1986 World Exposition on Transportation & Communication in Vancouver, BC, Canada

To celebrate Vancouver's centennial birthday, the city hosted the 1986 World Exposition on Transportation & Communication aka Expo 86. It was a major party all along the city's False Creek waterfront everyday from May to October in 1986. Dignitaries and tourists from around the world flocked to Vancouver in 1986. Given the theme of the exposition was transportation, it is appropriate that Vancouver's very first SkyTrain line opened just the year before so it would be operational in time for Expo 86. Incidentally, this is why the line is known as the 'Expo Line' today, whereas back then, it was just the SkyTrain because it was the one and only line. In addition to the SkyTrain, fair attendees could get around the expo grounds by way of a temporary monorail and a gondola that traversed the site.

Besides SkyTrain, the most important legacy of Expo 86 is that it put Vancouver on the map. Before 1986, Vancouver was a sleepy seaside town on Canada's Pacific coast. Expo 86 put Vancouver on the world stage and set the West Coast port on its trajectory to become the global city it is today.