1916: In Mesopotamia, Captain Buchanan of the South Wales Borderers won the Victoria Cross by twice braving intense enemy fire to bring in wounded men lying in the open.

1917: A trench mortar manned by a Royal Field Artillery detachment on the Western Front misfired, its fused bomb landing only ten yards in front of the crew. Sergeant Gosling rushed forward, pulled it from the mud, and quickly unscrewed the live fuse - when he threw it out of the position, it immediately exploded. Gosling was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1918: Royal Marines and Japanese troops landed at Vladivostok during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.

1942: Admiral Nagumo's Carrier Fleet completed its huge sweep back across the Pacific from Pearl Harbor with a raid on Ceylon on Easter Sunday, attempting to catch Admiral Somerville's Eastern Fleet. Somerville, mindful of the age of many of his ships - the battleships were WW1 veterans - and the weakness of RAF and Fleet Air Arm air strength in the region - dispersed his vessels to safety.

RAF Hurricane and Fleet Air Arm Fulmar fighters took off from Ceylon to intercept the Japanese air attack, the first real opposition the Japanese naval aviators had faced. Heavily outnumbered, the RAF and FAA achieved at least half a dozen victories, possibly more, but lost 27 aircraft, with 17 aircrew killed. The Japanese managed to locate the cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire, and Val divebombers sank both. The Japanese remained in the area, and raided Trincomalee on 9 April.

1943: In Tunisia, a heavily defended hill, with very difficult approaches, held up the British advance. Two small sections of the 2nd Gurkha Rifles under Subadar Lalbahadur Thapa were given the task of attempting to take the position in a surprise silent night attack. He led his men up a narrow path, and negotiated barbed wire entanglements. The Gurkhas eliminated first sentry positions, then several machine-gun nests with bayonets and kukris, then fought their way up the rest of the hill against a now alerted enemy. Despite the fierce opposition, the Gurkhas succeeded in taking the hill and opening up the advance for an entire division. Lalbahadur Thapa was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1951: United Nations forces, including Commonwealth troops, advanced north of the 38th Parallel to take up defensive positions some 45 km north of Seoul, along the so-called Kansas Line.

1982: The first ships of the Royal Navy task force sailed for the South Atlantic, only three days after the Argentine invasion of the Falklands.