Most writings about World War II tend to attribute the success or failure of military operations to the skill with which generals and admirals handled their forces in battle and to the fighting abilities of soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Read more
At the start of the Second Boer War in 1899, Winston Churchill sailed to Cape Town, South Africa, where he served as a journalist for the Morning Post. Read more
With the defeat of the German Seventh Army and the closing of the Falaise Gap in the summer of 1944, the Allies pursued the retreating enemy across France. Read more
The century of conflict that would introduce the concept of total war to the world had its bloody roots on an obscure hilltop in the remote South African veldt. Read more
With bond clerk Marge Henning standing by as a witness, Colonel Frank Eldridge removed the first piece of the puzzle. Read more
A hard, late-afternoon rain was falling on May 5, 1862, and the slopes at the foot of Puebla, Mexico’s twin forts were too slippery for another assault. Read more
On May 6, 1942, in the Malinta Tunnel, Corregidor Island, General Jonathan Wainwright waited for the Japanese to respond to his surrender offer with a cease-fire. Read more
Two brigades of Confederate soldiers crested a slight hill above a wheat field and looked down on the blue clad soldiers waiting for them in the brickyard below. Read more
Donald L. Versaw joined the U.S. Marine Corps on Armistice Day, November 11, 1939. After basic training and a stint in the Marine Corps Operating Base Band in San Diego, he was sent overseas to join the Fourth Marines Band in Shanghai. Read more
For nearly a century, England and the Netherlands were longtime allies in the Eighty Years’ War against the Spanish Empire. Read more
Although the great Crusades were over by 1309 ad, one old crusading order continued to evolve, flourish, and make enemies—the Knights Hospitallers of St. Read more
The German Army found itself facing a massive challenge in the spring of 1944, just months before its total disaster at the Battle of Brody — they were facing the possibility of a war on three fronts. Read more
By the early 1770s, with a full century of settlement already behind it, Charleston, S.C., had come into its own as a thriving urban center. Read more
It was unbelievably dull and uncomfortable duty, often interspersed with moments of sheer terror and the possibility of sudden and violent death. Read more
In February 1945, General Douglas MacArthur was poised to begin one of the great battles of his career. Read more
Young and ambitious, recently crowned English king Henry V had a dynastic point to make, one that would relieve him of the taint of royal illegitimacy born of the fact that his father had usurped the English throne a mere decade before. 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
For many history buffs, the date 1066 conjures up an image of Norman knights breaking through the shield wall of the ax-wielding Anglo-Saxons at Senlac Hill. Read more
Up front, guns chattered. Out back, in his pressurized compartment aboard a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber high over Japan, Andy Doty heard a warning shouted over the intercom. Read more
This is a story of what might have been. If Japan had chosen to attack far-off British Malaya on December 7, 1941, instead of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, President Franklin Roosevelt was prepared to go before Congress and ask—for the first time in American history—for a declaration of war against a nation that had not fired the first shot against us. Read more
