Browse "Military"

​To celebrate its 30th anniversary, The Canadian Encyclopedia created 30 lists of 30 things that have helped define our identity, from famous people and historic events, to iconic foods and influential artists.

​In the first decade of the 19th century, relations between Great Britain and the United States deteriorated, primarily due to the widening influence of the Napoleonic Wars.

Acadia was from its beginnings a centre of conflict and competing ambitions.

Adam Dollard Des Ormeaux, soldier (b in France 1635; d at Long Sault May 1660). In late April 1660, 17 Frenchmen with Dollard in command left Montréal to ambush Iroquois hunters returning by the Ottawa River. They were joined by 44 Hurons and Algonquins.

Lord Cardigan took up his position at the front of the Light Brigade. He sat tall in the saddle, his eyes flashing sapphire blue, his bearing proud. This would be his day for, although all who met him found him unusually stupid, no-one doubted his dauntless courage.

Alexander Roberts Dunn, VC, army officer (born 15 September 1833 in York, Upper Canada; died 25 January 1868 near Senafe, Abyssinia). During the Crimean War, Lieutenant Dunn was the first Canadian ever to be awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for bravery among troops of the British Empire.

André Nault, Métis leader, farmer, and buffalo hunter (born 20 April 1830 in Point Douglas, Red River Colony [now Winnipeg, MB]; died 17 December 1924 in St Vital, MB). Although a kinsman of Louis Riel and always considered a Métis, Nault was not of mixed blood (his mother and father were French Canadian).

Andrew Hamilton Gault, army officer (born in England 18 August 1882; died at Montréal 28 November 1958). Of Canadian parents, he attended McGill University. Commissioned in the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles, he served in the South African War and joined the Canadian Militia on return to Canada.

Born in the backwoods of the Carolinas, Jackson was the son of Scottish Irish colonists. At the young age of 13, Jackson served in a local militia as a courier during the American Revolution. It was a dangerous job.

The crew took off on its 13th sortie on 12 June 1944 to bomb a German supply line at Cambrai, France. Just after midnight, they were fired on by a German JU-88 fighter, sustaining heavy damage. The pilot ordered the crew to bail out.

Ange Duquesne de Menneville Duquesne, Marquis, naval officer, governor general of New France 1752-55 (b at Toulon, France c 1700; d at Antony, France 17 Sept 1778). He joined the navy as a boy and saw action in the War of the Austrian Succession.

Between 1942 and 1947, the Canadian government brought 47,783 "war brides” and their 21,950 children to Canada. Most of these women were from Great Britain, where Canadian forces had been based during the Second World War. Although the voyage and transition were difficult for many war brides, most persevered and grew to love their adopted homeland.

Arthur Brooke, career soldier (b at Ireland 1772; d at London 1843). Colonel Arthur Brooke is best remembered as one of the two key British commanders during the Battle of North Point (part of the Battle of Baltimore) in the War of 1812.

Arthur Herbert Lindsay “Tappy” Richardson, VC, policeman, soldier, war hero, labourer (born 23 September 1872 in Southport, England; died 15 December 1932 in Liverpool, England). Richardson served in the North-West Mounted Police from 1894 to 1907 but took leave in 1900 to fight in the South African War. He was the first member of a Canadian unit to receive the Victoria Cross.

Arthur Roy Brown, fighter pilot (b at Carleton Place, Ont 23 Dec 1893; d at Stouffville, Ont 9 Mar 1944). A flight commander with 209 Squadron, Brown has often been credited with killing Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, the famed "Red Baron".

As part of the campaign to invade Canada led by Richard Montgomery, Arnold led an expedition along the Kennebec, Dead and Chaudière rivers, arriving before Québec with only 700 of his original troop of 1100 men.

On 14 April 1826, an obscure police magistrate in London, England, Robert Chambers, told a committee of the British Parliament dealing with emigration: "I conceive that London has got too full of children." Chambers was alarmed at the number of youngsters, victims of east-end London's chronic poverty, who were begging in the streets and sleeping in the gutters. He had a recommendation which may well have been in the minds of others and which was to become reality several decades later in one of the most Draconian movements in the history of emigration. Chambers recommended that Britain's surplus children be sent to Canada as farm labour.

Buckam Singh, labourer, soldier (born 5 December 1893 in Mahilpur, Punjab, India; died 27 August 1919 in Kitchener, ON). There is little information published about the role of Sikhs in Canadian military service during the First World War. The discovery of Buckam Singh’s Victory Medal led to his reclamation by his community, which commemorates him with an annual Remembrance Day service

Campbell Mellis Douglas, surgeon, soldier, writer, inventor and sportsman (b at Grosse Ile, Qué 5 Aug 1840; d at Wells, Somerset, Eng 31 Dec 1909).

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.