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Chasing Jefferson Davis

By Don Hollway

When the end came, on April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was sitting in his customary pew at St. Read more

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Cape Matapan Triumph

By David H. Lippman

It was called “rodding,” and it was a complex manual procedure used by British cryptographers at Hut Eight in the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park to decipher Italian Naval Enigma coded messages. Read more

An 1804 political cartoon lampoons President Thomas Jefferson for his unsuccessful attempt to include West Florida in the Louisiana Purchase.

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The Florida Annexation

By Peter Kross

Almost a decade after winning the Revolutionary War against Great Britain, the youthful United States was determined to expand its territorial boundaries and become a truly continental nation. Read more

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Allan Pinkerton

By Clark Larsen

“Early in the year 1861, I was at my headquarters in the city of Chicago, attending to the manifold duties of my profession. Read more

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Joe Rosenthal: Flag-Raising Photographer

By Gene Beley

The “Raising of the Flag” photo taken by 33-year-old Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on the fifth day of the Iwo Jima battle provided the world with a much-needed uplifting symbol in February 1945. Read more

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The Days of Shoddy: Worst Manufacturers of the Civil War

By Timothy Koenig

“For sugar the government often got sand; for coffee, rye; for leather, something no better than brown paper; for sound horses and mules, spavined beasts and dying donkeys; and for serviceable muskets and pistols, the experimental failures of sanguine inventors, or the refuse of shops and foreign armories.” Read more

This stirring image titled “Douglas A. Munro Covers the Withdrawal of the 7th Marines at Guadalcanal”was painted by artist Bernard D’Andrea for the observance of the bicentennial of the United States Coast Guard.

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U.S. Coast Guard Goes to War

By Michael D. Hull

Recently put ashore, three companies of U.S. Marines advanced stealthily along the Matanikau River on the northern coast of Guadalcanal on September 27, 1942. Read more

A Soviet admiral—medals at his left breast—kneels in tribute to a fallen heroic Soviet sailor of World War II. Many Soviet medals were adaptations of Czarist medals.

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Soviet Memorabilia

By Peter Suciu

In 1917, after almost three years of hard fighting in World War I, the Romanov dynasty came to an end with the abdication of Czar Nicolas II of Russia. Read more

101st Airborne Division troopers, backed by Sherman tanks, battle the Germans in the woods surrounding Bloody Gulch in Normandy, June 1944, where Lieutenant Ronald Speirs and his men fought. The paratroopers had only rifles, machine guns, and grenades with which to conduct the battle until armored forces arrived.

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Ronald Speirs: ‘Imperfect But Daring Leader’

By Jared Frederick & Erik Dorr

Swirls of black smoke billowed high above the steeples and splintered roofs as Lieutenant Ronald Speirs surveyed the stucco exteriors of storefronts and dwellings pocked by the scars of urban battle. Read more

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Battle of Gettysburg: No Picnic at Culp’s Hill

By Roy Morris Jr.

As they formed ranks on the Hanover Road one mile east of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, the men in the II Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia stared anxiously at the giant boulders and towering oak trees dotting the humpbacked prominence known as Culp’s Hill, three quarters of a mile southeast of town. Read more

With their BT-13 basic trainer aircraft in the background, a pair of flight students in the enlisted pilot training program confer following a flight.

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Sergeants, Service Pilots and Civilians

By Sam McGowan

Most historical accounts of World War II aviation relate the experiences of commissioned officers, men who obtained their wings through completion of a military pilot training program. Read more