The United States Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis, Maryland, is “an educational and inspirational resource for the Naval Academy Brigade of Midshipmen, other students of American naval history and thousands of visitors each year,” according to Shayne Sewell, assistant media relations director at the USNA Public Affairs Office. Read more
Early in June 1940, refugees from northern France and the low Countries who had flooded Paris in May fled with the residents of the city as the German advance neared. Read more
On Capitol Hill Tuesday, February 3, executives from the Swiss financial giant UBS were grilled by Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and the U.S. Read more
Union soldiers streamed across the pontoon bridge at Deep Bottom on the tidal portion of the James River in the early morning hours of September 29, 1864. Read more
The German paratroopers marched the captured Canadian officer through the dark forest to the damp underground bunker that served as their platoon headquarters. Read more
On the banks of the rain-swollen Shangani River, a small force of white militiamen closed ranks as hundreds of Matabele warriors swarmed around them. Read more
“We went to London in ones and twos during our precious 24-hour passes to transfer and pick up our U.S. Read more
Although formal training in the use of the pike—an ash-handled spear 18 to 20 feet long—did not begin until the 15th century, ancient Greeks and Romans used so-called “long spears” as standard infantry issue against cavalry. Read more
“Peiper must be stopped!”
Lieutenant General Courtney M. Hodges, commanding the U.S. First Army, looked up from his maps and saw chaos everywhere. Read more
One of the most hard-fighting divisions in the Army of the Cumberland, the one led by Maj. Read more
Built in the mid-1930s as one of the famed Treasury class of large U.S. Coast Guard cutters, USCGC Taney had a distinguished career spanning five decades of continuous service. Read more
Had he—and not Emmanuel, the Marquis of Grouchy—been named a Marshal of France on April 1, 1815, General Count Jean Rapp might have helped the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte win the Battle of Waterloo. Read more
On Monday, May 21, 1945, men of the British 51st Highland Division were busy screening Germans and foreign nationals, mainly displaced persons attempting to go west over a small bridge near newly conquered Bremervoerde, Germany. Read more
By the mid-1700’s, the American long rifle had acquired an almost supernatural reputation. To the British troops who were unfortunate enough to come up against it in combat during the Revolutionary War, the rifle was more an affliction than a weapon. Read more
Operation Typhoon, Germany’s final effort to capture Moscow, ground to a halt within sight of the Soviet capital as the temperatures hovered between -30ºF and -40ºF in early December 1941. Read more
It had been a little over six months since Major General William S. Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland had checked the Confederates at the Battle of Stones River (December 31,1862–January 2,1863). Read more
On March 12, 1939, Heroes’ Memorial Day (or Veterans Day) in the Nazi Third Reich, the thousands of onlookers at the giant annual parade in Berlin were treated to an unusual sight as a small monoplane landed on the Unter den Linden between Hermann Göring’s State Opera House and the Neue Wache (New Guardshouse). Read more
The year 1776 ended on a high note for Washington’s Continental Army despite its earlier devastating defeats on Long Island and Manhattan. Read more
In most popular spy thrillers, secret agents are tall, handsome, virile, and irresistible to women. Whether their name is Dirk Pitt, Jack Ryan, or James Bond, all are hard-drinking, well-tailored ladies’ men. Read more
The shafted ax has been around since 6000 bc, in both peaceful and warlike uses. The so-called battle-ax cultures (3200 to 1800 bc) extended over much of northern Europe from the late Stone Age through the early Bronze Age. Read more
