When Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, chief of the German General Staff, presented German leader Adolf Hitler with estimates of Russian strength for Operation Barbarossa, Hitler declared that the numbers were “completely idiotic” and “pure bluff.” Read more
On the evening of May 30, 1857, Julia Selina Inglis was preparing to go to bed when she heard an urgent knocking on her door. Read more
In the face of disaster, few military commanders in history maintained the British stiff upper lip as well as Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Read more
The island of Tinian is located in the Northern Marianas, three miles southwest of Saipan, 100 miles north of Guam, and 1,500 miles from mainland Japan. Read more
It did not seem possible for them to hold on, yet six regiments of British infantry, standing with three battalions of Hanoverians, withstood a heavy artillery barrage on August 1, 1759, on a plain next to the fortress of Minden in the Electorate of Hanover. Read more
Confederate Brig. Gen. George Maney maintained tight control of the three regiments in his first line as he pressed his attack against a key position on the extreme left flank of the Union Army on the afternoon of October 8, 1862. Read more
Astounding news swept through Greece in the summer of 371 bc. In Boeotia, a crossroads for armies that was usually littered with the dead of its own citizens, the invading Spartans had been beaten, and one of their two kings had been slain in battle. Read more
Even in the age of ultra-sophisticated nuclear submarines, with their advanced computers, sonar, navigation, and communication systems, the hard truth is inescapable: the sea is the most hostile environment on Earth. Read more
U.S. Army Sergeant Vere Williams listened to his instincts as his landing craft approached the beach. It was August 15, 1944, and his unit, the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Division was part of the invasion force for Operation Dragoon, the landings along France’s Mediterranean coast. Read more
The men of Brig. Gen. Alfred Iverson’s North Carolina brigade, four regiments strong, marched forward as if on parade, their rifles at the right shoulder, as they went into battle on the first day at Gettysburg. Read more
By the evening of January 22, 1944, it was increasingly apparent that a drastic shift in strategy was needed to break the bloody debacle that had developed in central Italy. Read more
It is dusk on July 17, 1943. The Red Army has not only withstood Hitler’s Operation Citadel to eliminate the Kursk salient, but it has launched its own offensive. Read more
History is almost never “chiseled into stone.” The fog of time can be blown away when new information emerges. Read more
In late 1917, the most successful cavalry charge of World War I took place not on the muddy killing fields of the Western Front, but at the foot of the Judean Hills in southern Palestine. Read more
When Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix was governor of Cilicia in 95 bc, he received an embassy from the Parthians. Read more
In the summer of 1216 a large French army appeared just outside the gates of Dover Castle, a magnificent fortress on the southeast coast of England. Read more
On the morning of August 19, 1942, the Canadian 2nd Division sailed across the English Channel and attacked the Nazi-held port of Dieppe, France. Read more
On January 30, 1968, eight battalions of North Vietnamese Army infantry infiltrated the city of Hue in South Vietnam. Read more
The soldiers of the French 1st Light Infantry surged forward toward the double line of the British Light Battalion. Read more
Lieutenant Dan Daspit, captain of the U.S. submarine Tinosa could not believe his luck. Framed neatly in the periscope eyepiece was a sitting duck. Read more
