New website documents over 150 years of Black military service in Canada

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

At 17, James Post of Ottawa had already been serving two years overseas when he earned a Distinguished Conduct Medal for “conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty” during a 1917 attack on the First World War battlefield of Passchendaele.

Post, a corporal in the 4th Battalion, Canadian Mounted Rifles, also happened to be one of about 700 Black men who served in non-segregated units of the Canadian Expeditionary Force between 1914 and 1918.

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Lowering the Maple Leaf

Story by Sharon Adams

On Dec. 1, 2011, at a quiet ceremony in Afghanistan, the Maple Leaf flag was lowered for the last time in Kandahar as Canadian troops prepared to leave the wartorn region.

The combat mission was at its end, but Canadian troops would continue to serve dangerous missions in the country for three more years.

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A multinational warship crew of the 16th century

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

The crew of the Tudor warship Mary Rose was a diverse bunch, hailing from as far away as continental Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa, says new research that reinforces Britain’s long history as a society of multiple races and ethnicities.

In 2021, scientists published the results of isotope analysis of the teeth in eight of 179 crew whose remarkably well-preserved remains were recovered along with 19,000 artifacts and much of the ship, which was sunk on July 19, 1545, during the Battle of the Solent off England’s south coast.

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The first peacekeepers

Story by Sharon Adams

In mid-November 1956, 950 men of the 1st Battalion, Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, were flown to Halifax, where HMCS Magnificent was being prepared to carry troops and materiel to Egypt for one of the first United Nations peacekeeping missions, to quell the crisis at the Suez Canal.

The troops were excited and anxious to go; on Nov. 17, there was a parade through Halifax in anticipation of the order to leave.

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