Les Canadiens face aux Guerres mondiales

During both world wars, women were trained to shoot guns and perform military maneuvers. The first two contingents of women were established in 1941 to serve as auxiliaries to the air force and the army.

Nicknamed the Quebec 'Rambo', Léo Major distinguished himself by his acts of bravery during the Second World War. He lost an eye during the Normandy invasion, but refused to retire. Afterwards, he accomplished many feats.

The most highly decorated First Nations soldier for bravery in Canadian military history, Pegahmagabow was the most effective Canadian sniper of the First World War.

The First World War broke out and Prime Minister Robert Borden's desire to send a large number of soldiers provoked stormy debates in the country that would lead to a real crisis when conscription was implemented in 1917.

In 1914, the Canadian government asked the population to participate in the war effort. Almanda Walker-Marchand took the initiative of gathering French-speaking women in the Ottawa area to answer the call.

Born in 1923, French-Canadian singer Alys Robi rose to prominence during the Second World War, in part because she toured Canadian military bases.

At the time of the Dieppe landing, Dollard Ménard was the youngest lieutenant-colonel of the Canadian Forces to lead a battalion. His unit was the first of the French-Canadian units to come under fire.

Invented around 1937 by Canadian engineers Donald Hings and Alfred J. Gross, the first walkie-talkie to be commercialized was the Motorola SCR-300. Fifty thousand of them were manufactured during the Second World War. It transformed warfare in the field.

Canada's contribution to the First World War was marked by the installation of YMCA huts. Located behind the trenches, they were often the center of social life for Canadian soldiers.

In the summer of 1914, Francophones were practically absent from the Canadian army. On October 15, 1914, the government of Robert Laid Borden officially allowed the creation of a Francophone unit, the 22nd Battalion.

Durant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, des Canadiens ont mis au point plusieurs inventions : appareil magnétique pour détecter les mines, dispositif antitorpille, liquide antibuée pour les voitures, fourrure artificielle, caoutchouc synthétique, etc.

In 1919, Mary Riter Hamilton undertook a 'special mission' for the War Amps of Canada. The painter had spent more than three years on the battlefields painting the atrocities and documenting the First World War.

Canadian Nursing Sisters played an important role in both World Wars. The call for French-Canadian nursing sisters began on March 8, 1915 with the creation by Ottawa of the French-Canadian Hospital (FCH).

During the Second World War, a dozen French Canadians risked their lives as announcers or war correspondents, mainly for the French-language Radio-Canada, the BBC and the Allied radio in Algiers.

It was a combination of political, geological and geographical circumstances that brought Canada into the nuclear age. Thanks to its central role in the Manhattan Project, the country ended the war with the world's second nuclear infrastructure.