Ontario Firsts

1874	Alexander Graham Bell begins work on the telephone in Brantford.
1908	Peter Lymburner Robertson establishes a factory in Milton to manufacture his invention -- the Robertson square-slot screw and screwdriver.
1909	Thomas Ryan of Toronto invents five-pin bowling.
1930	Doctors at The Hospital for Sick Children invent the pre-cooked cereal Pablum.
1932	Torontonian Donald Munro invents table-top hockey.
1940	Norman Breakey of Toronto invents the paint roller.
1950s	Canadian aerospace scientists design and test the Avro Arrow, the world's fastest and most advanced supersonic jet fighter of its time.
1975	Canadarm, the robot mechanical arm made for the U.S. space shuttle, is designed and made in Ontario. NASA uses it for the first time in 1981.
1984	Mike Lazaridis founds Research In Motion, which invents new wireless technologies such as an e-mail pager called a BlackBerry. RIM becomes an all-star company selling to people around the world.
1989	Scientist Lap-Chee Tsui finds the gene that causes cystic fibrosis, a fatal disease, at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.