The Maple Leaf flag has succeeded in large part because its unique iconography arrived just as Canada was coming into its own as a country. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press) Clara Hughes was nervous.

In the lifetime of anyone younger than about fifty, the Canadian flag has always been its current simple, yet bold and distinctive, red-and-white maple leaf design. And those who weren't around ...

Red and white had long been Canada’s official colours, and the maple leaf a well-recognized emblem, so it’s no surprise the simple flag won over thousands of designs under consideration by an official ...

When Canada adopted its flag in the mid-1960s, 2,136 of the submitted designs contained a maple leaf. Another 389 featured beavers.

After being approved by Canada’s House of Commons and the Senate, the Maple Leaf flag was inaugurated in a ceremony on Parliament Hill on Feb. 15, 1965. Canada’s national flag turns 56 today!

A botanist says the Bank of Canada has barked up the wrong maple tree with its new plastic banknotes, using a foreign Norway maple leaf as the emblem on the notes instead of the sugar maple the ...

O Canada! To celebrate Saturday's 60th anniversary of the Canadian flag, Museum Windsor is displaying one of the original maple leafs raised on Parliament Hill on Feb. 15, 1965.

The maple leaf flag that celebrates its 50th anniversary on Feb. 15 was eventually chosen, but thousands of hopefuls still reside inside a few dozen cardboard boxes at Library and Archives Canada.

“Just about everyone in Canada identifies with the maple leaf flag, and it has become an instantly recognizable symbol,” Heard says. In 1996, Feb. 15 was named National Flag of Canada Day.

Reid Scott maintains that he “rigged” the final vote to ensure the 15-person parliamentary flag committee recommended the single-leaf banner that has flown across Canada since Feb. 15, 1965.

But go just about anywhere in the world, and the stark Maple Leaf design that was adopted after a contentious debate has become instantly recognizable as a symbol of Canada. "I think there's certainly ...

Today Canada celebrates its flag, the red and white Maple Leaf. It is also one of the youngest flags having been officially raised for the first time in a chilly ceremony in front of Canada’s ...