Hello and welcome to the rest of history. Now as many of you will know, we have embarked

on a colossal marathon taking in every single one of the 32 countries that has qualified

for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and we are talking about aspects of their country's

history. Now, today we are light on the shores of the great North American country of Canada.

Now you might think Canada is an odd place to have qualified for the World Cup because

it doesn't have a terribly distinguished footballing history, but Tom, it does have an amazing

sporting claim to fame, doesn't it? Because I'm not right in thinking that Canada took

part in the world's first ever international sporting fixture of any kind. It was against

the United States and the sport was amazingly cricket. So not ice hockey, so that's our

subject for today, is it the Canadian cricket? No, I was very, very tempted to do the history

of Canadian cricket, but I decided not to. And instead I thought that I would focus on

something else that is very, very close to my heart, a truly admirable mammal Dominic.

Yes. And a mammal that in many ways is, I guess, the Stanley Baldwin of the animal world.

And it's the beaver. And I describe it as the Stanley Baldwin of the animal world because

it's kind of the, in a way, the embodiment of the kind of conservatism that Stanley

Baldwin embodied. So it's a proud homeowner. So it makes these wonderful kind of homes.

Yeah. Very monocamous. So lifelong, married relationship like Stanley and what was

it? And Lucy and Lucy, yeah. Or later the Empress Theodora, if you listen to our episode

about Love Island. Yeah. You know, cares for its young, all that kind of thing, very hard

working, obviously chop busy chopping down trees and all that kind of stuff. So in a way,

the kind of the embodiment of a kind of conservative ideal, if you like. And it's kind of served

as an emblem, if not for Canada, then certainly for Canadian history. So Canadians have always

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