Articles Archive

English fireships, stuffed with tarred fagots and red-hot guns, drift into the Spanish Armada, sowing panic and confusion.

Defeat of the Spanish Armada

By Eric Niderost

On Friday, July 29, 1588, a group of English gentlemen decided to play a friendly game of bowls after a hearty midday meal. Read more

A Junkers Ju-52 returns from Crete, bringing home wounded parachutists and Alpine patrol soldiers.

Fliegen und Siegen: Photographs from the Luftwaffe

By A. Burke

Sixty-five years ago, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe showcased its aerial triumphs in a 1942 commemorative book of photographs entitled Fliegen und Siegen (“Flying and Victory”). Read more

A crusader prince establishes control over the West Slavs during the Wendish Crusade of 1147. Duke Henry the Lion and his allies fought continually against the Wends in the two decades that followed the initial crusade.

Baptism or Death: The Wendish Crusade, 1147-1185

By Kirk Freeman

By the middle of the 12th century, much of western Europe had settled into a tenuous, often interrupted peace, and many modern nation-states had begun to emerge. Read more

German paratroopers advance across a dangerously open field as their comrades drop from Junkers Ju-52s in the sky above Crete during the opening of Operation Mercury. A German veteran painted the scene from memory.

The Invasion of Crete: Descent Into The Inferno

By William E. Welsh

By May 1941, the German Luftwaffe’s fortunes had risen to great heights and plummeted to equally startling depths in the course of a single year of blitzkrieg warfare in Western Europe. Read more

Blaise de Monluc

By William McPeak

A hundred miles north of the mountainous region near the Pyrenees was the rolling land of the Garonne River, home of the Gascon noble families. Read more

While it doesn’t take an army to produce, the scene is the result of many working together.

Military Dioramas

By Peter Suciu

The scene appears to be one of utter chaos, as several dozen soldiers react to an enemy attack on their troop train. Read more

An armed West German policeman keeps a close watch on the East Zone across the Berlin Wall. The nearest mound of snow marks the remains of Adolf Hitler’s underground bunker.

The Symbolism of the Berlin Wall During the Cold War

By Bruce L. Brager

In June 1961, Walter Ulbrecht, longtime Communist party leader of East Germany, denied that his government had any intention of building the Berlin Wall, which would separate East and West Berlin. Read more

When the Earth Moved

Photo Essay by Kevin M. Hymel

The crater that punched a hole in the Confederate lines and threw a 200-foot umbrella of dirt, men, and guns into the air on July 30, 1864, could today be mistaken for a gentle dip in the rolling, slight hills of the Petersburg countryside. Read more

The Mysterious Disappearance of the Bizarre Surcouf

By William H. Langenberg

The legendary Flying Dutchman of maritime lore was a spectral ship of disastrous portent that haunted the high seas and endangered anyone who came into contact with it. Read more

Cortés, wielding his sword beneath his red battle flag, leads an attack against Mexican coastal Indians at Tabasco. The Indians were horrified by their first sight of men on horseback.

Hernándo Cortés on the plains of Cintla

By Charles Hilbert

In March 1519, a small square of 400 Spanish adventurers under the command of Hernándo Cortés stood at bay on the plain of Cintla in Tabasco, Mexico. Read more

At the Battle of Edgehill, Cavalier horsemen broke off their attack to loot the Roundhead wagon train, fatally stalling their own momentum. Painting by Richard Beavis. The Art Archive/Private Collection

The Battle of Edgehill: Halting the Royalist March on London

By William E. Welsh

Robert Devereux, the third Earl of Essex, was on his way to church in the small village of Kineton in Warwickshire on the morning of October 23, 1642, when he received word that the enemy was at hand. Read more

British commandos march through the ruins of the French town of Caen. An objective of the Allied D-Day landings that was supposed to have been captured on June 6, stiff German resistance prevented the city from being liberated until a month later.

Fleming, Ian Fleming

By Hervie Haufler

Some accounts of Ian Fleming’s life make it seem that only at the age of 44, as an antidote to the shock of finally agreeing to get married, did he suddenly commit himself to the unplanned task of creating his James Bond novels. Read more

Hueys prepare to pick up members of Company A, 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry to airlift them to a reported enemy ammunition dump in Thang Binh province, 24 miles north of Chu Lai, Jan. 17, 1968.

The UH-1 Iroquois “Huey” Helicopter

By Ignacio Pullum

As an icon of the Vietnam War and an angel of mercy for American troops who fought there, the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, affectionately known as the “Huey,” has gone on to become the most recognizable helicopter in the world. Read more

U.S. Navy dive-bombers attack a Japanese cruiser at the Battle of Midway in this painting by Robert Benny.

Lifting the Japanese Military

By John W. Whitman

Japanese military successes in 1941 and 1942 shocked the West. Behind those successes lay a logistics effort not often appreciated, that of shipping. Read more

King Arthur Saves Britain

By Robert Barr Smith

Britain was a battleground in the last years of the fifth century. The occupying, and in some sense stabilizing, Roman legions long since had gone, never to return, and the native Britons found themselves locked in a long, heartbreaking struggle against waves of brutal North German invaders—Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—who delighted in bloodshed, rape, and murder. Read more