Over the years, Vancouver has amassed a lot of world firsts.
From the first orca in captivity to the first Bitcoin ATM to the first arena with artificial ice.
Here are even more things Vancouver was on the cutting edge of.
1. The first container ship
Shipping containers are a common part of modern life, especially in Vancouver, where dozens of container ships are in and around the city's port each week.
However, that wasn't the case 75 years ago.
The idea of standardized containers was formed in the 1940s, and some ships were converted to work with the emerging concept.
In 1955 the Clifford J. Rogers was built. It was the first purpose-built container ship. While it was built in Montreal, it was actually created for a company on the West Coast called the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway.
They shipped material from the mines of Yukon and Alaska to Skagway, so it made sense that a standardized system for shipping would work well.
Given Vancouver's location and role as a transportation hub, it became the other end of the route and Vancouver's port built a system to manage the standardized containers.
2. The first bookstore to sell online
While Amazon is often credited with being the first online bookstore, the first bookstore to sell books online appears to have been Duthie Books.
In 1994 the local chain introduced the idea well before many people had access to the internet. Given the nature of the internet at the time, the system didn't operate like current online retailers.
Instead, Duthie Books essentially turned its mail-order book operation into an email-order book operation.
Duthie Books went beyond just adding email, they also added a website where people could browse books.
It was all dubbed the Virtual Bookstore.
"Given that level of insight, and the company's capacity for bright ideas, it's no surprise that it has its own site on the World Wide Web," wrote Vancouver Sun journalist Michael Scott for the On the Line column.
3. The first band to be live-streamed (broadly) online
The first band to play to a broad audience online was Vancouver rockers Moist.
To be fair, it wasn't in Vancouver. Moist was touring. The band was the opening act for a four-band show in Atlanta featuring Blues Traveller and Hootie and the Blowfish in 1995.
While there had been previous shows streamed online (famously, the Rolling Stones did it) those concerts were using a specialized service called MBONE. Moist's show was streamed across the "World Wide Web."
4. The first bike polo court
Just over a decade ago Vancouver became the first city in the world to have a purpose built bike polo court.
Bike polo is not the biggest sport out there, but it has a certain niche, fitting in between regular polo (the one with horses) and freestyle BMX riding.
Through the 1990s and 2000s the hardcourt bike polo took place on courts of different sports, like tennis or basketball.
In 2014 the city converted one space at Grandview Park into a bike polo court, the first in the world.
5. The first digital camera newsroom
In 1995 digital photography was a growing field. The earliest cameras were created in the 1970s, but commercially viable cameras took another 20 years.
In 1994 Kodak and the Associated Press worked together to create a camera that would work well for photojournalists in the field.
The next year the Vancouver Sun converted, moving to a fully digital camera newsroom. At the end of the year they celebrated a "year of filmless photos."
