Hearty soldiers from Normandy—descendants of Norsemen— looked for challenges and opportunities far from home and found some in Italy. They landed there in the early 11th century and began to assemble dominions for themselves.

Singing Swords & Charging Warhorses

By Terry Gore

Italy in the mid-11th century was in chaos. Ostensibly held together under the auspices of papal and Holy Roman Empire authority, the peninsula had become a collection of feuding city-states, each under its own local ruler or warlord. Read more

U.S. Navy Captain Forrest Biard

By Hervie Haufler

“For several months after the outbreak of the war with Japan the very fate of our nation rested in the hands of a small group of very dedicated and highly devoted men working in the basement under the Administration Building in Pearl Harbor.” Read more

In a wooded area near St. Vith an American soldier takes cover and trains his Thompson submachine gun on an enemy position. Savage fighting has already occurred in the area, as evidenced by the burning vehicle and debris littering the scene.

Stand at St. Vith

By Charles Whiting

In the early hours of Sunday morning, December 17, 1944, an American brigadier general suffering from piles was heading into the unknown. Read more

Covered with oil and soaking wet, these men head for shore. The Coolidge can be seen in the background (left).

The Coolidge Goes Down

By Kevin Hymel

It was supposed to be a routine delivery of soldiers to the battlefields of Guadalcanal—but nothing in war is ever routine. Read more

Since World War I, Ft. Benning, Georgia, has been the training ground of U.S. Infantry. Since 1959, its National Infantry Museum has displayed artifacts and equipment of U.S. infantrymen and their foes. Below is a M4A2 Sherman tank.

The National Infantry Museum.

By Blaine Taylor

Over 100,000 visitors annually trace with pride the footsteps of infantrymen from the 1607 wilderness of Virginia to the 1991 sands of the Persian Gulf and view weapons from the French Charleville flintlock musket to the atomic Davy Crockett mortar,” says the director of the National Infantry Museum, Z. Read more

In this painting by artist Nicholas Trudgian, on New Year’s Day 1945, a pair of FW-190s swoop low over an Allied airfield in France as part of a late-war assault plan to cripple Allied air power and help turn the tide of the war in Germany’s favor.

Death Ride of the Luftwaffe

By David H. Lippman

They were all annoyed. The directive from Jagdkorps (JK) 2 made no sense, but it was clear: all New Year’s Eve parties were cancelled. Read more

The Battle of Trenton

By Vince Hawkins

By the winter of 1776, the struggle for American independence had reached its lowest point. In June of that year General George Washington’s Continental Army had stood at nearly 20,000 strong. Read more

V-E Day: Victory at Last for World War II’s Allies

By Flint Whitlock

Within his reinforced concrete bunker, 50 feet below the garden of the New Reichs Chancellery on Berlin’s Wilhelmstrasse, German dictator Adolf Hitler, his soon-to-be bride Eva Braun, and several hundred friends, SS guards, and staff members could feel the concussion and hear the unending drumroll of thousands of Soviet artillery shells reducing the already-battered capital city of the Third Reich to unrecognizable rubble. Read more

Russian Invasion

By Christopher Miskimon

A t 4:15 a.m. on February 24, 2022, a pre-recorded television segment played in which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “Special Military Operation” against neighboring Ukraine. Read more