Lest we forget: military history on Wikimedia platforms
ANZAC Day means many things to Australians - a public commemoration, a family tradition, a school lesson, a research rabbit hole that starts with a great-grandparent's service record and doesn't end for hours! For many Australians, it's a day spent looking things up.
Wikimedia's family of platforms holds one of the largest freely accessible collections of Australian military history anywhere on the web. Here's a guide to what's there and how to find it.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia's coverage of Australian military history is extensive and, in many areas, genuinely good. The WikiProject Military History is one of the largest and most active WikiProjects on the English Wikipedia, with thousands of articles rated as Good Article or Featured Article standard. Wikipedia editors use this project space to discuss issues in research, keep up with news and collaborate on open tasks.
Key articles worth knowing about:
- Australian and New Zealand Army Corps — the formation, the Gallipoli campaign, the broader Western Front story
- Battle of Gallipoli (1915–1916) — detailed campaign history
- Kokoda Track campaign — one of Australia's most significant Second World War engagements
- Australian War Memorial — history, collection, and significance of the institution itself
Wikipedia also holds articles on individual units, campaigns, vessels, aircraft, and — increasingly — individual service members, particularly those recognised with the Victoria Cross or other significant honours.
See also:
- Traditions and rituals on Anzac Day - parliament of Australia
Wikimedia Commons
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Wikimedia Commons is a free media repository holding more than 100 million files — photographs, maps, drawings, audio, and video — all under free licences or in the public domain. For Australian military history, it really is an extraordinary resource.
Key categories to explore:
- Military history of Australia — the top-level category, with dozens of subcategories by conflict, unit, and period
- Australian and New Zealand Army Corps — photographs, maps, and documents from the First World War
- Australian War Memorial — images of the memorial itself and items from its collection that have been donated to Commons under open licences
Many of the photographs on Commons were originally held by the Australian War Memorial, which has over the years contributed images to open access repositories. Where those images carry free licences, they can be used freely — by educators, journalists, researchers, or anyone else!
See also:
Why does it matter?
All of this is free — not just free to read, but free to reuse, share, and build on. No paywall, no subscription, no requests needed. Teachers can use these images in classroom resources. Journalists can reproduce the photographs. Families researching a relative's service record can follow the links.
We know the coverage isn't perfect. There are gaps, particularly for less-documented conflicts, for Indigenous Australians who served, and for stories outside the dominant Gallipoli narrative. Those gaps are worth filling, and Wikimedia Australia runs editing programs specifically to address them.
Want to learn more?
- Introduction to Wikipedia - May 2026 — Wednesday 6 May 2026
Learn how Wikipedia content is created - Intro to Wiki Referencing - 1Lib1Ref — Thursday 21 May 2026
New to Wiki editing or need a refresher? We are hosting a free online workshop to walk you through how to add citations to Wikipedia.
ANZAC Day is a day for remembering. Wikimedia's platforms are part of how that memory stays accessible — to anyone, anywhere in the world, for free.
Images
- Photo of Daylight Anzac Dawn Service Belmont Western Australia in 2017, by JarrahTree, CC BY 2.5 AU, via Wikimedia Commons
- Photo of Nurses at New Zealand Stationary Hospital, Wisques, France, World War I, 1918, donated by the Archives of New Zealand, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Photo of women laying wreaths on the wharf at Woolloomooloo, Sydney by Sam Hood, donated by State Library of New South Wales collection, no restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
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