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The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI, also known as the Patricia's) is one of three permanent Regular Force infantry regiments of the Canadian Army. Its current structure consists of three battalions and a reserve battalion, for a total of 2,000 soldiers lodged at bases in Edmonton, Alberta, and Shilo, Manitoba. The regiment has a proud history of service, dating back to its creation in the First World War.

The Cold War refers to the period between the end of the Second World War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. During this time, the world was largely divided into two ideological camps — the United States-led capitalist “West” and the Soviet-dominated communist “East.” Canada aligned with the West. Its government structure, politics, society and popular perspectives matched those in the US, Britain, and other democratic countries. The global US-Soviet struggle took many different forms and touched many areas. It never became “hot” through direct military confrontation between the two main antagonists.

Fort Beauséjour, on the west bank of the Missaguash River near present-day Sackville, New Brunswick was built 1751-55 by the French as a counter to nearby British Fort Lawrence (near Amherst, NS).

The siege of Fort Erie was a British blockade of their own fort located at the entrance to the Niagara River opposite Buffalo, New York, which the Americans had captured on 3 July 1814.

“Within sight of this house over 100 men of the Queen’s Own Rifles were killed or wounded, in the first few minutes of the landings.”

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.

The Crimean War, 1854-56, interrupted a half-century of peace between the European great powers.

The Battle of the Rhineland 8 Feb-10 Mar 1945, was fought by the FIRST CANADIAN ARMY (with XXX British Corps under command) and Ninth US Army while forcing back the Germans to the Rhine R.

The Military Service Act became law on 29 August 1917. It was a politically explosive and controversial law that bitterly divided the country along French-English lines. It made all male citizens aged 20 to 45 subject to conscription for military service, through the end of the First World War. As such, the Act had significant political consequences. It led to the creation of Prime Minister Borden’s Union Government and drove most of his French-Canadian supporters into opposition.

​As the only combatant unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) whose official language was French, the 22nd (French Canadian) Infantry Battalion, commonly referred to as the “Van Doos” (from vingt-deux, meaning twenty-two in French), was subject to more scrutiny than most Canadian units in the First World War.

Militia Acts provided manpower for defence. Until the 1850s, such Acts in Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick usually imposed compulsory service on males between 16 and 50 or 60, with annual or more frequent enrolment musters.

Rainbow, a light cruiser serving in the Royal Navy from 1891 until 1910, when the Canadian government purchased the ship for the new Royal Canadian Navy. After its arrival at Esquimalt, BC, 7 Nov 1910, its duties included training and fisheries patrol.

In the Second World War, Canadians began fighting in Italy in July 1943. By the summer of 1944, the Allies had pushed German forces to one of their last defensive positions — a stretch of heavily fortified territory in northern Italy known as the Gothic Line. The main job of breaking the Line fell to the I Canadian Corps, which accomplished the task after a month of difficult combat, at a cost of more than 4,500 casualties. Although overshadowed by the Allied invasion of France, cracking the Gothic Line was among Canada's greatest feats of arms of the war.

Military engineers are soldiers specially trained to apply engineering science and technology to war. Their designation as "sappers" refers to their task of sapping - digging trenches.

In the early 20th Century, the Ross rifle, a Canadian-made infantry rifle, was produced as an alternative to the British-made Lee-Enfield rifle. The Ross rifle was used during the First World War, where it gained a reputation as an unreliable weapon among Canadian soldiers. By 1916, the Ross had been mostly replaced by the Lee-Enfield.

Canada’s longest Second World War army campaign was in Italy. Canadian forces served in the heat, snow and mud of the grinding, nearly two-year Allied battle across Sicily and up the Italian peninsula—prying the country from Germany's grip, at a cost of more than 26,000 Canadian casualties.

From the outset, Hampton's cause was fraught with challenges. Approximately 1000 of the New York militia who were a part of his army refused to cross the border, and during the battle itself, several of his officers were seen abandoning their men and positions for safer ground.