Military History
For the hard-pressed German Empire, New Year’s Day 1918 brought a compendium of evils. The Allied naval blockade, increasingly effective, depressed industrial production and stoked a war weariness made manifest in strikes and bread riots. Read more
Military History
On March 1, 1461, English Chancellor George Neville faced a large crowd of Londoners in St. John’s Field outside the city. Read more
Military History
At 4 am on October 14, 1806, 37-year-old Jean Lannes, Marshal of France in Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grande Armee and commander of that host’s V Corps, received his final instructions verbally from the emperor. Read more
Military History
When still a young boy, Hannibal once came upon his father, the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who at the time was preparing to go to Iberia where Carthage was campaigning to expand its power. Read more
Military History
The lieutenant had reached the end of his tether. It was time to cut this impudent American wagoner down to size with the flat of his sword. Read more
Military History
Nineteen-year-old U.S. Army Specialist E5 James Griffith wasn’t particularly nervous when he boarded Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253 at McChord Air Base in Tacoma, Washington, on June 30, 1968. Read more
Military History
Dawn broke clear and hot over Constantinople on July 17, 1203.
All manner of war machines were clustered around the Latin crusaders’ fortified camp on a hill where the Monastery of Saints Cosmas and Damian was located. Read more
Military History
In the early 13th century the legendary Mongol Genghis Khan laid the foundations for the greatest land empire in history. Read more
Military History
On November 17, 1915, Major Smedley Butler and a small force of U.S. Marines approached the old French bastion of Fort Riviere in Haiti. Read more
Military History
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 South Vietnamese rangers huddled in their trenches and bunkers at landing zone Ranger North throughout the day of February 19, 1971, as mortar shells crashed inside the perimeter. Read more
Military History
Under sunny skies, favorable winds pushed Captain Mark Robinson and the 74-gun ship of the line Shrewsbury on September 5, 1781, toward a stormy encounter with an old enemy. Read more
Military History
On March 18, 1799, a strange thing happened in the Near East backwater that today is Israel. In the years that followed the birth of Jesus, the rise of Christianity, and the fall of Byzantium, things in the region had quieted down considerably since the Mohammedan conquests (apart from the Crusades). Read more
Military History
In the spring of 1974—at the height of the political Watergate crisis in Washington, D.C.—Joseph Laitin, a spokesman at the Office of Management and Budget whose office was in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next door to the White House, was on his way over to the west wing of the White House to meet with Treasury Secretary George Schultz. Read more
Military History
Tacfarinas, a former soldier of Rome’s Numidian cavalry, reined in his steed at the edge of the cliff with the ease of one born in the saddle. Read more
Military History
During the afternoon of October 9, 1973, Colonel Amnon Reshef, the commander of the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) 14th Armored Brigade, conducted probes along the water’s edge of the Great Bitter Lake, a wide part of the Suez Canal. Read more
Military History
In the late 14th century, a new and seemingly irresistible force was emerging in the East, the likes of which Europe had not seen for centuries. Read more
Military History
Lieutenant Colonel William Washington of the Continental 3rd Light Dragoons stood in his stirrups and looked out over the open drover’s field stretching before him. Read more
Military History
The Flemish infantry fidgeted under the sweltering sun as they stood shoulder to shoulder in a field east of the town of Courtrai on July 11, 1302. Read more
Military History
Fourteenth-century Japan was ruled by an emperor who traced his descent back to the sun goddess Amateratsu. However, the emperor took his orders from the retired or cloistered emperor (usually the father of the emperor), who in turn took his orders from the Sei-I Tai Shogun, who took his orders from the kampaku, or regent. Read more
