Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 24, 2005



The military history of Canada entails millennia of armed actions in the territory encompassing modern Canada, and the role of the Canadian military in conflicts and peacekeeping worldwide. For at least 10,000 years, the area that would become Canada was the site of intertribal wars among First Nation groups. Beginning in the 10th century, the arrival of Europeans led to conflicts with the Natives and among the colonizing Europeans in the New World. Starting in the 17th century, the region was the site of fighting between the French and the British for more than a century. New challenges soon arose when the northern colonies chose not to join the American Revolution and remained loyal to the British crown. Americans looked to extend their republic and launched an invasion in 1812. After Canada's independence, and amid much controversy, a fully-fledged Canadian military was created. Canada's links to Britain remained strong, and Canadian forces joined their British counterparts in the Boer War, the First and Second World Wars. Since the Second World War, Canada has been committed to multilateralism and has gone to war only within large multinational coalitions such as in the Korean War, the Gulf War, and the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

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