Who invented basketball in 1891?
- Donovan Bailey
- James Naismith
- Terry Fox
- Wayne Gretzky
Answer: James Naismith
Canadian James Naismith invented basketball in 1891. The other names appear in the guide’s sports section but did not invent a sport: Wayne Gretzky was one of the greatest hockey players, Donovan Bailey was a world record sprinter, and Terry Fox ran the Marathon of Hope.
Learn more: Arts, culture and sports
- Men and women of letters included Stephen Leacock, Louis Hémon, Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Pauline Johnson, Émile Nelligan, Robertson Davies, Margaret Laurence and Mordecai Richler.
- Joy Kogawa, Michael Ondaatje and Rohinton Mistry have made Canadian literature more diverse.
- Sir Ernest MacMillan and Healey Willan were musicians known in Canada and abroad.
- The Group of Seven, founded in 1920, painted Canada’s rugged wilderness landscapes.
- Emily Carr painted the forests and Aboriginal artifacts of the West Coast.
- Les Automatistes of Quebec pioneered modern abstract art in the 1950s; the best-known was Jean-Paul Riopelle. Louis-Philippe Hébert was a sculptor of historical figures.
- Kenojuak Ashevak pioneered modern Inuit art with etchings, prints and soapstone sculptures.
- Filmmakers include Denys Arcand, Norman Jewison and Atom Egoyan.
- Canadian James Naismith invented basketball in 1891. Ice hockey is the national winter sport.
- At the 1996 Summer Olympics, Donovan Bailey became a world-record sprinter and double Olympic gold medallist, and Chantal Petitclerc became a world-champion wheelchair racer and Paralympic gold medallist.
- Wayne Gretzky, one of the greatest hockey players of all time, played for the Edmonton Oilers from 1979 to 1988. Paul Henderson scored the winning goal of the 1972 Canada-Soviet Summit Series.
- In 1980 Terry Fox, who lost his right leg to cancer at 18, began the “Marathon of Hope” across Canada for cancer research. In 1985 Rick Hansen went around the world in a wheelchair for spinal cord research.