Within a few weeks of the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” at Lexington and Concord, the fledgling United States, its army mostly underequipped militia, set out to defeat the British Army. Read more
During the early spring of 1949, North Korean ruler Kim Il Sung visited Moscow. His nation’s first economic plan had ended in failure after two years; the plight of the country was desperate. Read more
The CSS Alabama went to her watery grave on June 19, 1864, off the coast of France, but the lingering effects of her wartime successes made naval history: she continued to haunt the American and British governments for years to come, embroiling the two English-speaking nations in a legal test of wills that would last well into the next decade. Read more
Spring had finally arrived in the mountainous area of the Austrian Waldviertel, land of long winters and short summers. Read more
In the early morning of December 16, 1944, 80-man German shock companies from the 5th Panzer Army slipped toward the American lines in the Ardennes region under the cover of heavy fog. Read more
To the people of the Scottish Highlands the Battles of the previous year had seemed a distant concern. Read more
Major Sam P. Bakshas woke up that morning with the secrets in his head.
Bakshas was one of the men flying B-29 Superfortress bombers from three Pacific islands—Guam, Saipan, and Tinian. Read more
On February 7, 1943, while on patrol in the Southwest Pacific Ocean, U.S. Navy Commander Howard W. Gilmore, commander of the USS Growler (SS-215), and his crew carved out a place for themselves in Navy legend and set a standard of duty that is remembered in the submarine service today. Read more
Few men’s names resonate after two thousand years, for it is a very long stretch of time. Read more
Two days after the unparalleled bloodletting at Antietam, a bushy-bearded Scottish photographer and his pudgy, clean-shaven assistant rolled onto the battlefield with their bulky stereoscopic cameras and portable darkroom. Read more
When word of the German breakthrough in the Ardennes Forest began to move back to the rear echelons of the American command in Western Europe, General Maxwell Taylor, commanding officer of the 101st Airborne Division, was attending a conference in Washington, D.C. Read more
“The woeful inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the Church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter,” reads the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, referring to the savage sacking of the island monastery off the coast of Northumbria in ad 793. Read more
War spared no one. As modern armies clashed in France’s Normandy countryside, French civilians found themselves in the crossfire or on the receiving end of bombs and heavy weapons. Read more
On October 4, 2013, Nicholas Oresko passed away in an Englewood, New Jersey hospital at the age of 96. Read more
The British Admiralty Board of Enquiry into the loss of the battlecruiser HMS Hood, presided over by Vice Admiral Sir Geoffrey Blake, concluded, “The sinking of Hood was due to a hit from Bismarck’s 15-inch shell in or adjacent to Hood’s 4-inch or 15-inch magazines, causing them to explode and wreck the after part of the ship.” Read more
This year marks the 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord, commonly known as “D-Day.” Of course, every military operation had a “D-day,” which simply means the date that the operation is scheduled to begin. Read more
This year I feel deeply honored to have been chosen by the Smithsonian Institution to lead three 70th anniversary D-Day trips to England and France (one took place in May; the other two are scheduled to take place in September and October). Read more
Soldatenkaffee, named after a café frequented by German soldiers in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, is, thankfully, one of a number of choices for luncheon fare in Bandung, Indonesia. Read more
It can be a hefty challenge to shrink a majorly popular console/PC experience down to the world of mobile gaming without sacrificing too much of what made it work in the first place. Read more
Many militaria collectors can trace the roots of their hobby to their childhood encounters with toy soldiers. For American kids in the 1930s and 1940s, this may have been with three-inch-tall American-made Manoils or Barclays from the local dime store. Read more
