Chip Reid’s ‘Battle Scars’

It took the Marines of 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment 22 days to get to Baghdad. The author was a journalist embedded with them. Read more

Cole and Livingston’s ‘The Killing Ground’

Thermopylae is famous as the location of the battle between a force of 300 Spartans (albeit with thousands of other Greek troops present) and the invading Persian army in 480 BCE. Read more

James W. Miller’s ‘King of the Gunrunners’

By the early 1890s, John D. Hart was one of the largest importers of bananas on the East Coast. Read more

Wenzl and Heying’s ‘The Miracle of Father Kapaun’

Father Emil Kapaun served as a U.S. Army chaplain during the Korean War. His acts of bravery sound almost like legends. Read more

James Lechner’s ‘With My Shield’

Lieutenant James Lechner, a member of the 3rd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, went to Somalia in 1993 as part of a U.S. Read more

Jeremy Black’s ‘Military Strategy: A Global History’

In 1861, only the lower southern states seceded at first. Once it became apparent President Lincoln intended to use force to prevent secession, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia joined the Confederacy. Read more

H.W. Crocker III’s ‘Robert E. Lee on Leadership’

Though controversial today for his choice of sides during the American Civil War, Robert E. Lee was indisputably an able military leader. Read more

Deus le Veult! The Siege of Antioch

Shortly before dawn on June 3, 1098, Bohemund of Taranto, one of the leaders of the First Crusade and the survivor of many campaigns, stood in the shadow of the Tower of the Two Sisters, one of the strongest points in the defenses of the ancient city of Antioch. Read more

Hell in a Small Place: the Canadian Paratroopers of Operation Varsity

In the hut no one spoke, no one joked. The assembled British and Canadian paratroop commanders awaited the briefing from their brigade commander on their next major operation. Read more

Military Secrets: The Nazi Spies Who Never Were

As the 1930s unfolded, Adolf Hitler sought to avoid having Great Britain join the war he intended to launch. Read more

Defending the Pass at the Battle of Thermopylae

What nation of Asia, did not Xerxes lead against Hellas? —Herodotus

On the Doricus, the vast Thracian plain and beach on the Aegean coast, rose a stronghold. Read more

Famous Fighter Aces: Edward Mannock

The agent from the American consul followed a Turkish guard through the prisoner compound. It was early 1915, and he had come on behalf of the Red Cross seeking prisoner exchange for the worst cases in this miserable, disease-ridden place. Read more

Fortunino Matania and the Art of War

The short, slim man strove to keep still despite the stifling heat and the perspiration trickling down his face and neck. Read more

Mirrors on the Mountains

When Brig. Gen. Nelson A. Miles finally met Geronimo in Skeleton Canyon, four miles above the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona Territory on September 3, 1886, the U.S. Read more

If Lessons are Learned, ‘Fighting the Last War’ can Yield a Positive Result

An astounding range of human capacities can be found throughout military heritage—bravery, fortitude and sacrifice of ordinary men and women engaged in the often heartbreaking act of making history. Read more

Final Attack at the Battle of Stones River

Late in the morning of January 2, 1863, Confederate Maj. Gen. John Breckinridge gazed through the brush at newly arrived Union infantry occupying a partially wooded hill to his front near Murfreesboro, Tenn. Read more

Death on the Hill of Doves: The Battle of Majuba Hill

In 1814, as a consequence of her victory in the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain was formally ceded the Dutch South African territory of Cape Colony. Read more

Helmets of the Superpowers—Soviet and American— attract collectors.

The basic shape of the American M1 helmet and the Soviet M40 helmets became iconic symbols of the Cold War and remain popular with collectors today. Read more

Frederick the Great & the Battle of Rossbach

The evening of June 18, 1757, found the remnants of Frederick the Great’s Prussian army in full flight toward the Kaiser-Strasse (Imperial Road) in Bohemia. Read more

The Plot Against Einstein

When Albert Einstein arrived in Pasadena, California, in early 1933, he was to take up his duties as visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology for about three months. Read more