What drives Putin is a grab-bag of emotional motives. His man in Kiev got overthrown, and he doesn't like to lose face, writes Gwynne Dyer.

Rising Hollywood star Kodi Smit-McPhee hates war.

As 4500 tonnes of explosives fell from 800 British planes, 25,000 Dresdeners died in a raging firestorm and the heart of their historic city was obliterated.

"Urgent. Soldiers of the Islamic State captured 21 Christian crusaders," was a barely noticed statement issued on social media last month by Isis - not in Syria, Iraq, but in Libya.

66: Sheep farmer Percy Overton was 37 when he sailed for war in October 1914.

One hundred years ago today, a skinny young labourer from Ngatimoti died on a dusty field on the other side of the world.

65: Evan Hudson's family made sure he would not be forgotten.

One hundred years after a Tauranga mill-hand was cut down by machine-gun fire high on Gallipoli Peninsula, his war medals have been reunited with his descendants.

Jordan yesterday renewed its offer to swap a convicted terrorist for the return of its air force pilot held captive by Isis.

64: War-weary soldiers forgot their troubles when they saw the New Zealand Pierrots take to the stage.

63: Inscribed on one of the bells in the National War Memorial is a tribute to Leslie Heron Beauchamp.

62: William Clachan was made of tough stuff. The Wellington schoolteacher was wounded three times on the Western Front.

A 46-year-old Ukrainian tank commander says politicians might yet stop the conflict that grips the east of his country, but supplies of arms from the West would bring a quicker result.

61: Today we might call them special forces. When Robert Kenneth Nicol joined a top secret British Army unit in 1918, it was known as the "hush-hush brigade".

A lost documentary Alfred Hitchcock made about the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps during World War Two has finally reached screens thanks to movie mogul Brett Ratner.

60: At the outbreak of World War I, Victor Spencer joined queues of young volunteers eager to fight for king and country.

Few major institutions in Auckland's history devoted 82 per cent of their staff to a war.

57: One hundred and forty chaplains accompanied New Zealand forces to war.

57: Important chapters in Alfred Shout's life took place on both sides of the Tasman and he is remembered with pride in New Zealand and Australia.

The war is officially over, victory secured. And Afghanistan, once again, has been rebuilt. But for many, life in the restive provinces is much as it ever was.

Anton Tumanov gave up his life for his country, but his country won't say where and it won't say how.

There is a scene in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass in which Alice meets the White Knight who is wearing full armour and riding a horse which he keeps falling off.

The father of a Jordanian pilot captured by Isis after his plane crashed pleaded for his son's release, as reports emerged that the jihadists were preparing to publicly execute him.

Captured Yazidi girls in Iraq are killing themselves to escape rape and torture at the hands of Isis (Islamic State) militants holding them prisoner.

One Christmas story above all deserves a run this year: the sound of Silent Night from the trenches in the first Christmas of the Great War.

A veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion, he fought alongside Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, and has a treasure trove of anecdotes...

A 93-year-old German man Oskar Groening, who claims he was an accountant at Auschwitz, to go on trial for being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 prisoners.

A 15-year-old was prevented from joining Isis by British police who hauled her off a plane at Heathrow just as it was due to take off.