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In 1837 and 1838, French Canadian militants in Lower Canada took up arms against the British Crown in a pair of insurrections. The twin rebellions killed more than 300 people. They followed years of tensions between the colony’s anglophone minority and the growing, nationalistic aspirations of its francophone majority. The rebels failed in their campaign against British rule. However, their revolt led to political reform, including the unified Province of Canada and the introduction of responsible government. The rebellion in Lower Canada, which is also known as the Patriots' War (la Guerre des patriotes), also gave French Canadians one of their first nationalist heroes in Louis-Joseph Papineau.

When the settlement of Battleford, in what is now west-central Saskatchewan, was named the capital of the North-West Territories in 1876, the North-West Mounted Police established a post to deal with anticipated problems with Indigenous people.

During the Second World War, a large naval repair base was established at Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where many Allied ships were refitted and repaired following their work maintaining convoy and antisubmarine surveillance in the Atlantic. During the Cold War, HMCS (later CFS) Shelburne played an important role in antisubmarine warfare, part of the SOSUS/IUSS network of passive sonar stations that identified and tracked Soviet submarines. CFS Shelburne was decommissioned in 1995.

HMCS Conestoga was a basic training establishment for the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) during the Second World War. Located in Galt, Ontario, it operated from 1942 to 1945. Of nearly 6,800 women who served in the WRCNS, most trained at Conestoga.

During the Cold War, Canada stationed army and air force units abroad for the first time during peacetime. Soldiers and airmen began to arrive in the early 1950s, shortly after the Cold War began, and remained until 1993, after it ended. In total, more than 100,000 Canadian military personnel served in France and West Germany in that period.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge was fought during the First World War from 9 to 12 April 1917. It is Canada’s most celebrated military victory — an often mythologized symbol of the birth of Canadian national pride and awareness. The battle took place on the Western Front, in northern France. The four divisions of the Canadian Corps, fighting together for the first time, attacked the ridge from 9 to 12 April 1917 and captured it from the German army. It was the largest territorial advance of any Allied force to that point in the war — but it would mean little to the outcome of the conflict. More than 10,600 Canadians were killed and wounded in the assault. Today an iconic memorial atop the ridge honours the 11,285 Canadians killed in France throughout the war who have no known graves.

This is the full-length entry about the Battle of Vimy Ridge. For a plain-language summary, please see Battle of Vimy Ridge (Plain-Language Summary).

Fort Carillon was built in 1755 on the orders of the governor of New France, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil. Situated at the junction of Lake George and Lake Champlain, the fort was intended to reinforce France's military presence in an area contested by the British colonies. In 1759, Fort Carillon was abandoned by the French and renamed Fort Ticonderoga by the British. (See Seven Years’ War.)

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham (13 September 1759), also known as the Battle of Quebec, was a pivotal moment in the Seven Years’ War and in the history of Canada. A British invasion force led by General James Wolfe defeated French troops under the Marquis de Montcalm, leading to the surrender of Quebec to the British. Both commanding officers died from wounds sustained during the battle. The French never recaptured Quebec and effectively lost control of New France in 1760. At the end of the war in 1763 France surrendered many of its colonial possessions — including Canada — to the British.

(This is the full-length entry about the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. For a plain-language summary, please see Battle of the Plains of Abraham (Plain-Language Summary).)

Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Borden has always been primarily a training base for the Canadian Forces (CF). It is located 80 km northwest of Toronto, and was named after Sir Frederick Borden, Laurier's militia minister (1896-1911).

Shilo, Canadian Forces Base (CFB), is located on the western boundary of Manitoba's Spruce Woods Provincial Forest, 195 km west of Winnipeg and 25 km east of Brandon. A portion of the forest is leased to the federal government for the Shilo military reserve. The base is part of Land Force Western Area (LFWA), which was established in 1991, with its headquarters in Edmonton.

Renamed Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in 1968, the base has a total population of 5,000. As one of Canada's busiest operational bases, it is economically important to the adjacent town of Petawawa and nearby Pembroke.

Canadian Forces Base Gagetown (or CFB Gagetown) functions primarily as the combat-training centre for the Canadian Army and comprises 111,000 hectares between Fredericton and Saint John, New Brunswick, west of the Saint John River.

8 Wing/Canadian Forces Base Trenton is located 167 km east of Toronto on Lake Ontario's Bay of Quinte. Begun in 1929 on 384 ha of flat farmland adjacent to the town of Trenton.

Founded in 1830, Fort Pitt was the major Hudson's Bay Company trading post between Forts Edmonton and Carlton (Saskatchewan), located at a large bend in the North Saskatchewan River just east of the modern Alberta-Saskatchewan border.

Fort Carlton, situated on the south branch of the North Saskatchewan River near Duck Lake (Saskatchewan), was established in 1810 as a Hudson's Bay Company fur trade and provision post.