Military History Archives

On December 30, 1460, the heirs to the Lancastrian nobles killed at St. Albans five years earlier at last had their revenge, trapping the Duke of York and the Earl of Salisbury near Wakefield. Painting by Graham Turner.

Military History

The War of the Roses: A Red Storm Rising

By William E. Welsh

Indolent, weak-willed, and prone to periodic fits of madness, King Henry VI had let England slide downhill since coming of age in 1437. Read more

Justin of Nassau hands the keys to the city of Breda to Ambrogio Spinola in 1625 following his successful siege of a city that was considered impregnable at the time.

Military History

Ambrogio di Spinola

By William E. Welsh

The crown of Spain and the wealthy banking families of Genoa had a symbiotic relationship during the Renaissance. Read more

In this painting by Harry Payne, British cavalry of the Queen's Bays rout Indian mutineers at Lucknow, March 6, 1858.

Military History

Indian Rebellion of 1857: Two Years of Massacre and Reprisal

By John Brown

Three months before the Indian Rebellion of 1857, British East India Company officials manning outstations in the northwestern provinces of India began to notice the revival of a strange and disturbing local custom. Read more

Military History

Gas Masks of the Great War

By Peter Suciu

With World War I in a seeming stalemate, German forces in late April 1915 introduced a horrific new weapon to the fighting. Read more

An Iraqi tank crashes forward through the Hawizeh swamp region near the village of Al Azayr on March 18, 1985. By then, the Iran-Iraq War had been going on for over four years.

Military History

The Iran-Iraq War: New Borders, Old Enemies

By John Walker

The world awoke to ominous news on September 22, 1980. Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein had launched a massive armored and air attack across the Iraq-Iran border. Read more

Military History

World War I Weapons: Germany’s Big Guns

By William Scheck

World War I’s stalemate on the Western Front ushered up varied solutions. The Allies developed tanks for traversing no man’s land to get at the enemy. Read more

Roman legionaries clamber out of galleys and wade toward the battle on the English shore.

Military History

Julius Caesar’s Expedition to Brittania

By Ludwig Dyck

By the summer of 55 bc, 45-year-old Roman proconsul Gaius Julius Caesar was a veteran military campaigner. For the past three years, under his lead, the tramp of hobnailed sandals had resounded across the countryside of Gaul, the westernmost province of the Roman empire. Read more

Military History

The Corporal M2 Missile

By Peter A. Goetz

Six days after the Allies’ D-Day landings on the coast of Normandy in June 1944, Germany retaliated by launching its first Vergeltungswaffe, or Vengeance Weapon, at the city of London. Read more

Military History

Britannia Triumphant at the Nile

By Joshua Shepherd

Smoke drifted across the quarterdeck of H.M.S. Vanguard, occasionally obscuring the figure of a slender officer bowed with battle wounds and outright exhaustion. Read more

Military History

Collecting Tanker Helmets

By Peter Suciu

Since the first tanks rolled across the battlefield in World War I, armored crews have required specialized equipment to protect them inside the giant metal beasts. Read more

Cloaked in distinctive white mantles with red crosses, a charge of the “warrior monks” known as the Knights Templar was a fearsome sight. The devout medieval Catholic military order was established to protect Christian pilgrims after the Holy Land was reopened following the First Crusade.

Military History

Bloody Brotherhood

By Kelly Bell

By 1119, the Holy City of Jerusalem had been back under Christian control for 20 years. The soldiers of the First Crusade had secured the city and re-opened it as a center for Christian pilgrimage. Read more

In July 1781 a company of African American soldiers of the Continental Army’s Rhode Island Regiment under Lt.-Col. Jeremiah Olney marches through Philadelphia on their way to Yorktown.

Military History

Black Soldiers in the American Revolution

By Kevin Seabrooke

When the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington Green on the morning of April 19, 1775, Black men had already been serving in colonial militias for some time, particularly in New England. Read more

French men-at-arms assault a formidable English position at Auray in September 1364. An English counterattack shattered the French.

Military History

Bertrand du Guesclin

By William E. Welsh

One month after the disastrous French defeat at Poitiers in September 1356, a large English army besieged Rennes in eastern Brittany. Read more

Russian Czar Ivan the Terrible, hand on sword, claims the Livonian fortress of Konhausen during his quarter-century-long invasion of the neighboring country.

Military History

When Ivan Became Terrible

By Louis Ciotola

Ivan IV Vasilyevich, first czar of all the Russians, has gone down as one of history’s most notorious despots, infamous for the terrors he carried out among his subjects. Read more

Military History

The Imperial War Museum

By Roy Stevenson

Although Britain has a number of war museums, the Imperial War Museum (IWM) is acknowledged as the Holy Grail of them all—the one you must visit when in London. Read more

Military History

Oda Nobunaga: The Rise of One of Japan’s Earliest Unifiers

By Vince Hawkins

By the time of his death in 1582, he controlled 30 of Japan’s 68 provinces, was the commander of the greatest samurai army in his country’s history, and had earned the distinction of being the first of the three great unifiers of Japan. Read more

Greek hoplites armed with large shields and iron-tipped spears charge the Persians at Marathon.

Military History

Athenian Glory at Marathon

By Erich B. Anderson

In 491 bc, heralds sent by Persian Emperor Darius I traveled throughout Greece with a message for each of the city-states of the Greek peninsula. Read more

Military History

The Politics of Military Heroes

by Roy Morris Jr.

Defeat has a funny way of producing heroes.

The British lost an embarrassing battle to Zulu tribesmen at Isandhlwana, but the improbable defense of an insignificant river crossing 10 miles away by a handful of rear-echelon soldiers, overage officers, and civilians created a new crop of heroes for the public to idolize. Read more

Military History

Americans Faced Blown Out Bridge During Retreat To 38th Parallel

By Marc D. Bernstein

December 7, 1950 dawned bitter cold in the remote mountains of North Korea. More than 14,000 U.N. Read more

Under Van Deman, the Military Intelligence Section had wide powers of intelligence collection and investigation.

Military History

Famous Military Spies: Ralph Van Deman

By Peter Kross

In the long history of American military intelligence, the names that come to mind most often are those of Nathan Hale, Benedict Arnold, Herbert Yardley, and William Donovan. Read more

Military History

From Around the Network

John Hunt Morgan delighted in dangerous missions.

Confederate Raid Panics Washington

The Marines and North Vietnamese at Khe Sanh

Revisiting the Tet Offensive