Every Canadian has heard how momentous events in 1776, 1812 and 1867 put Canada and the United States on profoundly different historical trajectories. But a just-published book by a Simon Fraser University professor has identified an intriguing new turning point in Canadian history: the day in April 1843 when the world didn't come to an end.

In Borderland Religion: The Emergence of an English-Canadian Identity, 1792-1852, author Jack Little argues a failed end-of-the-world prophecy by the radical and powerful U.S.-based Millerite movement was a watershed moment in Canada's rejection of the fire-and-brimstone religious culture at the centre of American identity today.

"There's clearly an evangelical tradition in the States but we don't define ourselves in terms of religion," Little told CanWest News Service this week."We have to ask ourselves: Why don't we?"

One of the answers, he says, can be found in the failed...