Military History
Almost a decade after winning the Revolutionary War against Great Britain, the youthful United States was determined to expand its territorial boundaries and become a truly continental nation. Read more
Military History
By 1944, many top generals in Adolf Hitler’s army understood the war was lost and that they had better make arrangements to ensure their safety. Read more
Military History
“Early in the year 1861, I was at my headquarters in the city of Chicago, attending to the manifold duties of my profession. Read more
Military History
England’s long downward slide to defeat in the Hundred Years’ War began with the failed siege of Orleans in 1428. Read more
Military History
News arrived in the capital city that the British army had defeated a hastily-gathered and rag-tag collection of American soldiers, sailors, militiamen, and government clerks in Maryland at Bladensburg. Read more
Military History
The drone of a Royal Air Force bomber could be heard overhead in the early morning of August 8, 1918, as it flew up and down the Allied line near Amiens, France. Read more
Military History
In 1917, after almost three years of hard fighting in World War I, the Romanov dynasty came to an end with the abdication of Czar Nicolas II of Russia. Read more
Military History
In late March 1781, American Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene sought to make the best of a bad situation. Read more
Military History
South Africa in the spring of 1978 was a country besieged. The apartheid state was increasingly unpopular with its neighbors and unable to control its own restive black population. Read more
Military History
Young and ambitious, recently crowned English king Henry V had a dynastic point to make, one that would relieve him of the taint of royal illegitimacy born of the fact that his father had usurped the English throne a mere decade before. Read more
Military History
French King Louis XIV first standardized uniforms in 1657 when the king gave the companies of Masion du Roy blue uniforms. Read more
Military History
Spanish Legionaries charged into battle crying, “Long Live Death.” They sang of being “the Bridegrooms of Death” and proved they meant it with over 10,000 killed and 35,000 wounded. Read more
Military History
Sergeant Joseph Plumb Martin, a sapper in the Continental Army, waited for the signal that would begin the night attack on two enemy-held redoubts. Read more
Military History
Collecting handwritten documents and letters on military subjects is as long-standing as military history itself. By general definition, when a letter is written and signed by a person, it is considered a holograph (or autograph letter), but a document is something written by an official or servant and then signed by an important person. Read more
Military History
Bright sunshine flooded the sedge-covered, damp ground in Sussex on the morning of October 14, 1066. Having attended mass at sunrise, Duke William of Normandy shouted commands to his senior officers outlining their positions for the coming battle with English King Harold II Godwinson’s army. Read more
Military History
After nearly 150 years of service to the British crown, the Royal Marines had upwards of 31,000 marines worldwide at the time of the War of 1812, which constituted about 13 percent of the 240,000 British troops under arms around the globe at that time. Read more
Military History
Deposed Catholic King James II had come to Ireland with hopes of regaining the throne of England, and after a year of minor successes and setbacks, the time had come for him to make a stand. Read more
Military History
The American combat soldier today looks quite a bit different from his ancestor of 100 years ago. Besides the style of uniform, which now features a digital camouflage pattern to blend into desert surroundings, the fabrics today are far more breathable than the heavy wool that was worn when American soldiers went “Over There” in World War I. Read more
Military History
Specialist 4 George McDonald leaped out of a UH-1 helicopter on November 14, 1965, into a hellish firefight. Read more
Military History
It was late November, 1812, and the fate of Napoleon’s Grande Armee hung in the balance. Several Russian armies were closing in, but if the French crossed the 300-foot-wide Berezina River, the bedraggled survivors of a once great army might still manage to escape the trap. Read more
