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The Canadian Forces Snowbirds are a military aerobatics team. They are officially known as "431 Air Demonstration Squadron." Since 1971, the team has performed across North America before millions of people. The Snowbirds have been recognized as among the best in the world at precision formation aerobatics and stunning solo crosses with minimum separation between the aircraft.

The Naval Service Act, passed by the Liberal government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, established the Royal Canadian Navy on 4 May 1910. Before the Act passed, Canada did not have a navy of its own and relied on the British Royal Navy. This new defence initiative was a direct response to the naval arms race between Britain and Germany in the years before the First World War and the 1909 panic in Britain over expansion of the German navy. The Act was built on earlier, distinctively Canadian approaches to defence and its key provisions remained in force until 1950. The Naval Service Act was bitterly opposed by French Canadian nationalists, led by Henri Bourassa, who feared deeper involvement in imperial affairs.

In 1992–93, Canada contributed military forces to UNITAF, a United Nations–backed humanitarian mission in the African nation of Somalia. In 1993, Canadian soldiers from the now-defunct Airborne Regiment tortured and killed a Somali teenager named Shidane Arone. These and other violent abuses during the mission shocked Canadians and damaged the country’s international reputation. They also led to a public inquiry that revealed serious failures of leadership at the highest levels of the Canadian Armed Forces, kick-starting reforms aimed a professionalizing the officer corps.

This article contains sensitive material that may not be suitable for all audiences.

Military aviation began with the use of balloons for observation as early as 1794, during the French Revolution.

The St Laurents were developed in the early Cold War as a high-speed, long-range antisubmarine frigate to counter the growing Soviet conventional submarine threat. They were the first major warship class designed and built in Canada and incorporated many ground-breaking features, earning them the nickname, the “Cadillacs.” Seven St. Laurents were built. The success of the design inspired a succession of follow-on classes: the Restigouche, Mackenzie and Annapolis classes. A total of 20 ships — all named after Canadian rivers — were built around the same hull configuration and propulsion plant. These iconic ships were the mainstay of the Canadian fleet from 1955 to 1995, including most of the Cold War.

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is the military arm of the federal government. Its role is to defend Canada’s security, interests and values and to contribute to international peace and security. There are 68,000 Regular Force and 27,000 Reserve Force members in the CAF, which includes the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Members of these three services can also be assigned to different commands, including Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC), Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The CAF is supported by 24,000 DND civilians, who are not part of the CAF.

The North Shore (NB) Regiment (NS(NB)R) is a bilingual, primary reserve infantry regiment of the Canadian Army. It is part of the 5th Canadian Division, 37th Canadian Brigade Group. The regimental headquarters is located in Bathurst, New Brunswick. Regimental battle honours include Passchendaele, Ypres 1917 and Hill 70 (First World War); the Normandy Landing and the Battle of the Scheldt (Second World War).

​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.

As the threat of another world war loomed ever larger, Canadians, far from the conflict, would face a difficult choice of whether to stand again with Britain or remain isolated and safe in North America.

The War Measures Act was a federal law adopted by Parliament on 22 August 1914, after the beginning of the First World War. It gave broad powers to the Canadian government to maintain security and order during “war, invasion or insurrection.” It was used, controversially, to suspend the civil liberties of people in Canada who were considered “enemy aliens” during both world wars. This led to mass arrests and detentions without charges or trials. The War Measures Act was also invoked in Quebec during the 1970 October Crisis. The Act was repealed and replaced by the more limited Emergencies Act in 1988.

The Kanesatake Resistance, also known as the Oka Crisis or the Mohawk Resistance at Kanesatake, was a 78-day standoff (11 July–26 September 1990) between Kanyen'kehà:ka (Mohawk) protesters, Quebec police, the RCMP and the Canadian Army. It took place in the community of Kanesatake, near the Town of Oka, on the north shore of Montreal. Related protests and violence occurred in the Kahnawake reserve, to the south of Montreal. The crisis was sparked by the proposed expansion of a golf course and the development of townhouses on disputed land in Kanesatake that included a Kanyen'kehà:ka burial ground. Tensions were high, particularly after the death of Corporal Marcel Lemay, a Sûreté du Québec police officer. Eventually, the army was called in and the protest ended. The golf course expansion was cancelled, and the land was purchased by the federal government. However, it did not establish the land as a reserve, and there has since been no organized transfer of the land to the Mohawks of Kanesatake.

This is the full-length entry about Kanesatake Resistance (Oka Crisis). For a plain-language summary, please see Kanesatake Resistance (Oka Crisis)(Plain-Language Summary).

Since its inception in 1924, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) has served Canadians in peace and war. It played a vital role in the Second World War, becoming the fourth-largest Allied air force, and reached its "golden age" in the late 1950s, with dozens of combat squadrons on the front lines of the Cold War. The term Royal, dropped from the name in 1968, was returned to the air force in 2011.

Since the end of the First World War, monuments commemorating the lives of Canadians who died in conflicts overseas have occupied a prominent place in our urban cultural landscape.

The 1944 Battle of Normandy — from the D-Day landings on 6 June through to the encirclement of the German army at Falaise on 21 August — was one of the pivotal events of the Second World War and the scene of some of Canada's greatest feats of arms. Canadian sailors, soldiers and airmen played a critical role in the Allied invasion of Normandy, also called Operation Overlord, beginning the bloody campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi occupation. Nearly 150,000 Allied troops landed or parachuted into the invasion area on D-Day, including 14,000 Canadians at Juno Beach. The Royal Canadian Navy contributed 110 ships and 10,000 sailors and the RCAF contributed 15 fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons to the assault. Total Allied casualties on D-Day reached more than 10,000, including 1,074 Canadians, of whom 359 were killed. By the end of the Battle of Normandy, the Allies had suffered 209,000 casualties, including more than 18,700 Canadians. Over 5,000 Canadian soldiers died.

Canada's navy has defended Canadian interests in home waters and overseas since the early 20th century — despite often struggling for ships and resources under sometimes neglectful governments. The navy was a vital part of Canada's contribution to the Second World War, including the Battle of the Atlantic and the Allied invasions of Italy and Normandy. In the decades since, the navy has served consistently around the globe with the United Nations and NATO, while protecting sovereignty on Canada's three coasts.

The Canadian Corps, a force of 100,000 soldiers by late 1916, fought for the entire war on the Western Front, along a static trench system that ran 700 kilometres from Switzerland to the North Sea.