Military History
Indian Victory in Bangladesh
By William StroockAfter the British left India in 1947, abandoning the jewel in their centuries-long empire, the subcontinent was partitioned into two states, India and Pakistan. Read more
Military History
Military History
Emelian Pugachev: Master Imposter of a Russian Czar
By Blaine TaylorOn August 12, 1772, a wandering Don Cossack named Emelian Pugachev crossed the Polish frontier into Imperial Russia on an official passport that entitled him, after spending six weeks in quarantine, to resettle as a free citizen on the Irgiz River in southeast Russia. Read more
Military History
Canadians in Spain: The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
By Jerome BaldwinAfter years of social upheaval, political unrest, and violence, Spain erupted into all-out civil war on July 18, 1936, when General Francisco Franco led a junta of right-wing army officers in a revolt against the democratically elected government of the Spanish Republic. Read more
Military History
Weapons: The Soviet MiG-17 in Vietnam
By William F. Floyd, Jr.The American pilots did not see the North Vietnamese Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 fighter jets approaching their strike aircraft as they zeroed in on Than Hoa Bridge on April 3, 1965. Read more
Military History
King Henry VIII of England and the Siege of Boulogne: His Last War
By Bob SwainIn November 1541, roughly three years before the Siege of Boulogne, King Henry VIII of England suffered one of the most severe shocks of his life when he was shown a report alleging that his plumpish 19-year-old queen, Catherine Howard, had been intimate with other men before their marriage. Read more
Military History
U.S. Marine Hero John J. Kelly in World War I
By William E. WelshChicago native Private John J. Kelly of the 78th Company of the 6th Marine Regiment and another soldier requested permission from First Lieutenant James M. Read more
Military History
George Washington’s Counterpunch at Germantown
By Chuck LyonsOn the morning of September 11, 1777, 19-year-old Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, calmly sat on his horse next to George Washington, commander in chief of America’s revolutionary forces. Read more
Military History
George Washington’s Daring Gamble at Yorktown
By David A. NorrisSergeant Joseph Plumb Martin, a sapper in the Continental Army, waited for the signal that would begin the night attack on two enemy-held redoubts. Read more
Military History
The Battle of Hue City: In the Thick of the Tet Offensive
By John WalkerThe city of Hue was the capital of a unified Vietnam from 1802 until 1945. With its stately, tree-lined boulevards, Buddhist temples, national university, and ornate imperial palace within a massive walled city known as the Citadel, Hue was the cradle of the country’s culture and heritage. Read more
Military History
Dismal British Retreat to Corunna
By Eric NiderostIt was December 1808, and the French Army was struggling though the 4,500-foot Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains in central Spain. Read more
Military History
Locating Enemies on the Western Front
By John E. GoodwinAll wars give rise to change and innovation. In the early years of the 20th century, a short but nasty territorial war erupted between Russia and Japan. Read more
Military History
Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar
By William StroockRodrigo Diaz de Vivar, a Castilian mercenary who served Christian kings and Muslim emirs alike in late 11th-century Spain, was born in 1043 in the village of Vivar, about six miles north of the city of Burgos. Read more
Military History
Armored Clash on the Road to the Yalu
By Christopher MiskimonThe chase was on in early autumn 1950. The North Korean People’s Army, after its invasion of South Korea, fell back north with United Nations’ forces in close pursuit following the Battle of Inchon the previous month. Read more
Military History
The First Edged Weapon: The Knife
By William McPeakWhile the sword usually comes to mind first when one thinks of edged weapons, it was not actually the first such weapon—the knife was. Read more
Military History
For Nearly a Century the Nomadic Huns Dominated Much of Europe
By Ludwig H. Dyck“A hitherto unknown race of men had appeared from some remote corner of the earth, uprooting and destroying everything in its path like a whirlwind descending from high mountains” wrote Ammianus Marcellinus, a 4th century AD Roman officer and historian. Read more
Military History
Jedediah Hotchkiss’ Map
After his exploratory expedition to the Shenandoah Valley in 1716, Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood encouraged Germans and Dutch farmers residing in eastern Pennsylvania to settle the region when he found Virginians in the Tidewater and Piedmont regions of his state initially reluctant to settle beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. Read more
Military History
Death Knell for Napoleon’s Empire
By Victor KamenirFrench Marshal Michel Ney found himself outmatched in a clash of arms with a Swedish-Prussian army at Dennewitz 40 miles southwest of Berlin on September 6, 1813. Read more
Military History
Soldier in the French Royal Regiment
By William E. WelshFrench King Louis XIV first standardized uniforms in 1657 when the king gave the companies of Masion du Roy blue uniforms. Read more
Military History
English Mercenary Captain John Hawkwood
By William E. WelshLong columns of heavily armed soldiers streamed southeast along the left bank of the Adige River in the Veneto region of northern Italy on March 11, 1387. Read more
Military History
Pivotal Victory at Kings Mountain
By Mike PhiferKings Mountain was a battle of militia–American Patriots against American Loyalists. Short and intense, it was the last desperate stand of British Major Patrick Ferguson and a turning point in the American Revolution. Read more
