Military History
During 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
During the infamous Black Week of December 1899, the proud British Army suffered three consecutive bloody defeats in southern Africa. Read more
Military History
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
As the year 1622 dawned over Germany, things appeared bleak for the refugee “Winter King” of Bohemia, Elector Palatine Frederick V. Read more
Military History
As 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 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
In 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
The 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
British 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
Military History
Lieutenant John P. Lucas of the 13th U.S. Cavalry was sound asleep in a small adobe shack in Columbus, New Mexico, on the night of March 9, 1916, when he was abruptly awakened by the unmistakable sounds of men and horses passing outside his window. Read more
Military History
When news began to circulate through the city of Bordeaux, France, in August 1914 that war had broken out with Germany, 21-year-old Englishman Wilfred Owen was as surprised as most. Read more
Military History
On the snowy field of Mollwitz, Poland, on April 10, 1741, newly installed King Frederick II of Prussia faced a formidable army of Austria. Read more
Military History
For William Henry Harrison, the letter he received on October 12, 1811, constituted not only official orders, but something of a personal vindication as well. Read more
Military History
At 1:30 am on August 21, 1968, Czech authorities at Ruzyne Airport in the capital city of Prague waited to greet a special flight that was flying in directly from Moscow. Read more
Military History
On the evening of September 13, 1759, Major Robert Rogers and 220 hand-picked rangers climbed into 17 whaleboats and rowed across the placid waters of Lake Champlain. Read more
Military History
The late morning sky above the besieged Irish town of Kinsale was full of storm and rage on December 24, 1601. Read more
Military History
Where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds might not, in many places, do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?” Read more
Military History
As a combat veteran of some of World War II’s toughest fighting, Lieutenant Jim McDonald was not easily flustered, but he had a bad feeling about this. Read more
Military History
British Brig. Gen. Hugh Elles walked past the Mark IV tanks of H Company, a solitary figure amid metal monsters that looked, according to one jaundiced observer, like giant toads. Read more
Military History
In director Howard Hawks’s 1941 film classic, Sergeant York, then-Corporal Alvin York, portrayed by Gary Cooper, single-handedly knocks out more than 30 German machine-gun nests and, with little assistance, captures 132 enemy soldiers. Read more
