Military History

Champions from the long- feuding Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron resolve their differences the Scottish way during the Battle of the Clans at North Inch in 1396.

Military History

The 1396 Battle of the Clans

By Andrew McGregor

The 14th-century Scottish highlands region was an isolated and undeveloped region of great forests, deep cold lakes, and rocky peaks uncrossed by any road. Read more

A soldier from the 172nd Stryker Brigade fires an illumination flare over Mosul, Iraq, from the vehicle’s 120mm mortar. Flares are used to spot terrorists emplacing roadside bombs.

Military History

Famous Military Weapons: Mortars

By William McPeak

The mortar is perhaps the oldest surviving ordnance piece developed during the Middle Ages. The earliest known forerunner to the mortar, introduced by Spanish Muslims about ad 1250, was essentially an iron-reinforced bucket that hurled stones with gunpowder. Read more

Wary Roman forces enter the Apennine Mountain pass at Caudine Forks in 321 bc. Samnite forces under Gaius Pontius were waiting for them.

Military History

Swords and Citizens: Romans & the Samnites

By Jeffrey A. Easton

Centuries before the Romans came to dominate the Mediterranean basin, they fought a series of wars against neighboring peoples to establish their hegemony over the Italian peninsula. Read more

Military History

Collecting Military Tobacco Cards

By Peter Suciu

Smoking may not be the same in-vogue habit it was during bygone days, when politicians, starlets, athletes, and even the average Joe could be seen lighting up on a regular basis. Read more

Five submarines built by the Holland Torpedo Boat Company ride at anchor at a New York dock in 1902. Plunger, center, was an improved version of Holland.

Military History

The Holland Submarine

By Chuck Lyons

By the 1870s, the agitation for Irish independence, already centuries old, had spread to America. The revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood, known as the Fenians, began organizing thousands of Irish immigrants trained on both sides during the recent Civil War into its own army. Read more

Military History

Costly British Victory at Ferozeshah

By John Brown

A little over five centuries ago, a guru named Nanak founded a new faith among the Hindu communities that farmed the rich agricultural areas of northern India known as the Punjab, the Land of the Five Rivers. Read more

Military History

Patton in WWI

By John Mikolsevek

History is full of great men and great deeds. All American schoolchildren know the story of George Washington crossing the Delaware River in the dead of winter during the Revolutionary War. Read more

Military History

The USS Macon

By John J. Geoghegan

It is sometimes difficult to understand just how immature aviation was in the 1920s and 1930s. Everything about flying was new. Read more

Military History

Unholy Sabbath in Flanders

By William E. Welsh

With his one good eye, French King Philip II looked east down the straight line of an old Roman road in the disputed county of Flanders on Sunday, July 27, 1214. Read more

Buckskin-clad Texas troops overrun white-uniformed Mexican forces in this panoramic depiction of the Battle of San Jacinto. The Texans’ victory guaranteed their independence.

Military History

Texan Victory at San Jacinto: Eighteen Minutes to Freedom

By John Walker

As long afternoon shadows rolled across the prairie near the confluence of the Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River in eastern Texas on April 21, 1836, two armed camps—one a small Texan force, the other a 1,400-man-strong Mexican army—lay within a scant 1,000 yards of each another. Read more

From Around the Network

  • Tanks of the German Army’s 17th Panzer Regiment, 19th Panzer Division advance through Belarus on June 25, 1941, three days after the launch of Operation Barbarossa. These tanks are Panzer 38(t) models, made in Czechoslovakia and pressed into Nazi service with Hitler’s occupation of the country.

    European Theater

    Czech Tanks Gave Nazis Early Edge
    Read More

  • Book Reviews

    Peter Harmsen’s ‘Fury and Ice’
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  • Real paratroopers or fake? The Allies were inspired to use dummy parachutists from the Germans, who deployed decoys during their 1940 attack on the Belgian fortress of Eben-Emael. (Shown here are real Americans during Operation Market Garden.)

    WWII

    Operations Titanic’s Paradummies
    Read More