I saw this commercial and immediately thought "Thanks for giving JJ McCullough a week off on having to think up a topic". Right in your wheelhouse; did not disappoint. When you miraculously produced a "History of Peanut Butter" book, my jaw dropped.
My favorite fact about Hawaiian Pizza is that it was invented by a Greek immigrant living in Canada who was inspired by Cantonese cuisine to put a South American fruit onto an Italian dish and named it after Hawaii.
You'd be amazed how many Hawaiians don't know (or maybe just don't like to admit) that pineapples are in fact originally native to Central America (especially in what's now Honduras, Guatemala, and southeastern Mexico) and weren't grown in Hawaii until the British introduced them there.
What you mention about Canadians claiming everything someone born in Canada, but who left Canada early and was productive only abroad happens in Greece too. Every prominent greek scientist, who consciously left Greece explicitly to seek better research opportunities, sometimes even before their undergraduate degree, is claimed to be greek. Thing is, most of those people seem to accept their achievements as greek achievements, and usually are happy to give interviews in greek media talking about their success
It's easier to do that with Greece since they have their own language and culture which is entirely distinct from most of the places they emigrate to. Between Canada and America it's much harder to draw the line because the intermingling is omnipresent.
As a 4th generation Greek American, we have no problem attributing our successes to a global "Greek" identity. Indeed, we would do anything for the mother country... except live there.
Real talk. I'm an American. I was born in America. I live in America. My ancestors are from Eastern Europe and the Middle East-- no British, French, or otherwise Western European ancestry. I lived in Canada for a couple of years when I was a teenager, before permanently returning to the USA. I am sure that if I ever do anything notable in my life, somehow it will be attributed to Canada. JJ is one of the most honest Canadian media personalities that I've seen
I'm Korean-American, the closest personal connection I have to Canada is that some of my Korean relatives live in Canada and in turn my Grandfather lived there during his final years. I'm sure if/when I do something important for the world, Canadians will claim me quicker than Koreans would.
@@michaele1654actually what we do rightfully claim is the rights to also be known as Americans. Please remember your a U.S. Citizen as America goes from Chile to Canada. Many in South America get rather touchy about this!
@@michaelreid8857 No need to correct me. Words can have multiple definitions. You're from the continent America, which makes you an American in one sense. I'm from the United States of America, which makes me an American in the other sense. I mean it is confusing that the word "America" can be applied to both the country USA and the continent containing the USA, which is why I say "US Resident" in formal contexts. I figured that, since I was writing a RUclips Comment, people would understand what I meant. And I've met enough Canadians to know that South Americans are not the only ones who get touchy about this.
Norwegians often claim that the paperclip was invented by Norwegian inventor Johan Vaaler. However, his design was faulty and never widely adopted, and the standard paperclip we all know and love (the Gem design) actually predates his invention by a few years. During WWII, a paperclip fastened to your shirt pocket became a discreet symbol of resistance to Occupation, which probably contributed to the myth.
@@DugrozReports Germany. Before becoming a part of the allied forces, Norway, as well as the rest of the Scandinavian peninsula was part of the axis powers
Brazilians often claim that Brazil invented the aeroplane based on Alberto Santos Dumont’s first flight in 1906. It happened three years after the Wright Brothers’ flight. My compatriots arbitrarily disqualify the Wright Brothers’ claim based on the fact that their plane used a contraption to take off, even though their plane is much closer to modern planes and could fly for much longer than Dumont’s.
It should also be noted that the Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903 did not use a catapult to take off. They only started using one for certain flights in late 1904 because they moved to a new testing location where the conditions were less favorable. A catapult allowed them to takeoff in a shorter distance and in a wider range of weather conditions, but they were not dependent on it.
Such claims get even weirder when they repeat the line about a catapult not being a motor. 14-bis used a catapult that was charged by a rope pulled by a donkey, and the original Wright Flyer didn't use a catapult, but instead relied on high windspeeds. Later variations on the plane did use a catapult, but by 1905 they had bought a large enough motor that didnt need a catapult or a high windspeed. This plane was able to take off under it's own power in the exact style that you would expect any reasonable definition of an airplane to do. 14-bis did have an important innovation though, it added wheels, which the Wright Brothers didn't use, despite being experts in bicycles and had no doubt been familiar with the concept of wheels.
@@joemiller947 The reason the original Wright Flyer did have wheels was that Kitty Hawk, which is where they were doing their tests at the time, is on the beach and therefore covered in sand. Wheels would have gotten caught up in the sand, so they had it run along a rail.
Reminds me of that old ad that tried to portray Superman as being a Canadian creation. Joe Shuster was born in Toronto, immigrated to the US as a child, then over a decade later he and Jerry Siegel created Superman together.
I think your "Hotel California" comment about Canadian-born moving elsewhere but still being "counted as" Canadian cuts to the heart of my anxiety about "Given that I was born in Toronto, even though I've lived basically my whole life on Vancouver Island, am I *really* a Western Canadian and would that be counted against me should Canada dissolve?" Think there's a bit of "Caesar's census" wrapped up in that anxiety, too.
@@JJMcCullough Biblical thing. The romans were doing a census of their territory and required all men to return to the city of their birth for accounting - that's why Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem in the story of the Nativity.
@@kimarous Census of Quirinius. Quirinius wasn't a Caesar but was a governor of Judea. It doesn't actually match up when people think Jesus was born but records were scarce back then. Historians point out that requiring people go back to the hometowns of their ancestors for a census has no historical basis in fact and is also completely illogical (what's the point of counting people in a place who don't live there?). It's actually a pretty serious counterpoint to the accuracy of the new testament. That said that is a good reference and shows that you have a lot of cultural literacy.
@@seanicus100 This is just false. Recent archeological findings have detailed a similar "return home" census in Egypt in AD 104. Plus, the Bible notes Quirinius as governor of Syria, not Judea. Judea was ruled by Herod the Great at the time. Both of these claims are archaeologically confirmed as well, by the way. We also have recently discovered some coinage that indicates that there were either 2 different "Quirinius"s that governed Syria in close succession or 1 Quirinius who governed it 2 separate times. Either way, there was a Quirinius governing Syria during Herod the Great's reign.
@@jake2011rt Quirinius was governor of Judea _after_ most of Judea was absorbed into the Empire proper (it was split between Herod's sons and sister after his death and then his son in Jerusalem abdicated; it's complicated). And the census was a real thing, but it happened many years after Jesus would have been born. And Jesus was in the Galilee, which was still technically an independent country not subject to said census.
I really appreciate your use of sound effects. Unlike other RUclipsrs you don't make them obnoxious and instead they make the video a bit more engaging.
I was literally thinking this watching the video. J.J.'s use of them accentuates the video and are used at just the right moments and aren't over stated.
I would disagree, JJ often portrays us as a bunch of anti American snobs that cry for our own identity but most of our identity comes from spending 100+ years as a British dominion. People like JJ are just annoying because he forms this false narrative that we all hate America (we don’t) and that we’re only different from America because we hate them which is just bogus. We’re different from America because less than one human life ago we were literally Britain.
@@gavinrivington4918To be honest, as an American who has lived in Canada for the last 5 years, I disagree with you. I don’t think that Canadians all hate America or hate Americans, but I do think that you guys can tend to have a superiority complex. Whenever it comes up in conversation that I’m from the states, people very often respond with something along the lines of “well you must feel lucky to get to live in Canada now” and just this general sense of snobbery. And not just towards the US, I work with immigrants from all over the world, and we all kind of agree that Canadians can have a tend to really think highly of themselves and their country, almost to a somewhat delusional level. You guys kind of have this hyper patriotic mentality that seems pretty deeply engrained to the point that a lot of the times I think you don’t even realize it, but it honestly can come off as a little bit snobby and obnoxious. And don’t get me wrong, Americans definitely can be the same way especially in certain parts. However, I do feel like there’s a bit more of a stigma towards that kind of attitude in the states, and people tend to question America’s supposed greatness more than Canadians do. That’s just my two cents, having lived in Canada and interacting with Canadians as well as other immigrants on a daily basis!
@@Dreadlock1227 I’m sorry to hear that, if you don’t mind me asking what part of Canada do you live in? I’m in the maritimes and that’s not very common here we very much identify and accept the influence of American culture in us and don’t tend to think of ourselves as better than anyone but then again maybe I’m just not seeing it, I’m only wondering because if you’re living in the west coast or close to like Alberta and Ontario is also an exception, I know that attitude is a lot lore common in those regions because we ourselves talk about the snobbery “people out west” at times.
It seems that Canadian and American cultures are so similar and so synchronized that it’s difficult to even determine whether an invention is from the US or Canada.
as in Canada is more of a subset of American culture. Frankly if you included Canada in the wider American culture, Southern culture would probably be more different from the general American culture than Canadian culture would be
Well we all do live in the America's. I think it's funny when I hear ppl saying American instead of united states. Canada and the US are both in the America's lol. Just sayin.
It's fun. I live in Denmark, and we kind of do the same thing, that is, claiming certain celebrities are Danish, even if they got American citizenship and their ties to Denmark are pretty questionable. Though, in this case, I think it's mostly 'cause we're a very small country, so any one from Denmark having a broad global cultural appeal is pretty rare. So we'll pretty much take what we can get and cling on to people who it really doesn't make sense to refer to as "Danish".
@John Irving, the funny thing about Sandy, is that she's almost completely unknown here in Denmark. But she makes it like her thing to be Danish. I know her because I watch QI, but that show haven't been shown on Danish TV.
I swear I was taught in school (in the American South) that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter, so your PB section was insightful in both ways. Reading through some of the comments, I think I'm not the only one that though this. Serves as a great personal example of what you said; when the thing is generic enough, invented independently multiple times, and has a distinction between the invention and the popular use of a thing, it gives whomever is making the list a lot of leeway to put their thumb on the scale to fit their narrative.
Geroge Washington Carver worked for University of Iowa at the time he made an almost peanut butter like substance of a thick peanut oil, but it was not peanut butter.
Labrador retriever dogs are dubiously treated as a "Canadian" dog breed. Their forerunners were fishing dogs that worked with fishermen on the Labrador sea off the coast of Newfoundland but the modern Labrador breed was first bred in the UK to be a hunting/retrieving dog.
@@aheat3036 As far as I know, American Cheese was invented by a Canadian (James Kraft) in his home province of Ontario. He would end up taking this invention to the USA where it was popularized, but the inventing happened by a Canadian in Canada.
I'm honestly surprised a country like Canada cant find better than "paint rollers" and "egg cartons" to fill a top 20 list. Like theres a lot of people in Canada and its not a poor country there just has to be at least 20 relevant inventions no?
Insulin comes to mind right away. I'm sure there are more than the 20 items picked by an advertisement firm. I would imagine they were looking for a specific quirky/fun theme for the add
@@aheat3036 I think Japan’s list alone shows that’s debatable, let alone other countries like China, India, Egypt etc en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_inventions_and_discoveries
In a philosophical sense it is, since Objectivism is basically just a spiteful inversion of Soviet-style Communism, presented in a literary format inspired by hackneyed socialist polemics from the 1930s.
Hello JJ! I had an idea for what could be a very interesting video: all the (sometimes odd) props and traditions we have for american birthday parties, like the balloons, the pointy hats, the cake and candles, the noisemakers, etc.
When I was working in a local telephone installation company, we had a Canadian working there. In informal conversation, he would interject "He's Canadian or She's Canadian" whenever someone from Canada was mentioned, often in passing. When asked, he said that it was built into them to say that, like it was a biological imperative. I no longer recall that many but I definitely found that many of the celebrities were Canadian.
@@HOTD108_ Instead I would say that it was in response to being immersed in a different environment where contributions of their country aren't recognized.
It was probably that Heritage Minutes short film that perpetuated Superman being a Canadian creation. It portrays it as if Joe Shuster did everything, completely ignoring Jerry Siegel's involvement. And that he had spent most of his life as a US citizen by then.
Oh man, thanks for covering this, I'm so tired of all the "Canada invented everything" propaganda I've been force-fed since childhood. My favorite was that Canada invented synthesizers because one guy invented a few instruments that weren't the first of their kind, didn't have an impact on music, and aren't remembered by anyone else as "firsts."
So many of inventors of the synth! You could probably claim Alexander Bell (a Canadian) invented it! And what about electronic instruments without keyboards like the Theremin? And what about Louis and Bebe Barron setting breadboards and tubes on fire to make the Forbidden Planet soundtrack.
@@Bacopa68 The Theremin was created by a Russian (later Soviet) inventor called Leon Theremin (the French version of Lev Sergeyevich Termen, as he was of partly French descent). Incidentally, he is also credited for having create a listening device dubbed "The Thing", a microphone placed inside a wooden plaque of the American Great Seal, which was to be placed in the main office of the US Embassy in Moscow.
I am surprised the telephone wasn't mentioned. Even though A.G. Bell was Scottish, he moved to Canada, then became a U.S. Citizen. Most of the inventing and research was conducted in the U.S. and Canada. I guess he is buried in Nova Scotia, though.
I think my favorite dubious Canadian invention I learned when I was a kid was the concept of standard time and time zones by Sandford Fleming. Not sure why, but I found amusing the idea that before that happened, every place had its own time.
I mean. That's what people did. Each major town used its solar noon as the definition of its time. Flemming wasn't the first to come up with the idea, and it seems like he was the first to actually manage to get it instiuted. Also, it's silly to call him a "Canadian inventor". He was scottish, and so it'd be best to call it a Scottish-Canadian invention if you were to call it an invention.
hey did you know canada invented xylophones, the typewriter, computers, the wheel, coffee, the spear, language, society, pensacola florida, the concept of time, and the universe? seriously, look it up
In Russia, we have a lot of those. The most famous example is the helicopter, which we often list as one of the greatest 'Russian' inventions. It was invented by Igor Sikorsky, a Russian-born dude living in the US.
Surprised that George Washington Carver wasn't mentioned in the peanut butter segment. In the US he is always mentioned during black history month crediting him for inventing peanut butter
No peanut butter but a lot of stuff using peanuts. My favorite was a plastic like material made from shells used in some molded goods. Never caught on.
@myselfremade Yeah, this urge that canadians feel to claim inventions for themselves extend to all people groups, including african americans. I'm more sympathetic to african americans here...always the underdogs, meanwhile Canadians just have this culture of resentment and jealousy of the US. That said it's an understandable mistake to make anyways since he came up with a lot of food products involving peanuts. The first food product that people think of involving peanuts is...peanut butter.
There's an American Dad episode about exactly this topic involving George Washington Carver, Abraham Lincoln, the "Illuminutty", and Peanut Butter AKA "Negro Love Spread". (Or something like that I haven't seen it in a while)
Peanut butter as a name was pretty much the only thing modern society can reliably lay claim to. Humans have been making peanut pasty substances for quite a while and most probably not long after first consumption of peanuts. _Those people_ weren't particularly good at keeping records, however.
The opposite comes to mind, the M1 Garand rifle, invented by John Garand, is so iconic and closely associated with U.S service in WW2 that most would assume its inventor was American, but people have been mispronouncing that Canadian guys' name ever since.
Including peanut butter was to risk stumbling into a minefield. In the US it is commonly (thought incorrectly) believed that peanut butter was invented by George Washington Carver who is often a prominent figure in Black History Month (aka February.) Carver did a lot to popularize peanuts, but his real interest (as a botanist) was in using the peanut as a nitrogen-fixing part of crop rotation agriculture. One of the great scientists of American history, but saying he invented peanut butter is a lot easier than discussing his actual important work. Edit: Also not sure why anyone would want to claim credit for instant potatoes. Or leave Rick Moranis out of the 'heroes of comedy' line-up.
There's a point to be made about people who were born in one place but lived mostly in another. Abraham Lincoln, for example, was born in Kentucky, but most people know of him living in Illinois and Illinois claims the title of the 'Lincoln State'.
I was born in Russia and moved to Canada with my family when I was 10. I always think that if I ever became famous, I would be claimed by both. And if I ever did anything infamous it would be the other way around. You saw this with the Virginia Tech shooter when the media universally described him as Korean even though he was an American citizen for 15 years and was only 8 when he moved.
@@mapofthesoultagme7143 Sure but in the case of a shooter ,claiming that they're Korean is disingenuous. It's explicitly leaving out the fact they're also American.
Fun video, J.J. I liked that, "only and idiot would put all of his eggs in one basket!" I guess however the carton came about, it was an important contribution to the transport of eggs. I suddenly pictured people dropping eggs all over the place, trips and falls, and whatever. Yuck. 😂
Thank you J.J. for giving credit where credit is due, the Lou is the birthplace of peanut butter. In fact, according to the Library of Congress “more new American foods were invented at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, than during any other single event in history. The list includes the hamburger, the hot dog, peanut butter, iced tea, the club sandwich, cotton candy, and the ice cream cone, to name just a few.” So yeah, we’re pretty proud of our culinary culture in StL 😏
I know there are disagreements but Canadians also invented the snowmobile , Robertson screw Candoo reactor , insulin ,daylight savings time , hybrid cannabis, donairs, canoe , maple syrup, Canada Space Arm and the telephone .Technically the canoe and maple syrup were indigenous inventions but they all were invented within Canadian borders.
If it was invented *in* Canada by someone with Canadian citizenship, it's a Canadian invention. If only one of those are true, it's a shared invention between nations. If neither are true, it's not a Canadian invention. - The inventor of logic
I can respect that logic. But often times inventors who move to countries like the United States were able to invent what they did was because of the opportunities they didn't have in their birth country. In a situation like that, can you honestly say it's a shared between countries?
@@tombstone5860 I wouldnt call it a "shared invention" if we use basketball for example a Canadian invented the sport in another country you can get away with saying . "A canadian invented" you can also get away with saying "invented in America" both are simultaniously true.
My aunt wrote the patent for instant mashed potatoes in Ottawa. She didn’t eat them, though. Somehow, the Canadian government, or at that time, the queen, got the royalties from it, because it was developed at the central experimental Farm. Also, I live in Almonte, birthplace of James Naismith. They claimed that he invented the game here. The town does a lot of marketing around this fact, and even has a statue of him downtown. My understanding is that the game existed before, but Naismith was the first one to publish the rules.
I always had the assumption it was more of a hometown thing. Like when they say "birthplace of basketball" they mean birthplace of the inventor, not the game.
Wasn't the inventor of Hawaiian Pizza also born in Greece? I remember it's this weird thing where Hawaiian Pizza was invented at an Canadian restaurant by a Greek man, who was mainly inspired by Chinese cuisine to combine pineapple and ham with pizza. Somehow, Hawaiian Pizza was culturally influenced by Italy, Canada, Greece, and China-- but not Hawaii. Great story.
I once heard someone say that the atomic bomb was invented by Israel. yes, many Jews helped invent the atomic bomb, and many of those Jews moved to Israel after Israel was created, but it is a bit difficult for a country to invent something before this country was created.
As a French-Belgian guy, I always notice when people (like Dave in the commercial) say "French fries". As many people here know, there's a bit of a debate as to whether fries are a French invention or a Belgian one. Long story short, French people came up with the idea, but Belgians are to be credited for making it mainstream. And to this day, there's definitely more pride for them in Belgium.
I learned that French fries are misnamed. Really, they are french fries. If you cut the potato the long way, that is a french cut. So originally, they were called french-cut fries. That soon got shortened to french fries. Nothing to do with France at all. So what do we call it when the potato is cut the short way? Belgian fries? Nah. Dutch fries? Yeah, that sounds good. Long fries are french, short fries are dutch.
i think a pretty simple metric by which to say if an invention can be claimed as canadian would be whether or not they held a canadian citizenship when they created their invention.
Egg carton goes to the original guy. The idea of separate compartments to protect the eggs is by far the most important concept. A better technology to make a simpler, cheaper carton is just a refinement.
As an Aussie, you always see Canadians claiming they invented plastic polymer money. The patent is held by Australia's CSIRO and we rolled out plastic money decades before Canada.
I wonder who says that Canadians invented those notes? Many Canadians saw them in Australia first. Same thing with Cancer warnings on cigarette labels lol.
Also worth pointing out that Hiram Walker (the guy than invented Canadian Club), was an American. He set up shop in Windsor (the other side of the river from Detroit), to get around those pesky Prohibition rules. So I suppose we can claim he's Canadian, but the whole thing gets silly.
I guess the commercial is a play on the never ending "Candian inferior complex" vs America on the most dominate American sports cultural canon of the Super Bowl... Great JJ Candian content!!
Interesting. I was always taught that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter, but even his Wikipedia page says he is "often mistakenly credited" with inventing it.
Canola has been quite a boon for Saskatchewan as you probably know. Driving from Regina to Swift Current, you cross a sea of yellow flowers in June and July.
11:17 we in Ukraine have a similar story about a football(soccer) game in Kyiv. It was, apparently, made by cutting out a part of a film strip and playing it again. I don’t remember the year though
As a US patent holder, a device that works for the specified function is the inventor, not the person who has the "idea". Ideas are a dime a dozen; working inventions are an altogether different subject.
The funny part is that one could argue that Crown Royal is a Moldovan whiskey brand because the guy who is credited with creating it was born in modern day Moldova.
That commercial made me so mad. Mentioning all the great things that Canadians gave us, and they didn’t think to mention Mike Darow, Monty Hall, to say nothing of Alex Trebek
A few of these also are attributed to American icons with somewhat dubious backstories. Like Ben Franklin and the battery. And George Washington Carver and peanut butter. And while no one claims Teddy Roosevelt invented football he did spearhead the committee that made the forward pass and the line of scrimmage a part of the game so that was the biggest step in making it a distinctive game from rugby.
There seems to be a lot of controversy lately whether the Wright Brothers really invented the airplane. Another case of many people working on the same problem at the same time. But I don't think there is much doubt they were the first to create truly controllable airplane that could sustain flight for a considerable time, and market that plane to the world.
The bigger frustration for me is North Carolina's attempt to appropriate them. While the first flight occurred there, the Wright brothers were Ohioans who wholly designed the plane in Ohio.
In Britain, we are often told that television was invented by John Logie-Baird. As Logie-Baird was Scottish then by extension we are told that Scotland invented the television. There’s two problems. Firstly, while Logie-Baird was born and raised in Scotland, he was living in Southern England when he developed television. Secondly, while he was certainly a pioneer and achieved some important firsts in television, the extent to which he can be said to to be the inventor of television is questionable. What he probably did do was give the first working demonstration of a television broadcast. However, he was building on existing technologies and secondly his mechanical television system was soon made obsolete by the superior cathode ray tube system. This story just goes to show, how rare it is that one country or person can be claimed to have invented something.
Naismith was born in Canada, and was exclusively Canadian until 1925 when he gained dual citizenship, he invented Basket ball in the 1890s while he was still exclusively Canadian. So it was a Canadian, who was living in the US, that he eventually became an American is irrelevant, so is the fact that he never moved back to Canada, many famous Canadian/American actors will tell you that they are still Canadian at heart and Lewis Frederick Urry also didn't become a US citizen until 1960, he invented the Alkaline battery in 1949
One invention I often see claimed as a uniquely Canadian invention that I thought you would mention is that of insulin (its even on the $100 bill). Even though Canadian scientists were the ones to patent insulin and achieve the final product, they were just the final scientists who built upon the research of other French, Romanian and other scientists.
My only guess as to why it wasn't mentioned in the commercial was that insulin is so expensive in the US that reminding diabetic Americans that their life-saving medicine which is out of reach was also made in Canada would be like pouring salt on a wound…more literally in this case.
Like most modern discoveries the people who get the nod with the Nobel Prize seem to get the credit like with Watson and Crick for DNA and Banting and McCleod for insulin.
Thanks for another great video, JJ! Poutine, as described and depicted, seems to be a lot like a version of the South German dish, Bauernschmaus [farmer's feast]. It is delicious and very filling, but I would refer to it as Death by Cholesterol. There are numerous recipes, but the usual one is potato dumpling, several kinds of sausage and a pork-chop smothered in pork gravy, definitely not Kosher!
I find it interesting that Canada is both willing to claim inventions made by non-Canadians in Canada as being “theirs”, but also inventions from Canadians who moved out and invented it somewhere else.
You should do another video on this topic with other countries. So many people claim things based on technicality such as the invention of the plane. You can probably count the guy accredited to inventing the parachute for this as well despite the fact he died jumping from the Eifel tower to test his invention. This was also the first ever recorded death in history on video camera and you can watch it on youtube.
Another Canadian non-invention is the zipper. I remember seeing that one on a poster as a kid in the early 80s. One Canadian invention that they missed that I’m pretty sure is accurate is pablum. Not particularly sexy, but hey, instant baby gruel was pretty important.
@@JJMcCullough swedish inventor, the classic large metal locking teeth design was him. However what with him inventing it in america after being hired by a company i guess that makes it an american invention though following your logic in the video.
@@JJMcCullough All I remember from that poster is that it was “invented” in St. Catherine’s, ON. According to your accursed Wikipedia, the zipper is the product of several other patents and improvements, eventually leading to a Swedish born American named Gideon Sundback. He improved upon what was out there and invented a machine that could make zippers. He eventually became the president of a zipper factory in St. Catherine’s, but never actually lived there and did none of his inventing there.
Here in Finland we have a very common myth that Finnish woman Maiju Gebhard invented dish drying cabinet. She only saw the idea abroad and made it very popular in Finland and some other countries. Most new Finnish homes still have dish drying cabinet by default even though less people need it because their dishwasher dries the dishes good enogh. There are many people who invented similar cabinet in early 1900's and the first patent for it was made by Angiolina Scheuermann in USA 1929.
Hes actually not that great of a guy he's good in terms of a celebrity but I'm from where Dave is from and we love to see Dave come back but he hates the place and won't really talk to fans no will he sign anything unless for like auction for like charities but a very closed off and not open individual
This got me feeling Red, White, and Maple, even if some of the claims are dubious. Like a little brother, we gotta take what we can get and roll with it!
I should've known that commercial was gonna trigger JJ. You need to take this to the next level and explain how Wayne Gretzky is actually an American now. It would make the heads of every Canadian gen Xer explode.
Myths are almost always present on any important invention. Edison did not invent the lightbulb. Bell did not invent the telephone. Ford did not invent the assembly line. More recently, Apple did not invent the windowing user interface and Tim Berners-Lee did not invent "the internet". All of these stories have an element of truth, but usually the story is much more complicated. Often, several compounding smaller innovations all contribute to one big idea and the person who comes up with the last iota of inspiration absurdly gets the credit for decades of progress. Also possible, as is the case in this video, many people all over the world have the same idea at roughly the same time.
You COULD claim that the moon is Canadian. The latest understanding is that the moon is at least partially ripped from Earth. Canada shared itself to create the moon. Canada also invented tides.
Speaking of poutine, in New Orleans in the 20s the first po boy was invented. It was French fries and roast beef debris (brown gravy with bits of roast) on French bread, an inexpensive meal for striking road workers. I grew up in New Orleans and the French fry poboy or potato sandwich has always been my favorite. I wonder if there's any relation to the invention of poutine. Last year I visited Canada and finally got to try poutine and I mean it's the most amazing food invention of all time 😂😂😍 cheese and fries and gravy!!!
Wow! That one never made it to Texas. We always thought of a po boy as fried oysters in a partially hollowed out roll. Of course, this was in the seventies when oysters were poor people food and we paved dirt roads with oyster shells. Also, I'm in a site that does not understand biscuits and gravy. I have tried to explain that the it's scones with béchamel sauce, but the béchamel is made with grease in the pan you fried the breakfast sausage in and has the sausage put back into the sauce. Finally some French people came in and defended the gravy by saying all southern cream gravies are related to French sauces. Of course, people in the northern US are mystified by cream gravy. I once made some spicy pounded and battered pork cutlets similar to CFS one time up in NYC and when I got to the cream gravy stage after the meat was done they thought I was working magic. They wanted me to do more magic, so the next week I made butterbeans with a pork bone, cornbread, and pepper vinegar. I had trouble finding pepper vinegar in NYC. Finally went to a soul food restaurant that made their own pepper vinegar from unripe tabascos shipped in from North Carolina. They sold me a jar of green tabasco for $2. Since I had the vinegar, and a lemon, I decided to make a mix of Swiss chard and mustard greens as a side dish. Again, these New Yorkers thought it was magic. I did not even get into the economics of the South I learned from my grandparents and explain that the majority of black people and plenty of white people did not eat that much meat even if they raised meat animals.
@@Bacopa68 New Yorker here, I agree that gravy really isn't common here. The South has more African and French influence on food and the North has more Italian and Slavic/ or Jewish influence. I want to try real Southern food, I've had good recreations but not the real thing. In my region though, (Western NY, North of NYC) we do have meat based sauces, specifically meat hot sauce. It's beef and tomato based with garlic, onion, oil and various spices. Usually we serve it over burgers or white hots (A type of sausage) w/ macaroni or potato salad. Because we're close to the Northern border, we have some Canadian influences and it's not uncommon to find Canadian money or flags here.
As a Jewish American I was always somewhat confused by how much we feel the need to claim other popular Americans as Jewish. I remember how distraught my Rabbi was growing up when I corrected him in saying that Baseball player Rod Carew was not in fact Jewish (a myth that got very large thanks to Adam Sandler) as if Rod Carew being Jewish was essential to his identity as a Jew. I think it largely comes from the same insecurity as Canadians, in needing to prove our relevance to American culture both to the culture at large and ourselves.
I was always suprised that neither version of Sandler's song mentioned great Canadian Geddy Lee. Even the name "Geddy" is derived from the way his Yiddish-speaking mother said "Gary" There's almost no way someone born in her primarily German speaking part of Poland could ever master both alveolar approximate "r" sounds found in North American dialects.
@@OGrandomunknownperson Ashkenazi Jews tend to have German(ic) or Slavic surnames because they have been in Europe for centuries and the names changed over time to reflect the culture and language they were in. These are the Jews most common in the West, so that's the stereotype. Sephardic Jews, on the other hand, are Middle Eastern and North African, and have names reminiscent of those parts of the world. They're less common in Western countries, though.
I totally get why he was bothered by it. Most people would be in that kind of situation. For one thing, believing a myth and finding out that it's wrong and you were duped can sting but beyond that, having representation is a thing that basically all groups gravitate towards in one form or another, particularly in the modern day in and particularly particularly in North America. It gives a sense of belonging and unification. The difference in your Rabbi's case is that groups of people that have been historically vilified or underrepresented like Jews (or people of colour, queer people, disabled people, you name it) don't just use it as a rallying point to demonstrate their value to themselves but also to larger society as a whole and how their people and their culture contributed to it. It's a statement of belonging.
@@OGrandomunknownperson there is a language (Yiddish) where phrases like Oy Vey that are written in Hebrew but made up of German words that was commonly spoken by Azekanazi Jews
When I first heard this ad when it aired I immediately had a reaction to the battery claim because I knew the battery (as in a chemical cell producing electricity) was invented my the Italian Alexander Volta (namesake of the Volt) long before Canada even existed. I think that many probably interpreted it the same way, and the fact that it was only alkaline batteries is an important bit of information
Great and informative vid as usual J.J. Yes, Walter Camp an American is credited as the father of American football. It is true that Harvard preferred the Canadian rules, notably the snap as opposed the the Scrum (?) and eleven men on the field. 🏈
Also seemingly overlooked in JJ's videos about football is the fact that we also have our own code of football here in Canada to this day (and even a professional league), and while it's nearly identical to the US game, we do have several rule differences - one more player on each team, 3 downs instead of 4, a longer and wider field, and several ways to get a single point are among the main differences - though the positions are largely the same and the ball dimensions are also similar. Having said this, I'm a fan of both the CFL (go Bombers!) and the NFL, so I don't really think I'm biased in this respect.
Thank you, Canada, for inventing calculus, fireworks, clocks, and the moon.
We didn't do the moon? :(
Canadians faked the moon landing. :/
What about the zipper?
Don't forget the lungs! We can barely breathe without those things. Where would we be without Canada?
one of if not the best moons out there
I saw this commercial and immediately thought "Thanks for giving JJ McCullough a week off on having to think up a topic". Right in your wheelhouse; did not disappoint. When you miraculously produced a "History of Peanut Butter" book, my jaw dropped.
I don't know how he does it
@@StevieQ Canadian.
It's Jimmy Carter's personal favorite
All he said is total crap. Don't be fooled by this "JJ". You can read my comment with the REAL facts
@@DiabloOutdoors😂
My favorite fact about Hawaiian Pizza is that it was invented by a Greek immigrant living in Canada who was inspired by Cantonese cuisine to put a South American fruit onto an Italian dish and named it after Hawaii.
What culture is Hawaiian pizza?
Yes.
Using canada's logic, pineapple pizza is actually a Greek invention.
@@tombstone5860 They entered Canadian borders at some point. Canadian (ever stop at Pearson airport on a flight? Canada owns you)
You'd be amazed how many Hawaiians don't know (or maybe just don't like to admit) that pineapples are in fact originally native to Central America (especially in what's now Honduras, Guatemala, and southeastern Mexico) and weren't grown in Hawaii until the British introduced them there.
@troodon1096 Hawaii is one of the largest exporter of pineapples though so I don't blame them for not knowing that.
What you mention about Canadians claiming everything someone born in Canada, but who left Canada early and was productive only abroad happens in Greece too. Every prominent greek scientist, who consciously left Greece explicitly to seek better research opportunities, sometimes even before their undergraduate degree, is claimed to be greek. Thing is, most of those people seem to accept their achievements as greek achievements, and usually are happy to give interviews in greek media talking about their success
It's easier to do that with Greece since they have their own language and culture which is entirely distinct from most of the places they emigrate to. Between Canada and America it's much harder to draw the line because the intermingling is omnipresent.
As a 4th generation Greek American, we have no problem attributing our successes to a global "Greek" identity. Indeed, we would do anything for the mother country... except live there.
I too have watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding
This is so comically true. Always telling a story and then “oh and by the way, you know he was Greek”
Naw our ancestors invented everything 😂
*man visits canada for 2 weeks*
Canada: everything you've ever done is canadian now
Real talk. I'm an American. I was born in America. I live in America. My ancestors are from Eastern Europe and the Middle East-- no British, French, or otherwise Western European ancestry. I lived in Canada for a couple of years when I was a teenager, before permanently returning to the USA. I am sure that if I ever do anything notable in my life, somehow it will be attributed to Canada. JJ is one of the most honest Canadian media personalities that I've seen
I'm Korean-American, the closest personal connection I have to Canada is that some of my Korean relatives live in Canada and in turn my Grandfather lived there during his final years. I'm sure if/when I do something important for the world, Canadians will claim me quicker than Koreans would.
theyre almost as bad as the greeks
@@michaele1654actually what we do rightfully claim is the rights to also be known as Americans.
Please remember your a U.S. Citizen as America goes from Chile to Canada.
Many in South America get rather touchy about this!
@@michaelreid8857 No need to correct me. Words can have multiple definitions. You're from the continent America, which makes you an American in one sense. I'm from the United States of America, which makes me an American in the other sense.
I mean it is confusing that the word "America" can be applied to both the country USA and the continent containing the USA, which is why I say "US Resident" in formal contexts. I figured that, since I was writing a RUclips Comment, people would understand what I meant.
And I've met enough Canadians to know that South Americans are not the only ones who get touchy about this.
Norwegians often claim that the paperclip was invented by Norwegian inventor Johan Vaaler. However, his design was faulty and never widely adopted, and the standard paperclip we all know and love (the Gem design) actually predates his invention by a few years. During WWII, a paperclip fastened to your shirt pocket became a discreet symbol of resistance to Occupation, which probably contributed to the myth.
Who occupied Norway in WWII?
@@DugrozReports Germany. Before becoming a part of the allied forces, Norway, as well as the rest of the Scandinavian peninsula was part of the axis powers
African-Americans also make similar false claims about traffic lights, peanut butter, and countless other inventions
Brazilians often claim that Brazil invented the aeroplane based on Alberto Santos Dumont’s first flight in 1906. It happened three years after the Wright Brothers’ flight. My compatriots arbitrarily disqualify the Wright Brothers’ claim based on the fact that their plane used a contraption to take off, even though their plane is much closer to modern planes and could fly for much longer than Dumont’s.
It should also be noted that the Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903 did not use a catapult to take off. They only started using one for certain flights in late 1904 because they moved to a new testing location where the conditions were less favorable. A catapult allowed them to takeoff in a shorter distance and in a wider range of weather conditions, but they were not dependent on it.
And they named my Cartier watch after him.
Such claims get even weirder when they repeat the line about a catapult not being a motor. 14-bis used a catapult that was charged by a rope pulled by a donkey, and the original Wright Flyer didn't use a catapult, but instead relied on high windspeeds. Later variations on the plane did use a catapult, but by 1905 they had bought a large enough motor that didnt need a catapult or a high windspeed. This plane was able to take off under it's own power in the exact style that you would expect any reasonable definition of an airplane to do. 14-bis did have an important innovation though, it added wheels, which the Wright Brothers didn't use, despite being experts in bicycles and had no doubt been familiar with the concept of wheels.
@@joemiller947 The reason the original Wright Flyer did have wheels was that Kitty Hawk, which is where they were doing their tests at the time, is on the beach and therefore covered in sand. Wheels would have gotten caught up in the sand, so they had it run along a rail.
Most I've learned in a RUclips comment thread in ever
Reminds me of that old ad that tried to portray Superman as being a Canadian creation. Joe Shuster was born in Toronto, immigrated to the US as a child, then over a decade later he and Jerry Siegel created Superman together.
A creation that also came from their experience as children of Jewish immigrants from europe. With superman being a stand in for immigrants
nothing helps start the day better than an award winning JJ video
Why does he say award winning?
@@ishanagarwal766 Because one of his videos _is_ actually award winning, so he says it about other videos as self effacing humor.
"Canada's patriotism-industrial complex" is now my favourite term.
At 11:37
I think your "Hotel California" comment about Canadian-born moving elsewhere but still being "counted as" Canadian cuts to the heart of my anxiety about "Given that I was born in Toronto, even though I've lived basically my whole life on Vancouver Island, am I *really* a Western Canadian and would that be counted against me should Canada dissolve?" Think there's a bit of "Caesar's census" wrapped up in that anxiety, too.
What is Caesar's census?
@@JJMcCullough Biblical thing. The romans were doing a census of their territory and required all men to return to the city of their birth for accounting - that's why Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem in the story of the Nativity.
@@kimarous Census of Quirinius. Quirinius wasn't a Caesar but was a governor of Judea. It doesn't actually match up when people think Jesus was born but records were scarce back then. Historians point out that requiring people go back to the hometowns of their ancestors for a census has no historical basis in fact and is also completely illogical (what's the point of counting people in a place who don't live there?). It's actually a pretty serious counterpoint to the accuracy of the new testament.
That said that is a good reference and shows that you have a lot of cultural literacy.
@@seanicus100 This is just false. Recent archeological findings have detailed a similar "return home" census in Egypt in AD 104. Plus, the Bible notes Quirinius as governor of Syria, not Judea. Judea was ruled by Herod the Great at the time. Both of these claims are archaeologically confirmed as well, by the way. We also have recently discovered some coinage that indicates that there were either 2 different "Quirinius"s that governed Syria in close succession or 1 Quirinius who governed it 2 separate times. Either way, there was a Quirinius governing Syria during Herod the Great's reign.
@@jake2011rt Quirinius was governor of Judea _after_ most of Judea was absorbed into the Empire proper (it was split between Herod's sons and sister after his death and then his son in Jerusalem abdicated; it's complicated). And the census was a real thing, but it happened many years after Jesus would have been born. And Jesus was in the Galilee, which was still technically an independent country not subject to said census.
I really appreciate your use of sound effects. Unlike other RUclipsrs you don't make them obnoxious and instead they make the video a bit more engaging.
I was literally thinking this watching the video. J.J.'s use of them accentuates the video and are used at just the right moments and aren't over stated.
Yes! Esp. the 8-bit sounds here and there.
Agreed
I like your take on how Canadians assert their identity. It's very accurate.
I would disagree, JJ often portrays us as a bunch of anti American snobs that cry for our own identity but most of our identity comes from spending 100+ years as a British dominion. People like JJ are just annoying because he forms this false narrative that we all hate America (we don’t) and that we’re only different from America because we hate them which is just bogus. We’re different from America because less than one human life ago we were literally Britain.
@@gavinrivington4918To be honest, as an American who has lived in Canada for the last 5 years, I disagree with you. I don’t think that Canadians all hate America or hate Americans, but I do think that you guys can tend to have a superiority complex. Whenever it comes up in conversation that I’m from the states, people very often respond with something along the lines of “well you must feel lucky to get to live in Canada now” and just this general sense of snobbery. And not just towards the US, I work with immigrants from all over the world, and we all kind of agree that Canadians can have a tend to really think highly of themselves and their country, almost to a somewhat delusional level. You guys kind of have this hyper patriotic mentality that seems pretty deeply engrained to the point that a lot of the times I think you don’t even realize it, but it honestly can come off as a little bit snobby and obnoxious.
And don’t get me wrong, Americans definitely can be the same way especially in certain parts. However, I do feel like there’s a bit more of a stigma towards that kind of attitude in the states, and people tend to question America’s supposed greatness more than Canadians do. That’s just my two cents, having lived in Canada and interacting with Canadians as well as other immigrants on a daily basis!
@@Dreadlock1227 I’m sorry to hear that, if you don’t mind me asking what part of Canada do you live in? I’m in the maritimes and that’s not very common here we very much identify and accept the influence of American culture in us and don’t tend to think of ourselves as better than anyone but then again maybe I’m just not seeing it, I’m only wondering because if you’re living in the west coast or close to like Alberta and Ontario is also an exception, I know that attitude is a lot lore common in those regions because we ourselves talk about the snobbery “people out west” at times.
It seems that Canadian and American cultures are so similar and so synchronized that it’s difficult to even determine whether an invention is from the US or Canada.
as in Canada is more of a subset of American culture. Frankly if you included Canada in the wider American culture, Southern culture would probably be more different from the general American culture than Canadian culture would be
@@AW-zk5qb I totally agree.
Well we all do live in the America's. I think it's funny when I hear ppl saying American instead of united states. Canada and the US are both in the America's lol. Just sayin.
@@rockobeam2706 I try to say US-American when I’m online but it’s a hard habit to break.
In my view, the Spanish language has it right: there’s norteamericanos, canadienses, and estadounidenses.
It's fun. I live in Denmark, and we kind of do the same thing, that is, claiming certain celebrities are Danish, even if they got American citizenship and their ties to Denmark are pretty questionable.
Though, in this case, I think it's mostly 'cause we're a very small country, so any one from Denmark having a broad global cultural appeal is pretty rare. So we'll pretty much take what we can get and cling on to people who it really doesn't make sense to refer to as "Danish".
Sandi Toksvig
Danish-British writer
at least you danes have trolls and lego lmao
@John Irving, the funny thing about Sandy, is that she's almost completely unknown here in Denmark.
But she makes it like her thing to be Danish.
I know her because I watch QI, but that show haven't been shown on Danish TV.
@@Aoderic Just like Katherine Ryan
@@01habesha you mean she's virtually unknown in Canada?
I would guess so.
I swear I was taught in school (in the American South) that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter, so your PB section was insightful in both ways. Reading through some of the comments, I think I'm not the only one that though this.
Serves as a great personal example of what you said; when the thing is generic enough, invented independently multiple times, and has a distinction between the invention and the popular use of a thing, it gives whomever is making the list a lot of leeway to put their thumb on the scale to fit their narrative.
Me too, I was surprised when the peanut butter section didn't include any mention of him! Adam Ragusea has a good video about him.
@@anne1596 I was surprised JJ didn’t mention Carver too, it also caught me by surprised when he moved on with no mention of the Incan peanut paste.
I don’t think this section was done well
I also grew up in the south and we learned (correctly) that carver invented almost every other peanut thing but not peanut butter
Geroge Washington Carver worked for University of Iowa at the time he made an almost peanut butter like substance of a thick peanut oil, but it was not peanut butter.
Labrador retriever dogs are dubiously treated as a "Canadian" dog breed. Their forerunners were fishing dogs that worked with fishermen on the Labrador sea off the coast of Newfoundland but the modern Labrador breed was first bred in the UK to be a hunting/retrieving dog.
As an Italian American I am ready to break off diplomatic relations thanks to you inventing “Hawaiian Pizza”.
Blame Greece! The guy who invented it was of Greek ancestry.
best to break off your relations to italy, then. they put all kinds of shit on pizza over there!
@@aheat3036 As far as I know, American Cheese was invented by a Canadian (James Kraft) in his home province of Ontario. He would end up taking this invention to the USA where it was popularized, but the inventing happened by a Canadian in Canada.
Canadian Tropicalesque Pizza
You're just jealous because Canada figured out that pineapple on pizza is delicious first.
I'm honestly surprised a country like Canada cant find better than "paint rollers" and "egg cartons" to fill a top 20 list. Like theres a lot of people in Canada and its not a poor country there just has to be at least 20 relevant inventions no?
You’d think so and yet here we are
Insulin comes to mind right away.
I'm sure there are more than the 20 items picked by an advertisement firm. I would imagine they were looking for a specific quirky/fun theme for the add
@@JJMcCullough tbf that could be worth a video no? If you were to pick your own symbols of canadian pride what would your list look like?
Sure. They invented asbestos. I wonder why that wasn't on the list.
@@aheat3036 I think Japan’s list alone shows that’s debatable, let alone other countries like China, India, Egypt etc
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_inventions_and_discoveries
My favorite use of the "Hotel California Effect" is to say that Ayn Rand's work were a product of the Soviet Union.
In a philosophical sense it is, since Objectivism is basically just a spiteful inversion of Soviet-style Communism, presented in a literary format inspired by hackneyed socialist polemics from the 1930s.
Hello JJ! I had an idea for what could be a very interesting video: all the (sometimes odd) props and traditions we have for american birthday parties, like the balloons, the pointy hats, the cake and candles, the noisemakers, etc.
When I was working in a local telephone installation company, we had a Canadian working there. In informal conversation, he would interject "He's Canadian or She's Canadian" whenever someone from Canada was mentioned, often in passing. When asked, he said that it was built into them to say that, like it was a biological imperative. I no longer recall that many but I definitely found that many of the celebrities were Canadian.
As if being Canadian was their entire personally and was the explanation for everything they ever did lol.
@@HOTD108_ Instead I would say that it was in response to being immersed in a different environment where contributions of their country aren't recognized.
@@HOTD108_ except it doesn't imply that at all, does it?
It is a biological imperative. Absolutely
btw, did you know that JJ is Canadian?
The one that always bugs me is Superman, because one of his two co-creators was born in Toronto but move to the US when he was 10
Yes! He is as Canadian as Donald Hings is British.
It was probably that Heritage Minutes short film that perpetuated Superman being a Canadian creation. It portrays it as if Joe Shuster did everything, completely ignoring Jerry Siegel's involvement. And that he had spent most of his life as a US citizen by then.
Oh man, thanks for covering this, I'm so tired of all the "Canada invented everything" propaganda I've been force-fed since childhood. My favorite was that Canada invented synthesizers because one guy invented a few instruments that weren't the first of their kind, didn't have an impact on music, and aren't remembered by anyone else as "firsts."
So many of inventors of the synth! You could probably claim Alexander Bell (a Canadian) invented it! And what about electronic instruments without keyboards like the Theremin? And what about Louis and Bebe Barron setting breadboards and tubes on fire to make the Forbidden Planet soundtrack.
@@Bacopa68 The Theremin was created by a Russian (later Soviet) inventor called Leon Theremin (the French version of Lev Sergeyevich Termen, as he was of partly French descent). Incidentally, he is also credited for having create a listening device dubbed "The Thing", a microphone placed inside a wooden plaque of the American Great Seal, which was to be placed in the main office of the US Embassy in Moscow.
We created superman
@@Bacopa68 Bell was Scottish, not Canadian. At least if they want to keep their logic consistent.
care to point out who this "one guy" is? and these instruments were? it's not dr. Moog, certainly ...
I am surprised the telephone wasn't mentioned. Even though A.G. Bell was Scottish, he moved to Canada, then became a U.S. Citizen. Most of the inventing and research was conducted in the U.S. and Canada. I guess he is buried in Nova Scotia, though.
I'm surprised Insulin wasn't mentioned, one of the stronger Canadian inventions.
They picked things that are not as common or important because it's meant to be a funny attention-grabbing ad, not a history lesson.
@@StevieQ Some are. Football, basketball, and garbage bags don't really fit that aesthetic.
Germany also claims the invention of the telephone because of Philipp Reis.
@@wesleybush8646 Invented in Brantford Ontario, patented in New York.
I think my favorite dubious Canadian invention I learned when I was a kid was the concept of standard time and time zones by Sandford Fleming. Not sure why, but I found amusing the idea that before that happened, every place had its own time.
The Heritage Minute can't be wrong. :)
Didn't major population centres use the sun to set the time before portable clocks were prevalent? That would give many different times locally.
I mean. That's what people did. Each major town used its solar noon as the definition of its time. Flemming wasn't the first to come up with the idea, and it seems like he was the first to actually manage to get it instiuted. Also, it's silly to call him a "Canadian inventor". He was scottish, and so it'd be best to call it a Scottish-Canadian invention if you were to call it an invention.
Not dubious. Fact.
it was because of the railroads and crashes. they needed a standardized time system for safety.
hey did you know canada invented xylophones, the typewriter, computers, the wheel, coffee, the spear, language, society, pensacola florida, the concept of time, and the universe? seriously, look it up
In Russia, we have a lot of those. The most famous example is the helicopter, which we often list as one of the greatest 'Russian' inventions. It was invented by Igor Sikorsky, a Russian-born dude living in the US.
I thought an Italian painter come up with the idea of a helicopter but he didn't have a motor he only drew it.
Surprised that George Washington Carver wasn't mentioned in the peanut butter segment. In the US he is always mentioned during black history month crediting him for inventing peanut butter
He did not
No peanut butter but a lot of stuff using peanuts. My favorite was a plastic like material made from shells used in some molded goods. Never caught on.
@myselfremade Yeah, this urge that canadians feel to claim inventions for themselves extend to all people groups, including african americans. I'm more sympathetic to african americans here...always the underdogs, meanwhile Canadians just have this culture of resentment and jealousy of the US.
That said it's an understandable mistake to make anyways since he came up with a lot of food products involving peanuts. The first food product that people think of involving peanuts is...peanut butter.
There's an American Dad episode about exactly this topic involving George Washington Carver, Abraham Lincoln, the "Illuminutty", and Peanut Butter AKA "Negro Love Spread". (Or something like that I haven't seen it in a while)
Peanut butter as a name was pretty much the only thing modern society can reliably lay claim to. Humans have been making peanut pasty substances for quite a while and most probably not long after first consumption of peanuts. _Those people_ weren't particularly good at keeping records, however.
The opposite comes to mind, the M1 Garand rifle, invented by John Garand, is so iconic and closely associated with U.S service in WW2 that most would assume its inventor was American, but people have been mispronouncing that Canadian guys' name ever since.
Including peanut butter was to risk stumbling into a minefield. In the US it is commonly (thought incorrectly) believed that peanut butter was invented by George Washington Carver who is often a prominent figure in Black History Month (aka February.)
Carver did a lot to popularize peanuts, but his real interest (as a botanist) was in using the peanut as a nitrogen-fixing part of crop rotation agriculture. One of the great scientists of American history, but saying he invented peanut butter is a lot easier than discussing his actual important work.
Edit: Also not sure why anyone would want to claim credit for instant potatoes. Or leave Rick Moranis out of the 'heroes of comedy' line-up.
9:57 Growing up in Iowa, I always thought George Washington Carver invented peanut butter.
It's awesome how much effort and research JJ puts into these videos...love that he referenced a book about the history of PB
There's a point to be made about people who were born in one place but lived mostly in another. Abraham Lincoln, for example, was born in Kentucky, but most people know of him living in Illinois and Illinois claims the title of the 'Lincoln State'.
Your food history and food culture related stuff is often my favorite. Great video. Thanks JJ!
"Truth is more important than stroking the patriotic ego." -J.J. good quote.
I was born in Russia and moved to Canada with my family when I was 10. I always think that if I ever became famous, I would be claimed by both. And if I ever did anything infamous it would be the other way around. You saw this with the Virginia Tech shooter when the media universally described him as Korean even though he was an American citizen for 15 years and was only 8 when he moved.
is he Korean by ethnicity? I am ethnically Chinese and have canadian citizenship. Therefore I am both
@@mapofthesoultagme7143 Sure but in the case of a shooter ,claiming that they're Korean is disingenuous. It's explicitly leaving out the fact they're also American.
@@billygoatgruff3536 he was a US Citizen, most of the inventor mentioned in the video were still Canadian citizens when they made their inventions
An important day for Canada, and therefore the world. 🇨🇦
A general video on American/Canadian inventions would be fun.
I feel that you make this seem like some distinctly Canadian trait, when it's actually just pretty standard throughout the western world
Fun video, J.J. I liked that, "only and idiot would put all of his eggs in one basket!" I guess however the carton came about, it was an important contribution to the transport of eggs. I suddenly pictured people dropping eggs all over the place, trips and falls, and whatever. Yuck. 😂
I swear if a janitor from canada worked for nasa in 1969, canada would claim they were the sole reason the US got to the moon.
Actually there were several ex-Avro engineers from Canada who assisted this program while working for NASA.
I love you JJ. You are one of my favorite youtubers
Thank you J.J. for giving credit where credit is due, the Lou is the birthplace of peanut butter.
In fact, according to the Library of Congress “more new American foods were invented at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, than during any other single event in history. The list includes the hamburger, the hot dog, peanut butter, iced tea, the club sandwich, cotton candy, and the ice cream cone, to name just a few.”
So yeah, we’re pretty proud of our culinary culture in StL 😏
My dad was from St. Louis. I think he pronounced the name of the state "Mizurrah", though.
@@IronCurtaiNYC Some people ironically say "misery" here. lol
Well but the Sandwich is British and the Hamburger as well as the Hot Dog are German…
@@Tobi-ln9xr Well, the Hillel predates the Sandwich and originated in the Middle East…
"the Lou is the birthplace of peanut butter" - (someone want to tell St. Louis of all the double entendres in that phrase?)🤣🤣🤣🤣
I know there are disagreements but Canadians also invented the snowmobile , Robertson screw Candoo reactor , insulin ,daylight savings time , hybrid cannabis, donairs, canoe , maple syrup, Canada Space Arm and the telephone .Technically the canoe and maple syrup were indigenous inventions but they all were invented within Canadian borders.
If it was invented *in* Canada by someone with Canadian citizenship, it's a Canadian invention. If only one of those are true, it's a shared invention between nations. If neither are true, it's not a Canadian invention.
- The inventor of logic
I can respect that logic. But often times inventors who move to countries like the United States were able to invent what they did was because of the opportunities they didn't have in their birth country. In a situation like that, can you honestly say it's a shared between countries?
@@tombstone5860I would say yes, as the original country that person is from provided the mind, and the other country provided the resources
@@tombstone5860 I wouldnt call it a "shared invention" if we use basketball for example a Canadian invented the sport in another country you can get away with saying . "A canadian invented" you can also get away with saying "invented in America" both are simultaniously true.
My aunt wrote the patent for instant mashed potatoes in Ottawa. She didn’t eat them, though. Somehow, the Canadian government, or at that time, the queen, got the royalties from it, because it was developed at the central experimental Farm.
Also, I live in Almonte, birthplace of James Naismith. They claimed that he invented the game here. The town does a lot of marketing around this fact, and even has a statue of him downtown.
My understanding is that the game existed before, but Naismith was the first one to publish the rules.
I always had the assumption it was more of a hometown thing. Like when they say "birthplace of basketball" they mean birthplace of the inventor, not the game.
Wasn't the inventor of Hawaiian Pizza also born in Greece? I remember it's this weird thing where Hawaiian Pizza was invented at an Canadian restaurant by a Greek man, who was mainly inspired by Chinese cuisine to combine pineapple and ham with pizza. Somehow, Hawaiian Pizza was culturally influenced by Italy, Canada, Greece, and China-- but not Hawaii. Great story.
Even more ironic is that pineapples are not even originally native to Hawaii.
Canada is a country built upon immigration. A lot of our citizens weren't born here
I once heard someone say that the atomic bomb was invented by Israel.
yes, many Jews helped invent the atomic bomb, and many of those Jews moved to Israel after Israel was created, but it is a bit difficult for a country to invent something before this country was created.
As a French-Belgian guy, I always notice when people (like Dave in the commercial) say "French fries". As many people here know, there's a bit of a debate as to whether fries are a French invention or a Belgian one. Long story short, French people came up with the idea, but Belgians are to be credited for making it mainstream. And to this day, there's definitely more pride for them in Belgium.
I learned that French fries are misnamed. Really, they are french fries. If you cut the potato the long way, that is a french cut. So originally, they were called french-cut fries. That soon got shortened to french fries. Nothing to do with France at all.
So what do we call it when the potato is cut the short way? Belgian fries? Nah. Dutch fries? Yeah, that sounds good. Long fries are french, short fries are dutch.
As soon as I saw this commercial I knew it would make for a good JJ video.
i think a pretty simple metric by which to say if an invention can be claimed as canadian would be whether or not they held a canadian citizenship when they created their invention.
Egg carton goes to the original guy. The idea of separate compartments to protect the eggs is by far the most important concept. A better technology to make a simpler, cheaper carton is just a refinement.
John Kellogg was the first to patent "nut butter" or peanut butter in 1895. Peanut butter has been produced in both China and Egypt for centuries.
As an Aussie, you always see Canadians claiming they invented plastic polymer money. The patent is held by Australia's CSIRO and we rolled out plastic money decades before Canada.
Nobody claims Canada invented polymer bank notes. It was widely recognized that the idea was adopted from Oz.
I wonder who says that Canadians invented those notes? Many Canadians saw them in Australia first. Same thing with Cancer warnings on cigarette labels lol.
Im Canadian and literally no one claims that
Also worth pointing out that Hiram Walker (the guy than invented Canadian Club), was an American. He set up shop in Windsor (the other side of the river from Detroit), to get around those pesky Prohibition rules. So I suppose we can claim he's Canadian, but the whole thing gets silly.
Wanted to comment and tell you how much I enjoy watching all your quality and award winning vids. Keep it up!
Emphasis on award-winning! :D
I guess the commercial is a play on the never ending "Candian inferior complex" vs America on the most dominate American sports cultural canon of the Super Bowl... Great JJ Candian content!!
*dominant
Interesting. I was always taught that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter, but even his Wikipedia page says he is "often mistakenly credited" with inventing it.
Canola has been quite a boon for Saskatchewan as you probably know. Driving from Regina to Swift Current, you cross a sea of yellow flowers in June and July.
11:17 we in Ukraine have a similar story about a football(soccer) game in Kyiv. It was, apparently, made by cutting out a part of a film strip and playing it again. I don’t remember the year though
As a US patent holder, a device that works for the specified function is the inventor, not the person who has the "idea". Ideas are a dime a dozen; working inventions are an altogether different subject.
The funny part is that one could argue that Crown Royal is a Moldovan whiskey brand because the guy who is credited with creating it was born in modern day Moldova.
That commercial made me so mad. Mentioning all the great things that Canadians gave us, and they didn’t think to mention Mike Darow, Monty Hall, to say nothing of Alex Trebek
Oddly, they didn't mention Justin Bieber, either...
A few of these also are attributed to American icons with somewhat dubious backstories. Like Ben Franklin and the battery. And George Washington Carver and peanut butter. And while no one claims Teddy Roosevelt invented football he did spearhead the committee that made the forward pass and the line of scrimmage a part of the game so that was the biggest step in making it a distinctive game from rugby.
Bro literally watched them Super Bowl ads and went “SOURCE?”
There seems to be a lot of controversy lately whether the Wright Brothers really invented the airplane. Another case of many people working on the same problem at the same time. But I don't think there is much doubt they were the first to create truly controllable airplane that could sustain flight for a considerable time, and market that plane to the world.
The bigger frustration for me is North Carolina's attempt to appropriate them. While the first flight occurred there, the Wright brothers were Ohioans who wholly designed the plane in Ohio.
@@jake2011rt True. They went to Kitty Hawk for the wind. After 1903, the Wrights never returned to Kitty Hawk.
@@jake2011rt At the end of the day its still America though.
In Britain, we are often told that television was invented by John Logie-Baird. As Logie-Baird was Scottish then by extension we are told that Scotland invented the television.
There’s two problems.
Firstly, while Logie-Baird was born and raised in Scotland, he was living in Southern England when he developed television. Secondly, while he was certainly a pioneer and achieved some important firsts in television, the extent to which he can be said to to be the inventor of television is questionable. What he probably did do was give the first working demonstration of a television broadcast. However, he was building on existing technologies and secondly his mechanical television system was soon made obsolete by the superior cathode ray tube system.
This story just goes to show, how rare it is that one country or person can be claimed to have invented something.
Ironically, insulin wasn't mentioned.
Canola actually stands for Canada + OLA (Oil, Low Acid), not just Canadian Oil. At least according to Wikipedia
Is it common too see Canadians wear NFL merch, like people in Vancouver wearing Seattle Seahawks t-shirts and hats?
Yes
Naismith was born in Canada, and was exclusively Canadian until 1925 when he gained dual citizenship, he invented Basket ball in the 1890s while he was still exclusively Canadian. So it was a Canadian, who was living in the US, that he eventually became an American is irrelevant, so is the fact that he never moved back to Canada, many famous Canadian/American actors will tell you that they are still Canadian at heart and Lewis Frederick Urry also didn't become a US citizen until 1960, he invented the Alkaline battery in 1949
A Canadian moving to the US and inventing something there *is* relevant actually...
One invention I often see claimed as a uniquely Canadian invention that I thought you would mention is that of insulin (its even on the $100 bill). Even though Canadian scientists were the ones to patent insulin and achieve the final product, they were just the final scientists who built upon the research of other French, Romanian and other scientists.
My only guess as to why it wasn't mentioned in the commercial was that insulin is so expensive in the US that reminding diabetic Americans that their life-saving medicine which is out of reach was also made in Canada would be like pouring salt on a wound…more literally in this case.
Australia actually claims it too. But like you said, it was a team of different people researching it that contributed to the final product.
Like most modern discoveries the people who get the nod with the Nobel Prize seem to get the credit like with Watson and Crick for DNA and Banting and McCleod for insulin.
@@ifeeltiredsleepy Like Bell and the telephone and pretty much all inventions.
Great Vid.J.J But you forgot the snowblower and the snowmobile invented in Canada
Thanks for another great video, JJ! Poutine, as described and depicted, seems to be a lot like a version of the South German dish, Bauernschmaus [farmer's feast]. It is delicious and very filling, but I would refer to it as Death by Cholesterol. There are numerous recipes, but the usual one is potato dumpling, several kinds of sausage and a pork-chop smothered in pork gravy, definitely not Kosher!
I find it interesting that Canada is both willing to claim inventions made by non-Canadians in Canada as being “theirs”, but also inventions from Canadians who moved out and invented it somewhere else.
You should do another video on this topic with other countries. So many people claim things based on technicality such as the invention of the plane. You can probably count the guy accredited to inventing the parachute for this as well despite the fact he died jumping from the Eifel tower to test his invention. This was also the first ever recorded death in history on video camera and you can watch it on youtube.
Film, not video.
This ad wasn't produced to pander to Canadians. It wasn't even broadcast in Canada during the Super Bowl.
Another Canadian non-invention is the zipper. I remember seeing that one on a poster as a kid in the early 80s.
One Canadian invention that they missed that I’m pretty sure is accurate is pablum. Not particularly sexy, but hey, instant baby gruel was pretty important.
What is the history of the zipper?
@@JJMcCullough swedish inventor, the classic large metal locking teeth design was him. However what with him inventing it in america after being hired by a company i guess that makes it an american invention though following your logic in the video.
@@JJMcCullough All I remember from that poster is that it was “invented” in St. Catherine’s, ON.
According to your accursed Wikipedia, the zipper is the product of several other patents and improvements, eventually leading to a Swedish born American named Gideon Sundback. He improved upon what was out there and invented a machine that could make zippers. He eventually became the president of a zipper factory in St. Catherine’s, but never actually lived there and did none of his inventing there.
I am so glad I discovered this channel. So enjoyable
Here in Finland we have a very common myth that Finnish woman Maiju Gebhard invented dish drying cabinet. She only saw the idea abroad and made it very popular in Finland and some other countries. Most new Finnish homes still have dish drying cabinet by default even though less people need it because their dishwasher dries the dishes good enogh. There are many people who invented similar cabinet in early 1900's and the first patent for it was made by Angiolina Scheuermann in USA 1929.
In Georgia, we were always told that peanut butter was invented by George Washington Carver
At first I was like, oh hey, David Grohl is an invention? No wonder he's impossible to dislike, he's a better version of a human made in a lab.
And besides , he's American.
Hes actually not that great of a guy he's good in terms of a celebrity but I'm from where Dave is from and we love to see Dave come back but he hates the place and won't really talk to fans no will he sign anything unless for like auction for like charities but a very closed off and not open individual
When I saw this ad, I literally said, "I can't wait for JJ's take on this video "
This got me feeling Red, White, and Maple, even if some of the claims are dubious. Like a little brother, we gotta take what we can get and roll with it!
I find it a bit odd that the commercial lists all the popular members of SCTV except for its most famous one - John Candy.
I should've known that commercial was gonna trigger JJ. You need to take this to the next level and explain how Wayne Gretzky is actually an American now. It would make the heads of every Canadian gen Xer explode.
😂 Canadians are so sweet but they really do have an inferiority complex
Myths are almost always present on any important invention. Edison did not invent the lightbulb. Bell did not invent the telephone. Ford did not invent the assembly line. More recently, Apple did not invent the windowing user interface and Tim Berners-Lee did not invent "the internet". All of these stories have an element of truth, but usually the story is much more complicated. Often, several compounding smaller innovations all contribute to one big idea and the person who comes up with the last iota of inspiration absurdly gets the credit for decades of progress. Also possible, as is the case in this video, many people all over the world have the same idea at roughly the same time.
You COULD claim that the moon is Canadian. The latest understanding is that the moon is at least partially ripped from Earth. Canada shared itself to create the moon. Canada also invented tides.
7:35 Also, The Roman Emporer Elagabalus had a precursor to the whoopee cushion
Speaking of poutine, in New Orleans in the 20s the first po boy was invented. It was French fries and roast beef debris (brown gravy with bits of roast) on French bread, an inexpensive meal for striking road workers. I grew up in New Orleans and the French fry poboy or potato sandwich has always been my favorite. I wonder if there's any relation to the invention of poutine. Last year I visited Canada and finally got to try poutine and I mean it's the most amazing food invention of all time 😂😂😍 cheese and fries and gravy!!!
Wow! That one never made it to Texas. We always thought of a po boy as fried oysters in a partially hollowed out roll. Of course, this was in the seventies when oysters were poor people food and we paved dirt roads with oyster shells.
Also, I'm in a site that does not understand biscuits and gravy. I have tried to explain that the it's scones with béchamel sauce, but the béchamel is made with grease in the pan you fried the breakfast sausage in and has the sausage put back into the sauce. Finally some French people came in and defended the gravy by saying all southern cream gravies are related to French sauces.
Of course, people in the northern US are mystified by cream gravy. I once made some spicy pounded and battered pork cutlets similar to CFS one time up in NYC and when I got to the cream gravy stage after the meat was done they thought I was working magic. They wanted me to do more magic, so the next week I made butterbeans with a pork bone, cornbread, and pepper vinegar. I had trouble finding pepper vinegar in NYC. Finally went to a soul food restaurant that made their own pepper vinegar from unripe tabascos shipped in from North Carolina. They sold me a jar of green tabasco for $2. Since I had the vinegar, and a lemon, I decided to make a mix of Swiss chard and mustard greens as a side dish. Again, these New Yorkers thought it was magic.
I did not even get into the economics of the South I learned from my grandparents and explain that the majority of black people and plenty of white people did not eat that much meat even if they raised meat animals.
They're probably not related. They neither share a language, border or frequently traded/visited the other. It does sound delicious though.
@@Bacopa68 New Yorker here, I agree that gravy really isn't common here. The South has more African and French influence on food and the North has more Italian and Slavic/ or Jewish influence. I want to try real Southern food, I've had good recreations but not the real thing.
In my region though, (Western NY, North of NYC) we do have meat based sauces, specifically meat hot sauce. It's beef and tomato based with garlic, onion, oil and various spices. Usually we serve it over burgers or white hots (A type of sausage) w/ macaroni or potato salad.
Because we're close to the Northern border, we have some Canadian influences and it's not uncommon to find Canadian money or flags here.
That 'hotel california' analogy is so good you could patent it J.J
As a Jewish American I was always somewhat confused by how much we feel the need to claim other popular Americans as Jewish. I remember how distraught my Rabbi was growing up when I corrected him in saying that Baseball player Rod Carew was not in fact Jewish (a myth that got very large thanks to Adam Sandler) as if Rod Carew being Jewish was essential to his identity as a Jew. I think it largely comes from the same insecurity as Canadians, in needing to prove our relevance to American culture both to the culture at large and ourselves.
Y do jews have german surnames don't jews come from Palestine originally?
I was always suprised that neither version of Sandler's song mentioned great Canadian Geddy Lee. Even the name "Geddy" is derived from the way his Yiddish-speaking mother said "Gary" There's almost no way someone born in her primarily German speaking part of Poland could ever master both alveolar approximate "r" sounds found in North American dialects.
@@OGrandomunknownperson Ashkenazi Jews tend to have German(ic) or Slavic surnames because they have been in Europe for centuries and the names changed over time to reflect the culture and language they were in. These are the Jews most common in the West, so that's the stereotype. Sephardic Jews, on the other hand, are Middle Eastern and North African, and have names reminiscent of those parts of the world. They're less common in Western countries, though.
I totally get why he was bothered by it. Most people would be in that kind of situation.
For one thing, believing a myth and finding out that it's wrong and you were duped can sting but beyond that, having representation is a thing that basically all groups gravitate towards in one form or another, particularly in the modern day in and particularly particularly in North America. It gives a sense of belonging and unification. The difference in your Rabbi's case is that groups of people that have been historically vilified or underrepresented like Jews (or people of colour, queer people, disabled people, you name it) don't just use it as a rallying point to demonstrate their value to themselves but also to larger society as a whole and how their people and their culture contributed to it. It's a statement of belonging.
@@OGrandomunknownperson there is a language (Yiddish) where phrases like Oy Vey that are written in Hebrew but made up of German words that was commonly spoken by Azekanazi Jews
When I first heard this ad when it aired I immediately had a reaction to the battery claim because I knew the battery (as in a chemical cell producing electricity) was invented my the Italian Alexander Volta (namesake of the Volt) long before Canada even existed. I think that many probably interpreted it the same way, and the fact that it was only alkaline batteries is an important bit of information
Thank you Canada for inventing J.J. McCullough!
I think being the first to make a replay on a live broadcast using a clever technique counts as inventing it, I’ll give ya that one Canada
I'm from Springfield and the notion of "Canada inventing basketball" is something I always point out
James Naismith, a Canadian citizen, working in the US invented Basketball in the 1890s, he didn't become a US citizen untill 1925...
The Hotel California thing made me laugh out loud. Fantastic content as always, J.J.
Great and informative vid as usual J.J. Yes, Walter Camp an American is credited as the father of American football. It is true that Harvard preferred the Canadian rules, notably the snap as opposed the the Scrum (?) and eleven men on the field. 🏈
Also seemingly overlooked in JJ's videos about football is the fact that we also have our own code of football here in Canada to this day (and even a professional league), and while it's nearly identical to the US game, we do have several rule differences - one more player on each team, 3 downs instead of 4, a longer and wider field, and several ways to get a single point are among the main differences - though the positions are largely the same and the ball dimensions are also similar. Having said this, I'm a fan of both the CFL (go Bombers!) and the NFL, so I don't really think I'm biased in this respect.
I can't help but notice the most notable Canadian-born celebrities became famous AFTER leaving Canada.