Military History Archives

Titian’s 16th-century portrait of heavily armored Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Military History

Helmet Designs Through the Ages

By William J. McPeak

Battle helmets shaped to partially cover the face and adorned with various facial features are of ancient origin. Read more

Military History

Winston Churchill’s Escape During The Battle of Spion Kop

By Herman T. Voelkner

At the start of the Second Boer War in 1899, Winston Churchill sailed to Cape Town, South Africa, where he served as a journalist for the Morning Post. Read more

Military History

An Acre of Massacre: The Second Boer War’s Battle of Spion Kop

By Herman T. Voelkner

The century of conflict that would introduce the concept of total war to the world had its bloody roots on an obscure hilltop in the remote South African veldt. Read more

Utilizing the natural terrain around Puebla, French Zoaves take cover while preparing to move on Mexican positions. Despite the superior pedigree of Comte de Lorencez’s French forces, General Ignacio Zargaoza’s homegrown defenders would serve as more than a match.

Military History

“Viva El Cinco de Mayo!” The Battle of Puebla

By Ron Gilliam

A hard, late-afternoon rain was falling on May 5, 1862, and the slopes at the foot of Puebla, Mexico’s twin forts were too slippery for another assault. Read more

Military History

Sergeant Amos Humiston at Gettysburg

By Kevin Hymel

Two brigades of Confederate soldiers crested a slight hill above a wheat field and looked down on the blue clad soldiers waiting for them in the brickyard below. Read more

English and Dutch warships unleash thunderous broadsides against each other in the heavy seas of the English Channel, in this painting by Dutch artist Abraham Storck.

Military History

“Hurrah, Over You Go Again!”: The High Seas Battle of Portland

By Keith Milton

For nearly a century, England and the Netherlands were longtime allies in the Eighty Years’ War against the Spanish Empire. Read more

Wounded but triumphant, Grand Master Pierre D’Aubusson receives homage from his worshipful Knights Hospitallers after beating back the Turkish siege of Rhodes.

Military History

Siege of Rhodes: The Will Of The Hospitallers

By William McPeak

Although the great Crusades were over by 1309 ad, one old crusading order continued to evolve, flourish, and make enemies—the Knights Hospitallers of St. Read more

Sir Peter Parker’s nine-warship fleet unleashes a devastating barrage of fire on Ft. Sullivan from Charleston Harbor.

Military History

Patriots’ Great Day: The Battle of Sullivan’s Island

By Earl Echelberry

By the early 1770s, with a full century of settlement already behind it, Charleston, S.C., had come into its own as a thriving urban center. Read more

Plagued by dysentery, malaria, hunger, and exhaustion, King Henry V and his weary soldiers prepare to face off against their French foes near the tiny village of Agincourt, in this painting by Sir John Gilbert.

Military History

Miracle in the Mud: The Hundred Years’ War’s Battle of Agincourt

By Robert L. Swain

Young and ambitious, recently crowned English king Henry V had a dynastic point to make, one that would relieve him of the taint of royal illegitimacy born of the fact that his father had usurped the English throne a mere decade before. Read more

Viking longboats cut through the sea while on expedition. King Harald’s nickname was “Hardradi,” meaning “the ruthless;” something his enemies could surely attest to.

Military History

Harald “Land Waster” Hardradi

by Kenneth Cline

For many history buffs, the date 1066 conjures up an image of Norman knights breaking through the shield wall of the ax-wielding Anglo-Saxons at Senlac Hill. Read more

An M-29 Davy Crockett mobile missile launcher on display. The M-29 was capable of delivering either conventional or nuclear warheads.

Military History

Military Weapons: The Davy Crockett Mobile Missile Launcher

By Peter A. Goetz

Design work for a minimum-size atomic warhead called the XW-51 began at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in the mid 1950s. Read more

With the rising Shangani River behind them, Major Allan Wilson and his 32 hard-pressed troopers make a desperate last stand against King Lobengula’s 1,000 Matabele warriors in southeast Africa.

Military History

Death of the Shangani Patrol

By Robert Barr Smith

On the banks of the rain-swollen Shangani River, a small force of white militiamen closed ranks as hundreds of Matabele warriors swarmed around them. 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

Italian traveler Marco Polo, shown in this medieval painting leading his 13th-century caravan across Asia, crossed paths briefly with the much-dreaded Assassins. Unlike many, Polo lived to tell about it.

Military History

Blood in the Sand: Shiite Assassins

By Mark S. Longo

Their name has been synonymous with murder for almost a thousand years, but few people know the full truth about the enigmatic organization known as the Assassins. Read more

Military History

Famous Marines: Smedley Butler

By Edward L. Bimberg

The annals of the United States Marine Corps are filled with the names of mavericks known not only for their fighting skills, but for their offbeat personalities as well. Read more

Israeli-upgraded Centurion main battle tanks (Sho’t Kal) advancing into Syria on October 11, 1973. Having withstood the initial four-day assault of the Yom Kippur War and retaken the Golan Heights, Israeli leaders immediately decided to invade Syria and knock them out of the war.

Military History

‘Israel’s Survival at Stake’

By John E. Spindler

Lieutenant Zvi “Zvicka” Greengold raced back to Nafakh, commanding his fifth or sixth Sho’t Kal, an Israeli-upgraded Centurion main battle tank, having had the previous ones knocked out beneath him. Read more

Two Grumman F9F-2 Panther fighters dump fuel as they fly past the carrier USS Princeton, during Korean War operations in May 1951. Some 18 months later, U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant E. Royce Williams would take on seven Soviet MiG-15s, downing four of them, diminishing the aircraft’s reputation as invincible.

Military History

U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant E. Royce Williams

By Mark Carlson

One of the most remarkable events in modern naval aviation was kept a secret for almost half a century. 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

Marines of Company D, 3rd Platoon, rush to take defensive positions around Con Thien as they encounter heavy North Vietnamese gunfire.

Military History

Con Thien: Hell on the Hill of Angels

By Al Hemingway

Lieutenant General Lewis Walt was not a happy man. The burly III Marine Amphibious Force commander had just been ordered by Commanding General William C. Read more

Sporting the blood-red “Rising Sun” flag of Imperial Japan, a Japanese torpedo boat scores a direct hit on a Russian battleship at the height of the Battle of Tsushima Strait.

Military History

Rising Sun and Russian Bear

By Michael E. Haskew

For three centuries, feudal Japan remained comfortably isolated from the rest of the world. By order of the Tokugawa Shogunate, foreigners landing on Japanese shores risked immediate execution. Read more

Military History

From Around the Network

Deadly Cobra Strike

Siege of Bastogne: The Battle for Noville

A blunder by Hitler and the fortitude of the common soldier resulted in a miracle at Dunkirk.

Desperate Los Baños Raid