4th U.S. Regulars at Gettysburg

When the Civil War erupted in April 1861, the 10 companies of the 4th U.S. Read more

WWII Online: Battleground Europe

We may not think too much about the arrival of a new online shooter nowadays, but back when World War II Online first launched in 2001, the concept was still pretty novel. Read more

Operation Long Jump: The Nazi Assassination Attempt on the “Big Three”

In German it was called Operation Rösselsprung, which translates to “Long Jump.” Its goal was to kill or kidnap the Allies’ “Big Three” leaders––Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston S. Read more

Opening the Venona Files

On February 1, 1943, a group called the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service, the forerunner of the modern-day National Security Agency (NSA), began a project to intercept and analyze diplomatic signal traffic sent by an ally of the United States: the Soviet Union. Read more

Patton in Lorraine: Breaking the Moselle Line

By mid-September 1944, the U.S. Third Army was poised to strike at the soft underbelly of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich along a fabled corridor in northeastern France used for centuries by armies tramping across Europe. Read more

Sgt. John Basilone: Marine Hero of Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima

“Banzai! Banzai!” screamed the Japanese at the top of their lungs as they launched a ferocious night attack against Marines dug in on Guadalcanal. Read more

The Saar Offensive: Patton Breaks Through the Western Wall

The portion of the Siegfried Line guarding the Saar industrial region of Germany proved a sinister gateway into western Germany for Lt. Read more

The National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center

The American Infantry’s illustrious history, which is older than that of the country, comes alive in an impressive, $100,000,000, 190,000-square-foot museum located just outside Fort Benning, Georgia. Read more

Intelligence: Confederate Spies Used Newspapers to Communicate

The Herald, like other major New York newspapers, was packed with classified ads on November 1, 1863. Read more

Heroic Stand in Afghanistan

The 68 men of the Corps of Guides at the British Residency in Kabul all perished on September 3, 1879, but they died a magnificent death. Read more

French Aces on the Eastern Front: The Normandie-Niemen Squadron

The world was understandably shocked when France capitulated to Nazi Germany in June 1940, but not all Frenchmen accepted their country’s humiliation. Read more

D-Day+1: Canadians at the Battle of Buron and Authie

On June 7, 1944, D+1, two volunteer Canadian 3rd Division, 9th Infantry Brigade regiments, the North Nova Scotia Highlanders (the North Novas) and the 27th Canadian Armoured Regiment (the Sherbrooke Fusiliers)—together with volunteer units from the Camerons of Ottawa and Forward Observers from the 14th Field Regiment—fought an important but now generally forgotten battle in Normandy. Read more

The Days of Shoddy: Worst Manufacturers of the Civil War

“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

Albert Speer: Chief Architect of the Third Reich

On October 6, 1943, Dr. Albert Speer, Reich minister of armaments and war production for the Third Reich, gave a 50-minute address to the assembled top officials of Nazi Germany at Posen Castle in occupied Poland’s Reich Gau (Region) of Wartheland on the critical state of World War II at that point. Read more

The Arisaka Rifle: Weapons for the Imperial Japanese Army Way of War

As militarism grew in Japan in the early 1930s, conscription began at the age of 19, and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) cadet entered military service. Read more

WWII Aircraft: Nakajima Ki-43

At the start of World War II, Japanese airpower ruled the skies over China and the Pacific. Read more

A Fierce Glory: The Battle of Antietam

By Christopher Miskimon

In the late afternoon of September 17, 1862 the 7th Maine Regiment received new orders. The Battle of Antietam had raged throughout the day. Read more

The Battle of Arracourt: Patton’s Third Army vs Manteuffel’s Panzers

Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., the commander of the newly constituted U.S. Third Army, had one simple order that late summer of 1944: “Go east and go like Hell.” Read more

The South’s Famous Orphan Brigade

On April 15, 1861, three days after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteer troops. Read more

Geronimo: Ruthless Apache Chief

On March 5, 1851, a group of Mexican soldiers from Sonora plundered a lightly guarded Apache camp outside the village of Janos in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua 75 miles south of the U.S.-Mexican Read more