor) and aired it 30 seconds after it had first happened. 

Peanut butter

According to common knowledge, peanut butter was one of the many peanut-based inventions of American scientist George Washington Carver. But Montreal inventor Marcellus Gilmore Edson came up with it first, in 1884. He developed a process by which roasted peanuts could be milled until they had the texture of butter. Edson’s peanut butter was used around Canada as a protein source for children with ailments that prevented them from eating meat. 

Trash bags

Harry Wasylyk started a company in Winnipeg to explore the many practical, consumer, and industrial uses of plastics, back in the 1950s when the substance was still new and novel. At his company, Wasylyk and his cohort followed up on a commission from a hospital to come up with a way to dispose of medical waste in a container that was sturdy and also safe. So, he invented the thick, plastic trash bag. Union Carbide bought the technology and in the 1960s started manufacturing and marketing Glad brand trash bags.