After having failed to conquer his long-time rival Greece, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini asked Axis partner Adolf Hitler for help. Here, German soldiers raise the German war banner atop the Acropolis in Athens after forcing the Greeks to surrender on April 27, 1941. Terrible atrocities by the Germans against the Greek populace followed.

The Greek Holocaust

By Nathan N. Prefer

In late 1940 and early 1941, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler was concentrating on his next great conquest, the Soviet Union. Read more

Luftwaffe Attacks Civilian DC-3

On the morning of June 1, 1943, the Douglas DC-3 lifted off from the airport at Lisbon in neutral Portugal. BOAC Flight 777 or Dutch KLM Flight 2L272, as it had been designated, carried 13 passengers and its crew on a flight bound for London. Read more

Philip vs Edward at the Battle of Crécy

By Robert Suhr

Philip of Valois, for long have we made suit before you by embassies and all other ways which we knew to be reasonable, to the end that you should be willing to have restored unto us our right, our heritage of France, which you have long kept back and most wrongfully occupied.” Read more

Nineteenth-century artist Felix Philippoteaux created this painting of one of the French cavalry charges against a British square. The first row of Scots set their rifle butts in the ground, presenting bayonets to the horses, which shied at the sight. Philippoteaux made the hills steeper than they actually are.

Charge After Charge

By Jonathan North

In June 1815, Napoleon’s insatiable appetite for war took him to the rye fields around Mont St. Jean and the little village of Waterloo. Read more

Byzantine Spies in the Byzantine–Sassanid Wars

By Arnold Blumberg

Byzantium, the successor state to ancient Rome, lasted over a thousand years. But it all could have been different because its first major enemy—Persia—was a fierce and determined competitor bent on the Empire’s demise. Read more

Early 15th-century Italy was a caldron of warfare from which mercenaries like Bartolomeo Colleoni could make a name and a fortune. Below is a 1432 battle between Florentines and Sienese.

Bartolomeo Colleoni’s Art of War

By Jonathan North

Bartolomeo Colleoni was a Renaissance success story. A simple mercenary, he rose from obscurity to the most important position on the Italian peninsula: commander-in-chief of the armies of Venice. Read more

Philadelphia Military Artifacts

By Eric Niderost

Philadelphia is an historic city, rich in monuments dating from America’s colonial, Revolutionary, and early national periods. As every schoolchild knows, the Declaration of Independence was approved in Philadephia, and the city served as the nation’s capital from 1790 to 1800. Read more

First Maine Cavalry shown skirmishing with Spencer carbines at an unnamed battle in drawing by Alfred Waud.

The Spencer Carbine

By Kelly Bell

Confederate soldiers bitterly called it “that damned Yankee carbine they load on Sunday, and then fire all week.” Read more

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Battle of Marengo

By Eric Niderost

On March 17, 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte closeted himself in his study at the Tuileries Palace in Paris and ordered his private secretary, Louis Fauvelet de Bourrienne, to unroll a large map of Italy and lay it on the floor. Read more

“The Hanging of Nathan Hale , New York 1776” by Don Troiani.

Continental Army Captain Nathan Hale

By Kevin Seabrooke

On the night of September 16, 1776, young Nathan Hale, a captain in the Continental Army, set out across Long Island Sound from his native Connecticut on the armed sloop Schuyler. Read more

Comanche warriors ride into San Antonio, Texas, March 19, 1840, to discuss a potential peace treaty with representatives of the new Republic of Texas.

The Great Comanche Raid of 1840

By Eric Niderost

It was a colorful spectacle few citizens in San Antonio, Texas, had ever expected to see: a large delegation of Comanches coming in to discuss terms of a possible peace treaty. Read more

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