Military History
Fiasco at the Bay of Pigs
By Peter KrossOn the morning of April 18, 1961, readers of the New York Times awoke to a startling headline: “Anti-Castro Units Land in Cuba; Report Fighting at Beachhead; Rusk Says U.S. Read more
Military History
Military History
The “Pueblo Incident”: The U.S. Navy’s Grave Miscalculation
By John WalkerThe humiliating seizure of the American spy ship Pueblo on January 23, 1968, by North Korean gunboats proved both an enormous intelligence setback and a searing indictment of America’s Cold War policy. Read more
Military History
Spanish Disaster at Rocroi
By William WelshFive hundred Spanish musketeers filed into the dim forest on the southern edge of a wooded plain south of the border fort at Rocroi, France, at dusk on May 18, 1643. Read more
Military History
Bloodbath at Mukden: Imperial Russia and Japan Collide
By Louis CiotolaJanuary and February 1905 were critical months for both the Russian and Japanese empires, which were locked in a war over East Asia that neither of them could sustain. Read more
Military History
Monmouth: Longest Battle of the American Revolution
By Eric NiderostOn June 19, 1778, Continental soldiers marched out of Valley Forge, happy to leave the rough wooden cabins where they had spent a miserable winter; cold, hunger, and disease had been their constant companions. Read more
Military History
Mackenzie’s Rebellion
By Chuck LyonsIn December 1837, 400 men armed with muskets, pitchforks, and staves marched against the city of Toronto and the British government. Read more
Military History
Doomed Expedition to Algiers
In the late summer 1541, 40 warships appeared off the shores of Sardinia, part of a grand armada gathered by Charles the V of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor. Read more
Military History
Healing the Wounded in Cuba
By Kevin M. HymelThe khaki-clad soldiers wounded in the steaming jungles of Cuba during the Spanish-American War had distinct advantages over their Civil War brethren. Read more
Military History
The History of War Elephants: From Ancient India to Vietnam
By David IsonImagine a time when human knowledge of elephants was not widespread. Just think how threatening these large animals would be coming over a hillside or out of a mist during battle. Read more
Military History
The Glorious First of June
By David A. NorrisBritish Admiral Lord Richard Howe, standing on the quarterdeck of his 100-gun ship of the line Queen Charlotte, snapped his signal book shut on the morning of June 1, 1794. Read more
Military History
Polish Ciphers and the Miracle on the Vistula
By Arnold BlumbergThe Russo-Polish War of 1919-1920 was the most portentous event facing post-Versailles Europe. It was not just the continuation of a centuries-long contest between Russia and Poland to determine which would dominate eastern Europe, but a struggle involving a new ideology—communism—which the Bolshevik regime in Moscow had to spread throughout the Continent to survive. Read more
Military History
Black Day at Magersfontein
By Kelly BellDuring the third week in November 1899, British forces under the overall command of General Sir Redvers Buller were marching northward across South Africa’s Orange Free State in a campaign to relieve the strategically vital railroad center of Kimberley. Read more
Military History
Cunning Ambush at Sannah’s Post
By William WelshDuring the infamous Black Week of December 1899, the proud British Army suffered three consecutive bloody defeats in southern Africa. Read more
Military History
Into The Dragon’s Jaw
By Joseph Frantiska Jr.Throughout the history of warfare, there have been targets that have been notably reluctant to fall. One such highly resistant target was the Thanh Hoa Railroad and Highway Bridge spanning the Song Ma River three miles northeast of Thanh Hoa, the capital of Annam Province in North Vietnam. Read more
Military History
Protestant Heroes of 1622
By Louis CiotolaAs the year 1622 dawned over Germany, things appeared bleak for the refugee “Winter King” of Bohemia, Elector Palatine Frederick V. Read more
Military History
Capturing the Rock: Gibraltar 1704
By Arnold BlumbergAs Spanish king Charles II lay dying in Madrid in the autumn of 1700, worried diplomats in other European capitals brooded day and night over who would succeed the childless monarch. Read more
Military History
The Art of Victory: Koniggratz 1866
By William E. WelshThe Prussian soldiers had been awake long before sunup on the morning of July 3, 1866, and were marching downhill to the Bystrice River in the rolling countryside of Bohemia, 65 miles east of Prague. Read more
Military History
Slugfest at Eutaw Springs
By John PezzolaIn the early morning hours of September 8, 1781, drums rolled and fifes played in Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene’s camp in the High Hills of southeastern South Carolina. Read more
Military History
Hussite Hand Cannons: A Revolution in Gunpowder Warfare
By Chuck LyonsThe Hussites, all but forgotten today, were a 15th-century sect of religious reformers, forerunners of the Protestant Reformation that was to come a century later. Read more
Military History
John Graves Simcoe: a Queen’s Ranger in the American Revolution
By Mike PhiferBritish Army officer John Graves Simcoe wanted to command a corps of irregular troops. He believed that there were opportunities in “the service of a partisan” that taught a man habits of self-dependence and prompt decision making rarely found in the duties of a subordinate officer. Read more
