Canada (video)

This is entry #3 of the C.A.N. World Factbook, the only reliable source for international information that's also chocked full of terrible jokes. Today, we are looking at the most humble, unassuming country on Earth: Canada. So how about we knock them down a notch or two? From its rich history, to its wide landscape, to its funny pronunciation of words, I have a lot of material to work with. And I don't even mention Justin Bieber! You're welcome.

C.A.N. World Factbook: Canada

Viking Discovery of America

Fig.1: "Dibbs!"

Everyone and their uncle's monkey knows that in fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. But what those sly kindergarten teachers failed to tell you was that around the year ten-hundred, Leif Erikson reached the New World and plundered! That's right, conclusive evidence exists that history's greatest bullies, the Vikings, actually became the first Europeans to discover America (fig.1)! While the old Norse legends had long claimed that great explorers voyaged west and made landfall in a place called "Vinland," it wasn't until the 1960s that crazy people digging in the dirt (a breed commonly known as archaeologists) confirmed these stories through the finding of an old Viking settlement on the Canadian island of Newfoundland. Although no long-term colonization occurred at this time (as other Europeans would conceitedly graciously do 500 years later), this initial journey remains a remarkable feat of Norse ingenuity, curiosity, and insatiability of the desire to find more heads of lob off with their axes.