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The Canadian Provinces and its Territories

In 1867 Canada became a self-governing dominion. The country is made up of seven provinces and three territories, the difference being that the provinces receive their power from the Monarchy, and the territories from the federal government. The territories are marked with an asterisk.

The World’s Highest Mountains

All the mountains in the world that top 26,244 feet (8,000 m) are in the Himalayas, which is frankly a bit boring for a book like this, but what can you do?

There are another 20 that are above 22,966 feet (7,000 m), all still in Asia; then we shift to South America for Aconagua in Argentina, which is 22,835 feet (6,960 m).

And 19 more above 20,341 feet (6,200 m), all in the Andes, before it is worth even glancing elsewhere.

Here is a list of the top three from the other continents:

The World’s Largest Bodies of Water

The four principal oceans of the world with areas in square miles (sq km) are:

OCEANS

The deepest point in the world is the Mariana Trench (in the Pacific, east of the Philippines), at 36,161 feet (11,022 m).

The World’s Longest Rivers

The world’s longest rivers are more fairly divided than its mountains, so here are the 17 that are longer than 2,175 miles (3,500 km), with the countries they mostly flow through:

If you counted the Mississippi and Missouri as two separate rivers, they would both still find a place on this list, as would the Ob and Irtysh. The Yenisey on its own would also qualify.

Geological Time

The largest subdivision of geological time is an era, which can be divided into periods and then into epochs. The major divisions tend to be marked by mass extinctions, with smaller ones indicated by smaller extinctions and/or climate change. There have been three main eras; anything earlier than this was referred to as Precambrian.

☞ PALEOZOIC ERA, FROM ABOUT 600-250 MYA (MILLION YEARS AGO)

Paleozoic literally means ancient life. Life on Earth had existed for perhaps 4,000 million years before this, but it consisted largely of single-celled creatures such as algae and bacteria. The Cambrian period, the first part of the Paleozoic, is when bigger creatures—some of them with backbones—began to emerge, although they were still living in the sea. The Paleozoic was followed by the Permian extinction, when 95 percent of all life on Earth—plants and animals on both land and sea—died. Just like that. Just when they were beginning to get the hang of it. (To be fair, the period of extinction lasted millions of years, so “just like that” is an exaggeration, but scientists still don’t know for sure why it happened.)

Anyway, it paved the way for…

☞ MESOZOIC ERA, FROM ABOUT 250-65 MYA

Mesozoic means middle life. This was the age of the dinosaurs, and it was divided into three periods:

• Triassic (c. 250-220 mya): the time of the first dinosaurs, small and agile to start with but poised to take over the world.

• Jurassic (c. 220-155 mya): when giant herbivores such as Apatosaurus (which used to be called Brontosaurus) and Diplodocus ruled.

• Cretaceous (c. 150-65 mya): dominated by Tyrannosaurus rex, but also the time when plants first produced flowers.

Then along came the Cretaceous-Tertiary (known as the KT) extinction, when the Earth may or may not have been hit by a meteorite. Nothing quite as bad as the Permian but still enough to wipe out the dinosaurs, and following that…

☞ CENOZOIC ERA, FROM ABOUT 65 MYA TO THE PRESENT

Cenozoic means recent life. This is when mammals and birds took over. It is sometimes divided into the Tertiary and Quaternary periods and then subdivided into these epochs:

• Palaeocene (65-55 mya): when the first large mammals emerged to fill the gaps left by the dinosaurs.

• Eocene (55-35 mya): a period of great warmth, when the first grasses started to grow.

• Oligocene (35-25 mya): when mammals and flowering plants began to greatly diversify.