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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.

Veronica Foster Guerrette, Second World War icon, model, vocalist (born 2 January 1922 in Montreal, Quebec; died 4 May 2000 in Toronto, Ontario). Foster worked for the John Inglis Company assembling Bren light machine guns during the Second World War. She was featured on propaganda posters that encouraged women to serve Canada by working in munitions factories. Foster became a Canadian icon representing female workers in the manufacturing industry. After the war, she was lead singer with the dance band Mart Kenney and His Western Gentlemen.

The Battle of the Atlantic, from 1939 to 1945, was the longest continuous battle of the Second World War. Canada played a key role in the Allied struggle for control of the North Atlantic, as German submarines worked furiously to cripple the convoys shipping crucial supplies to Europe. Victory was costly: more than 70,000 Allied seamen, merchant mariners and airmen lost their lives, including approximately 4,400 from Canada and Newfoundland. Many civilians also lost their lives, including 136 passengers of the ferry SS Caribou.

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a non-binding political commitment made by United Nations Member States to protect populations from genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. Canadian leadership was instrumental in the establishment of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2000, which led to the development and eventual adoption of R2P at the 2005 UN World Summit (see also Canada and Peacekeeping).

The monument to Sir Isaac Brock stands atop Ontario’s Niagara Escarpment at Queenston Heights, overlooking the lower Niagara River. The current monument is the second erected in Canada to honour Brock, a military commander who died during the Battle of Queenston Heights in the War of 1812.

During the First World War, more than 5,000 Canadian pilots served in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). The RFC was formed on 13 April 1912 to satisfy Britain's need for a military presence in the expanding field of aviation. It joined with the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in April 1918 to become the Royal Air Force. During the war, an RFC/RAF training program in Canada produced approximately 10,500 pilots, mechanics and aircraftmen.

The Royal Canadian Legion is a non-profit, national organization that serves Canadian war veterans and their families and lobbies government on their behalf. It is best known for selling poppies every fall and organizing Remembrance Day ceremonies across the country. In recent decades, the Legion has struggled with declining membership, due in large part to the loss of Second World War and Korean War veterans.

Since the First World War, there have been four major initiatives to allow Canadian artists to document Canadian Armed Forces at war. Canada’s first official war art program, the Canadian War Memorials Fund (1916–19), was one of the first government-sponsored programs of its kind. It was followed by the Canadian War Art Program (1943–46) during the Second World War. The Canadian Armed Forces Civilian Artists Program (1968–95) and the Canadian Forces Artists Program (2001–present) were established to send civilian artists to combat and peacekeeping zones. Notable Canadian war artists have included A.Y. Jackson, F.H. Varley, Lawren Harris, Alex Colville and Molly Lamb Bobak.

The war on the water was an essential, if not the most important, aspect of the WAR OF 1812. Great Britain was obviously at a disadvantage geographically when trying to defend its colony Canada in a conflict with the United States.

Eric Walters’s The Bully Boys (2000) is a work of historical fiction for young adults. It follows Tom Roberts, a young farm boy who aids and observes Lieutenant James FitzGibbon and his mercenary soldiers during the War of 1812.

The Battle of Seven Oaks, or the Victory of the Frog Plain (la Victoire de la Grenouillère), took place 19 June 1816. The battle was a culmination of the Pemmican Wars and the escalating fur trade disputes between the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and the North West Company (NWC). Pemmican was the food supply that the fur traders depended on to carry out operations. On the day of the battle, a party of about 60 Métis and First Nations men, led by Cuthbert Grant, was heading west of the Forks to deliver pemmican to the NWC canoe brigades on Lake Winnipeg. They were confronted at Seven Oaks by HBC Governor Robert Semple and 28 men (mostly HBC officers and employees). The gunfire and hand-to-hand combat that resulted left Semple and 20 of the HBC party dead. On the Métis side, 16-year-old Joseph Letendre died, and Joseph Trottier was wounded.

While they may not have had access to the battlefields, a number of Canadian women artists made their mark on the visual culture of the First World War by representing the home front. First among these were the women affiliated with the Canadian War Memorials Fund, Canada’s first official war art program. Founded in 1916, the stated goal of the Fund was to provide “suitable Memorials in the form of Tablets, Oil-Paintings, etc. […], to the Canadian Heroes and Heroines in the War.” Expatriates Florence Carlyle and Caroline Armington participated in the program while overseas. Artists Henrietta Mabel May, Dorothy Stevens, Frances Loringand Florence Wyle were commissioned by the Fund to visually document the war effort in Canada.

Members of the Women’s Division (WD) of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) were wartime pioneers. Thousands of young Canadian women volunteered to serve at home and abroad during the Second World War as part of the air force. By replacing men in aviation support roles, they lived up to their motto — "We Serve that Men May Fly” — and, through their record of service and sacrifice, ensured themselves a place in Canadian history.

The Royal 22e Régiment (R22eR) is one of the three infantry regiments of the Canadian Regular Force (see Canadian Armed Forces). It is a francophone regiment made up of five battalions, of which three belong to the Regular Force and two to the Reserve Force. In 2014, the R22eR celebrated its 100th anniversary. Its headquarters are at the Citadelle de Québec. The regiment has participated in all of Canada’s major military engagements since the First World War, including the United Nations peace missions and the campaign in Afghanistan.