General Mikhail Kutuzov and the Battle of the Danube

On April 1, 1811, one-eyed General Mikhail Kutuzov arrived in the Romanian capital of Bucharest to take command of Russia’s Moldavian army. Read more

Trenches

While we primarily focus on World War II games here, we’ll occasionally come across a title that makes it worth our while to step a little further back into the past. Read more

B-17s at Pearl Harbor

Lieutenant Commander Shigeru Itaya, sitting in his gray Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero, led two other fighters on another strafing run on the parking ramps and hangars of Hickam Army Air Base on Oahu. Read more

Tyler Perry, Netflix present the story of the all-Black, all-female 6888th Postal Battalion in World War II.

Actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry knows a great story when he comes across one. And when he read Kevin Hymel’s dramatic narrative of the 6888th Central Postal Battalion in the pages of WWII History magazine, he knew it was something special. Read more

Avoiding the Nameless Grave—Civil War ID Tags

The American Civil War may well have been the first major conflict in which soldiers felt the need to wear some sort of a personal identification badge in the event that they were killed or wounded in battle. Read more

Company B’s Tunisian Adventure

For the United States Army, the long road to Germany began in the mountainous deserts of Tunisia in mid-November 1942. Read more

Patton in WWI

History is full of great men and great deeds. All American schoolchildren know the story of George Washington crossing the Delaware River in the dead of winter during the Revolutionary War. Read more

Duel in the Desert: Operation Crusade’s Battle of Bardia

The desert sky lit up like a summer lightning storm on the night of December 31, 1941. The distant thunder of hundreds of guns rolled across the sandy, stony ground. Read more

The USS Macon

It is sometimes difficult to understand just how immature aviation was in the 1920s and 1930s. Everything about flying was new. Read more

WWII Concentration Camps: The Horrific Discovery at Buchenwald

When Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, the world changed forever.

Not only was Hitler determined to pay back Germany’s enemies for his country’s defeat during the Great War, but he was also determined to rid Germany and the rest of Europe of persons whom his twisted Aryan ideology believed were “inferior” or “subhuman.” Read more

Unholy Sabbath in Flanders

With his one good eye, French King Philip II looked east down the straight line of an old Roman road in the disputed county of Flanders on Sunday, July 27, 1214. Read more

Julius Streicher, Der Sturmer, and Fueling the Nazi Propaganda Machine

It was May 23, 1945, roughly a year before the execution of Julius Streicher, founder and publisher of the vilest anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda of the war. Read more

Samuel White Baker: British Explorer and Abolitionist

The men of the expeditionary force beat a hasty retreat through the seven-foot-tall African grasses. Poison-tipped arrows let loose by pursuing Bunyoro warriors rained down upon them in deadly torrents. Read more

Bloodbath at the Colline Gate

By the winter of 82 bc, the Roman civil war had been raging off and on for six years. Read more

The U.S. Army Medical Corps: Caring for the Casualties in World War II

For centuries wounded soldiers of every nation were responsible for much of their own care. Medical attention was primitive and often not a high priority for military planners beyond the officer corps. Read more

The Fourth Fitna: A Family Feud that Crippled a Caliphate

To his contemporaries, Harun al-Rashid, fifth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, seemed the most fortunate of men. Read more

In the Shadow of Sunrise: The Secret Surrender of Italy

On the morning of Friday, April 13, 1945, three men gathered at a table in L’Espadon of the Ritz Paris over a breakfast of coffee and croissants. Read more

Texan Victory at San Jacinto: Eighteen Minutes to Freedom

As long afternoon shadows rolled across the prairie near the confluence of the Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River in eastern Texas on April 21, 1836, two armed camps—one a small Texan force, the other a 1,400-man-strong Mexican army—lay within a scant 1,000 yards of each another. Read more

Collecting Medieval Military Books

The special packaging of the printed word between compact durable covers and a stitched spine—the book—is one of humanity’s greatest and most enduring achievements. Read more

The OSS and the Fourth Dimension of Warfare

Major General John K. Singlaub was a young airborne lieutenant when he took up an offer from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to become engaged in “hazardous duty behind enemy lines.” Read more