1915: Royal Navy ships landed a battalion of the King's African Rifles to seize Mafia Island off German East Africa.

1922: HMS Victory was taken out of service afloat, entering Number 2 Dock in Portsmouth, the world's oldest dry-dock, where she resides to this day.

1942: Hitler ordered the battle cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst to sail from Brest to Norway, to threaten Allied convoy routes.

1943: The Japanese withdrawal from the Kokoda Trail enabled the Allies to plan the encirclement of important Japanese positions in the Buna, Sanananda and Gona beachhead. Sanananda was last of the three to fall to the Allies after weeks of heavy fighting.

1944: Leighton McCarthy presented his letters of credentials to President Roosevelt as the first Canadian Ambassador to the United States

1945: 3 Commando Brigade of the Royal Marines conducted an amphibious assault at Myebon in Burma, seizing the position from the Japanese and threatening their line of retreat.

1957: HMCS Magnificent, Canada's only aircraft carrier, arrives in Egypt carrying 405 soldiers, vehicles and supplies for the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF)

1991: The US Congress approved joint resolutions authorising the use of force against Iraq