IN 1967, CANADA CELEBRATED ITS CENTENARY, the hundredth anniversary of Confederation, but there are many other defining years and events which have come to be seen as foundational or transformative for the country's history. The First World War marked Canada's entry onto the world stage as a nation separate from Great Britain (while still part of the British Commonwealth); the Second World War consolidated Canada's national stature and independence and paved the way for a number of significant cultural and social developments during the cold war years that would have their major impact after 1967. Vincent Massey, the country's first Canadian-born Governor General (1953–1959), submitted his Report of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences in 1951 and, as a result of Massey's recommendations, the Canada Council for the Arts was created and began funding artists, publishers, and scholarship in 1957. In 1977, the SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), an offshoot of the Canada Council, was established. Without these two strategic organizations the cultural and scholarly landscape of Canada as we know it today would be a different one. The Stratford Festival (founded in 1953) opened in its permanent building in 1957 and has gradually come to be recognized as one of Canada's top national theaters. Jack McClelland began his important New Canadian Library series (which facilitated the teaching of Canadian Literature in schools and universities) that same year.