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Ukraine dam breach exposes remains, refuse from 80-year-old battle

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

It was one of the biggest battles fought on the Second World War’s notoriously brutal and bloody Eastern Front and now, 80 years on, another war has literally brought the Battle of the Dnipro back from the dead.

On June 6, a series of late-night explosions brought down a section of the Russian-occupied Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in Ukraine, emptying a reservoir the size of Utah’s Great Salt Lake and causing major flooding downstream in Kherson.

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Wikipedia

Honouring the crucial role of Indigenous Peoples in the War of 1812

STORY BY TOM MACGREGOR

The important role played by Indigenous warriors during the War of 1812, particularly the Mohawk, was commemorated with a monument in Kahnawake, south of Montreal, 10 years ago today, June 21, 2013.

Organized by Mohawk Branch of The Royal Canadian Legion, the unveiling was held on what was then called Aboriginal Day, now National Indigenous Peoples Day, and featured a Legion colour party, costumed dancers and First Nations singing.

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Drones, satellites uncover ancient encampments, fortresses, civilizations

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Back in 2016, a hunter perched in an elevated hide outside the German town of Bad Ems, an hour’s drive northwest of Frankfurt, noticed some unusual discoloration in a field of grain.

Archeologists were summoned and a drone dispatched, revealing a dual track arcing from one side of the pasture to the other. One might have concluded it was a very large tractor trail in these pastoral parts near the River Lahn. But it wasn’t.

It turned out to be the remnants of a defensive double ditch on the perimeter of a 2,000-year-old Roman army encampment.

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Canada’s Chinese diaspora: How the Tiananmen Square protests changed Vancouver

STORY BY PAIGE JASMINE GILMAR

“It was the end of innocence and idealism in a way,” political science professor Yves Tiberghien wrote to UBC News, the University of British Columbia’s communications’ hub. “The sense of hope and infinite possibility, the fresh idealism of the mid-1980s is gone.”

That idealism, however, was not just gone after the Tiananmen Square protests, it was trampled, shot and wiped clean by martial law in the public space in China’s capital. It was an effective end to any hope for greater freedoms in the country and, to some, a better future. And as Asian communities throughout Canada commemorate the 34th anniversary this month of the infamous protests and massacre, they also stopped to remember the day that also impacted Canada’s cultural makeup.

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