Military History Archives

“Incoming,” by Ted Zuber, shows soldiers of B Company, Royal Canadian Regiment, reacting to an enemy artillery attack on “Little Gibraltar” (Hill 355). Zuber served as a sniper with the RCR in 1952 and, though not an official war artist, he brought his sketchbook with him and later painted scenes of the war.

Military History

Desperate Struggle for Survival on ‘Little Gibraltar’

By Bernd Horn

The ground heaved and trembled under the ferocious climax of the Chinese bombardment that shook the Canadian soldiers from their bunkers and weapon pits. Read more

Military History

Zenobia’s Bloody War of Independence

By Glenn Barnett

The pages of history tend to dwell on the men who created empires. No matter how ephemeral may be the famed exploits of an Alexander, Caesar or Napoleon, historians have written volumes on their behalf. Read more

Military History

Richard the Lionheart’s Victory on the Road to Jerusalem

By Eric Niderost

It was the middle of June 1191, and the Third Crusade was bogged down before the walls of Acre, the largest city and chief port of the former Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Read more

Military History

Major General Braddock’s March on Fort Duquesne

By Colonel John P. Sinnott AUS (Ret.)

Seldom was the hand of fate so clearly exposed in the affairs of men as it did during the French and Indian War when Maj. Read more

Military History

Imperial Russian Army Uniforms

By Kevin Mahoney

The Russian Army of World War I is comparatively unknown in the West when compared with the other major combatants of that conflict. Read more

A JN-5 “Jenny” flies over terrain impeding the advance of Gen. John P. Pershing’s Punitive Expedition in a painting by Jim Dietz. Jenny’s performed well as scouts and couriers despite their flimsy designs.

Military History

Curtiss Flying Jennies Pursue Pancho Villa Across Northern Mexico

By M. L. Webster

At four-thirty on the morning of March 19, 1916, the sound of gunfire echoed through the streets of Columbus, New Mexico, a border settlement of adobe houses, a bank, a post office and a few stores surrounded by cactus, mesquite and rattlesnakes. Read more

"The Legend of Sargon (The Goddess Ishtar Appears to Sargon, the Gardener's Lad)" By the contempoarary artist, Edwin J. Prittie"

Military History

Sargon the Great and the World’s First Professional Army

by Brian Geeslin

In about 2340 BC, the king of the ancient city of Kish, Ur-Zababa, was ousted from his throne by one of his courtiers who went by the name of Sargon, who would later be known as King Sargon the Great. Read more

Military History

Napoleon’s Egyptian Adventure

By Jeremy E. Green

By the year 1798, the First Coalition was collapsing. Only Britain remained as France’s implacable foe. With the advent of relative peace, the governing body of France, the Directory, ever in need of cash, now sought new means of employment for the army and its general, Napoleon Bonaparte. Read more

President Kennedy with Premier Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War.

Military History

Cold War Intelligence

By John D. Gresham

Everyone who has ever read a spy novel knows the basic plot line. A scientist has developed a formula, or intelligence operative has obtained secret plans or a roll or film. Read more

Military History

Charles the Bold

By Jonathan North

On Monday, February 19, 1476 Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (much of what is now eastern France), joined his army beneath the gray ramparts of Grandson. Read more

‘Old Ironsides’ fires off a signal gun during the War of 1812. She never lost an engage- ment during her long ser- vice to the United States.

Military History

The USS Constitution

By John D. Gresham

Today restored to museum quality and lovingly cared for by a U.S. Navy crew, the USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides,” is the living symbol of America’s first generation of warships, built in response to external threats that a young United States would have preferred to ignore. Read more

Military History

Andrews Raiders

By Kevin Seabrooke

A little more than 162 years after they were executed as spies in Georgia, privates Philip G. Shadrach and George D, Wilson of the 2nd Ohio Infantry were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Biden in a ceremony at the White House on July 4, 2024. Read more

Military History

Sennacherib: The Assyrian King’s Failed Second Siege of Jerusalem

By Eric Niderost

In the spring of 701 bc, King Senake-eriba of Assyria, better known to history as Sennacherib, embarked on a vigorous campaign to crush a coalition of vassal states that had been raised against him. Read more

An artist of a much later age attempted to depict classical artillery in the painting below. Greeks devised weaponry that launched bolts and stones, often with great accuracy.

Military History

Types of Weapons Used by Ancient Greece

By Mike Markowitz

When we think “catapult,” we imagine the types of weapons used for hurling rocks, dead plague victims, or unlucky cows against a castle. Read more

Osprey Publishing/Campaign 328: Imjin River 1951/Steve Noon

Military History

‘Glorious Glosters’ at the Imjin River

By Michael E. Haskew

On the barren, windswept and war-torn Korean peninsula, the autumn of 1950 brought United Nations forces to the brink of total victory—and complete disaster. Read more

The U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is the most advanced flying wing ever built. A combination of classified technology that reduces infrared, acoustic, electromagnetic, visual and radar signatures of the aircraft makes it difficult for enemy defense systems to detect, track and engage it.

Military History

The Northrop B-2 Spirit

By Kelly Bell

The old axiom that “forewarned is forearmed” is as true nowadays as it was millenia ago. Since 1989 America’s B-2 Spirit flying wing has been assailing the Free World’s foes, and consistently taking them unawares. Read more

Artist Edgar Samuel Paxson spent years researching and interviewing participants from both sides of the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn before completing “Custer’s Last Stand” in 1899. Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s widow, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, broke into tears upon viewing the six-by-nine foot painting.

Military History

American Tragedy on the Greasy Grass River

By John E. Spindler

A few miles southeast of the Little Bighorn River, known as the “Greasy Grass” to the various Lakota nations camped along its west bank, a number of women dug wild turnips. Read more

Military History

The Red Baron

By Kelly Bell

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen was born May 2, 1892, as the second of four children to Baron Albrecht and Kunigunde von Richthofen. Read more

With some sleeping soldiers and a Union officer listlessly watching the fire, Winslow Homer’s painting, “In Front of Yorktown,” seems to capture the atmosphere of inaction surrounding Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. Homer covered the war as an artist for Harper’s Weekly magazine.

Military History

Army of the Potomac Flounders in Drive for Richmond

By David A. Norris

On April 5, 1862, the Fourth Corps under Brig. Gen. Erasmus Keyes pushed forward along the road by the James River. Read more

Military History

Captain Lewis L. Millett and the Ferocious ‘Battle of Bayonet Hill’ in South Korea.

By Kevin Seabrooke

In the dead of winter at the base of a hill just 20 kilometers south of Seoul, Korea, Easy Company’s 1st platoon found themselves pinned down by a continuous stream of small arms, automatic, and antitank fire coming from above. Read more

Military History

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