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Create AccountCanada is a country so vast that too often, it seems, its history is lost inside its geography. A striking example is the history of Indigenous peoples, whose long, rich narrative is well-preserved by them, but seldom gets the same attention on a broader scale — even when their stories affect us all.
The Battle of Cambrai in northern France took place from 27 September to 11 October 1918, during the First World War.
On 11 November 1918, the last day of the First World War, Canadian forces captured the Belgian town of Mons — liberating a place that had been under German occupation since 1914.
The Battle of St. Eloi Craters was fought from 27 March to 16 April 1916 during the First World War.
HMCS Sackville is the last surviving corvette used by the Royal Canadian Navy in the Second World War. In 1985, the warship was designated Canada’s Naval Memorial.
The Canadians had been promised that the town would be lightly defended. Instead they could see that Dieppe was a fortress, intact, and the Germans were ready and waiting. How had this happened?
How does memory speak to us? Each November, over 13 million poppies blossom on the jackets, dresses and hats of Canadians.
The 1837 rebellion in Upper Canada was a less violent, more limited affair than the uprising earlier that year in Lower Canada. However, its leaders, including William Lyon Mackenzie, were equally serious in their demands. They wanted democratic reform and an end to the rule of a privileged oligarchy. The rebellion itself failed, but its very failure helped pave the way for moderate and careful political change in British North America. This included the union of Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada and the eventual introduction of responsible government.
In 1956, in the crucible of the Suez Crisis, L.B. Pearson invented United Nations peacekeeping. The Canadian foreign minister did not do so alone, and peacekeeping as it evolved was not exactly what he had in mind.
To a casual observer, the key battles of World War II were fought on land. Normandy, Stalingrad, El Alamein and others come to mind. Yet many historians believe that the key to the Allied victory was the war at sea, in particular the Battle of the Atlantic.
On 6 June 1944, Canadian forces took part in the greatest amphibious operation in military history. Over 10,000 Canadian sailors in 110 warships, 15 RCAF squadrons and 14,000 soldiers took part in D-Day.
The battle of the Plains of Abraham, likely the greatest turning point in our history, has given rise to what historian C.P. Stacey called a "luxuriant crop of popular legends.
Wherever the Canadian infantry tried to advance through the rubble and narrow streets of Ortona they were exposed to murderous crossfire from the well-hidden defenders. Captain Bill Longhurst of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment had an inspiration.
On 6 June 1944, Canadian Forces landed on Juno Beach. D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion of all time and marked the beginning of the end of the Second World War. In 2019, Historica Canada released a Heritage Minute telling the story of 47-year-old Major Archie MacNaughton, a First World War veteran and leader of the North Shore New Brunswick Regiment’s A Company. In this article, Anthony Wilson-Smith, president of Historica Canada, reflects on the making of the D-Day Minute.
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.
Acadia was from its beginnings a centre of conflict and competing ambitions.
In 1992–93, Canada contributed military forces to UNITAF, a United Nations–backed humanitarian mission in the African nation of Somalia. The mission was hampered by the fact that some of the warring factions in the Somalia conflict attacked the international forces that were trying to restore order and deliver food to a starving population. The Canadian effort was also clouded by the murder of a Somali teenager by Canadian troops. The crime — and alleged cover-up by Defence officials in Ottawa — became one of the most infamous scandals in Canadian history.
CANLOAN was a volunteer program that loaned Canadian officers to the British Army during the Second World War.
In 1759, the British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham. Soon after, the British took control of Quebec (see also The Conquest of New France.) The Quebec Act of 1774 was passed to gain the loyalty of the French who lived in the Province of Quebec. The Act had serious consequences for Britain’s North American empire. The Quebec Act was one of the direct causes of the American Revolution.
(This article is a plain-language summary of The Quebec Act, 1774. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry on The Quebec Act, 1774.)
