Within hours of the entry of Great Britain and France into World War II on September 3, 1939, the British liner SS Athenia was sunk by a German U-boat off the northwestern coast of Ireland, with the loss of 112 dead, including 28 American citizens. Read more
Marvie is a quiet town nestled in the Ardennes region of southern Belgium. A farming village with a population of several hundred people, history has almost forgotten the town, but on one day in December 1944, Marvie lay astride a road that led to another town—Bastogne. Read more
Hitler’s Germany was known for its organization and efficiency, as well as its deprivations, terror, and cruelty. This was exemplified in its security forces. Read more
In June 1943, with the war on the island of New Guinea in its last stages, a proposal was under discussion in Washington that the huge Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain be bypassed and “left to wither on the vine.” Read more
Reginald Alexander was born in Gardnerville, Nevada, in 1924 to Scottish émigré parents who were originally from Westcolvin, Scotland. Read more
When the United States Army mobilized for defense in the fall of 1940, the peacetime draftees, National Guardsmen, reservists, and regulars carried Model 1903 Springfield rifles; the Guardsmen wore puttees; and all the soldiers covered their heads with the doughboy helmet—head-to-foot relics of World War I. Read more
Not all World War II heroes were men or women. Some were four-legged, hoofed, or winged. They included horses and mules, elephants, and dogs as well as more exotic animals such as bats, camels, reindeer, and pigeons. Read more
Among the thousands of American soldiers slogging through the miserable winter of 1944 in southern Italy after the Allied landing at Anzio were two GIs who existed only on paper, but who became as real to their readers as the mud-covered, K-ration-eating guys sitting next to them in their foxholes. Read more
Peering out over the horizon, Austrian commander Prince Eugene of Savoy could see an army of Turks, the dreaded masters of southeastern Europe for the past three centuries, crossing the Tisza River near the town of Zenta on their way to pillage Transylvania. Read more
Around noon on September 25, 1846, Brig. Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny mounted his bay horse and raised a hand in salute. Read more
When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Joseph Stilwell was already a highly regarded officer. Read more
By the fall of 1916, Canadian soldiers fighting in the trenches on the Western Front had already distinguished themselves in battle. Read more
A hushed awe fell over the Army medical inspectors at New York’s National Guard Armory when William Delaney’s clothing hit the white tiled floor. Read more
“I’ve come to you from Moscow. The Central Committee of the Communist Party has ordered your liquidation.” Read more
In the summer of 1814, the residents of the District of Columbia and surrounding counties in Maryland and Virginia had considerable cause for concern. Read more
At first glance—especially for those who aren’t too familiar with Japanese games—it might be hard to imagine Sega’s Valkyria Chronicles as a hardcore wartime strategy game. Read more
In the early 15th century, the strongest military powers in the world resided in Asia. Arguably, no two were more powerful than the Ottoman Empire of Bayezid I and the Tartar Empire of Tamerlane (Timur the Lame). Read more
On October 2, 1187, the population of Jerusalem agreed to terms for the surrender of the city to Saladin and his army. Read more
Rear Admiral Keiji Shibasaki, commander of the elite Japanese garrison entrenched on tiny Betio Island in the central Pacific Ocean, boasted in mid-1943 that his heavily fortified island redoubt could hold out “against a million Americans for a thousand years.” Read more
Captain John T. Myers’ detachment of U.S. Marines was far from home on July 3, 1900, in the thick of the Boxer Rebellion. Read more
