Siege of Tyre: Alexander the Great’s Assault on the Persians

By Marc G. De Santis

It was the autumn of 333 bc and Alexander the Great stood triumphant on the battlefield of Issus. Read more

Famous Soldiers: Shih Huang-ti

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

When rebel peasants under a charismatic army deserter named Liu Pang descended on the capital city of Hsien Yang in 206 bc, they did so under the considerable shadow of the Ch’in dynasty’s former ruler, Shih Huang-ti. Read more

Stately Minuet of Death: Maurice de Saxe at Fontenoy

By Vince Hawkins

In the Age of Reason, even wars were fought reasonably. Well-ordered marches, carefully dressed ranks of impeccably turned-out soldiers, and elaborately sketched battle plans were the order of the day in the so-called “lace wars” of the mid-18th century. Read more

WWII Spies: Oreste Pinto

By Robert Whiter

Two men were seated on either side of a paper-strewn table inside an office of MI5, the British intelligence service, in the Royal Victoria Patriotic School at Clapham, London, shortly after the fall of France in the spring of 1940. Read more

King Charles I: Decision at Naseby

By Arnold Blumberg

By the spring of 1645, the open warfare between King Charles I and his rebellious Parliament had dragged on for nearly three years, with no apparent end in sight. Read more

Militaria: WWI Helmets from French Troops

By Peter Suciu

Thick metal helmets were used since ancient times to offer protection to their wearers in combat and are among the earliest forms of armor. Read more

George Washington and Lord Cornwallis at Germantown

By Eric Niderost

On a gloomy Friday morning, September 26, 1777, an advance party of the British Army marched into Philadelphia to take possession of the city. Read more

Rose O’Neal Greenhow: The Spy Who Won Bull Run

By David Alan Johnson

“But for you, there would have been no Battle of Bull Run.” When Confederate President Jefferson Davis made that blanket statement in the summer of 1862, he was not addressing Pierre G.T. Read more

Bridegrooms of Death: The Spanish Foreign Legion

by John W. Osborn, Jr.

Spanish Legionaries charged into battle crying, “Long Live Death.” They sang of being “the Bridegrooms of Death” and proved they meant it with over 10,000 killed and 35,000 wounded. Read more

Australia’s Venerable Albert Jacka

By Thomas G. Bradbeer

He had the distinction of being the first Commonwealth soldier to receive the Victoria Cross for valor in World War I, and many observers felt that Australian-born Albert Jacka should have earned at least three of Great Britain’s highest award. Read more

Indian Rebellion of 1857: Two Years of Massacre and Reprisal

By John Brown

Three months before the Indian Rebellion of 1857, British East India Company officials manning outstations in the northwestern provinces of India began to notice the revival of a strange and disturbing local custom. Read more

The United States Naval Academy Museum

By Blaine Taylor

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

Roads to Bastogne

By Edward P. Beck

The Ardennes Forest in eastern Belgium seemed almost surreal in the last days of autumn 1944, a quiet backwater in a raging storm. Read more

The U.S. Splinter Fleet

By A.B. Feuer

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the nation’s Navy was shockingly short of combat ships—particularly the submarine chasers that would be vital to combating the German U-boat menace. Read more

Shaky Stand at Bladensburg

By Blaine Taylor

The British Army of soldiers, Royal Marines and naval infantry—actually sailors from His Majesty’s Navy fighting on dry land with musket, pike and cutlass—were marching full-tilt for the capital of the United States this hot, sweltering August 24, 1814. Read more

Revolutionary War Weapons: The American Long Rifle

By David Alan Johnson

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

Johnston Goes After Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh

By Earl Echelberry

By the end of the winter campaign of 1861-1862, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had shattered the Confederate defenses in northwest Tennessee with a combined land and water attack on Forts Henry and Donelson, forcing General Albert Sidney Johnston to abandon his bastion at Nashville and retreat southward. Read more

Julius Caesar’s Expedition to Brittania

By Ludwig Dyck

By the summer of 55 bc, 45-year-old Roman proconsul Gaius Julius Caesar was a veteran military campaigner. For the past three years, under his lead, the tramp of hobnailed sandals had resounded across the countryside of Gaul, the westernmost province of the Roman empire. Read more

Last-Ditch Roadblock at Hanau

By Matthew R. Lamothe

Tired, hungry, and typhoid-ridden, the French veterans in the Grand Army of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte staggered through the Fulda Gap in central Germany on October 27, 1813. Read more

The Duke of Marlborough at Malplaquet

by Herman T. Voelkner

England’s survival hung in the balance. She had only recently clashed with an imposing Continental alliance, in a futile war characterized by unprecedented slaughter on obscure fields in Flanders. Read more