The period of conflict in the second half of the 15th Century, known generally as the Wars of the Roses, is one of the more chaotic and dramatic times in British history. Read more
On August 24, 1914, 44 Americans joined the French Foreign Legion to fight the new war against Germany. Read more
English settlers arrived in North America and established the Jamestown colony in 1607. They hoped for fortune growing tobacco and maintained difficult relations with the Powhatan Confederacy. Read more
On September 2, 1945, Japanese representatives boarded the battleship USS Missouri, riding at anchor in Tokyo Bay, to sign an instrument of unconditional surrender. Read more
More than 16 million Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II, but as fluid as the situation was in the Pacific, and considering the priority given to the European Theater, it is difficult to obtain an accurate count of how many served in the Pacific at any one time during World War II. Read more
After China fell to Communist rule in 1949, it became a new threat to the West in the fledgling Cold War. Read more
Two days after receiving intelligence on the route of an important enemy convoy, the USS Sculpin (Sargo-class submarine SS-191) made radar contact with the Japanese ships near the Caroline Islands in the Western Pacific Ocean. Read more
On March 4, 1861, with war clouds threatening the land, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated the 16th president of the United States. Read more
Today’s Navy SEALs (for Sea, Air, and Land special warfare experts) have a history shrouded in secrecy. Commissioned in 1962, they are the most elite shore-area Special Forces in the world, concentrating on very select and often-clandestine intelligence gathering and precision strike missions. Read more
She was the lead ship of her class, built under the 1930 London Naval Treaty, which imposed limits on cruiser, destroyer, and submarine tonnage for the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. Read more
For the thousands of Allied soldiers who had fought and suffered for so long in the shadow of the abbey of Monte Cassino, Tuesday morning, February 15, 1944, was a time of joy and celebration. Read more
The Carthaginian hero Hannibal Barca has long been considered to have possessed one of history’s greatest military minds. Read more
Oddly, the fall of the brilliant King Gustavus Adolphus on the field of battle marked both the beginning of Sweden’s rise to power and the end of one of the most aggressive ages of military reform. Read more
On February 28, 1942, Governor Ralph Lawrence Carr of Colorado received a telegram from the White House. At that moment he was in his office, surrounded by staff, but routine business had to be put on hold while Carr quickly scanned the missive that came directly from the president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. Read more
After the long journey from Germany to Istanbul, their escape to North Africa and finally to England, the two defectors ended up in an apartment in South Kensington, one of the more wealthy neighborhoods of London. Read more
Robert the Bruce, self-proclaimed King of the Scots, grasped his axe as the heavily armored English nobleman, a member of the vanguard of the 20,000-strong English army, bore down upon him, lance leveled and clods of earth arching from his charger’s hoofs. Read more
For much of its history, artillery has been a weapon of mass destruction and attrition, a force designed to cause casualties, destroy fortifications, and wear an enemy down with its noise, explosions, and shrapnel. Read more
It was called “rodding,” and it was a complex manual procedure used by British cryptographers at Hut Eight in the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park to decipher Italian Naval Enigma coded messages. Read more
A host of famous fighters and bombers in the Allied arsenal spearheaded the aerial offensives that helped secure victory against the Axis powers in World War II. Read more
Most Indian battles were small affairs, often company-sized engagements. Many were fought between equally numbered forces, or if disproportional, the U.S. Read more
