After the Great War, in which American troops were sent into combat with either the bolt-action M1903 Springfield rifle or the bolt-action British Enfield, planners in the War Department realized that, if the United States were ever drawn in combat again, they would need a far superior weapon. Read more
When the end came, on April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was sitting in his customary pew at St. Read more
It was called “rodding,” and it was a complex manual procedure used by British cryptographers at Hut Eight in the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park to decipher Italian Naval Enigma coded messages. Read more
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
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
“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
It was raining heavily, a deluge of almost Biblical proportions that hammered down on the exhausted men of the Union’s Army of the Tennessee. Read more
For a week before November 20, 1943, U.S. Navy and Seventh Air Force planes did their best to destroy the Japanese defenses on the tiny Pacific atoll of Tarawa. Read more
England’s long downward slide to defeat in the Hundred Years’ War began with the failed siege of Orleans in 1428. Read more
The south of Ireland, officially known as Eire and often referred to by many residing there as the “Free State,” declared its neutrality when World War II erupted suddenly in September 1939. Read more
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
The “Raising of the Flag” photo taken by 33-year-old Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on the fifth day of the Iwo Jima battle provided the world with a much-needed uplifting symbol in February 1945. Read more
There are important similarities between Hitler’s final great push into Belgium and Luxembourg and Mussolini’s drive south of Garfagnana. Read more
“For sugar the government often got sand; for coffee, rye; for leather, something no better than brown paper; for sound horses and mules, spavined beasts and dying donkeys; and for serviceable muskets and pistols, the experimental failures of sanguine inventors, or the refuse of shops and foreign armories.” Read more
Recently put ashore, three companies of U.S. Marines advanced stealthily along the Matanikau River on the northern coast of Guadalcanal on September 27, 1942. Read more
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
An army that will be poised for victory requires élan, military intellect, a penchant for tactical and strategic innovation, and the zeal to use the most qualified individuals for training and leadership. Read more
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
Swirls of black smoke billowed high above the steeples and splintered roofs as Lieutenant Ronald Speirs surveyed the stucco exteriors of storefronts and dwellings pocked by the scars of urban battle. Read more
As they formed ranks on the Hanover Road one mile east of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, the men in the II Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia stared anxiously at the giant boulders and towering oak trees dotting the humpbacked prominence known as Culp’s Hill, three quarters of a mile southeast of town. Read more
