Latest Posts
Charlemagne: Warlord of the Franks
By Ludwig DyckOn Christmas morning, 800 ad, a tall, powerfully built man walked up the steps of Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome. Read more
Latest Posts
Latest Posts
The Borkum Island Massacre and Trial
By William R. HoganOn August 4, 1944, a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress heavy bomber, tail number 43-37909, so new that it did not have a nickname or nose art yet, took off from England on a bombing run over Germany that would end in a crash landing on Borkum Island in the North Sea. Read more
Latest Posts
The Rise and Fall of Dazzle Camouflage
By Joseph Frantiska Jr.What do Pablo Picasso, the U.S. Navy, the British Royal Navy, and the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) have in common? Read more
Latest Posts
Private SNAFU
By Peter ZablockiBumbling Army Private Snafu was the title character of a series of 26 short cartoons sanctioned by the U.S. Read more
Latest Posts
America’s trusty M1 Garand rifle was “Woven into the fabric of the nation.”
By David J. LittleAfter the Great War, in which American troops were sent into combat with either the bolt-action M1903 Springfield rifle or the bolt-action British Enfield, planners in the War Department realized that, if the United States were ever drawn in combat again, they would need a far superior weapon. Read more
Latest Posts
Chasing Jefferson Davis
By Don HollwayWhen the end came, on April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was sitting in his customary pew at St. Read more
Latest Posts
Cape Matapan Triumph
By David H. LippmanIt 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
Latest Posts
The Florida Annexation
By Peter KrossAlmost 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
Latest Posts
Cold War Spies: General Reinhard Gehlen
By Peter KrossBy 1944, many top generals in Adolf Hitler’s army understood the war was lost and that they had better make arrangements to ensure their safety. Read more
Latest Posts
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
Latest Posts
Grant’s Ordeal at the Battle of Shiloh
By Eric NiderostIt was raining heavily, a deluge of almost Biblical proportions that hammered down on the exhausted men of the Union’s Army of the Tennessee. Read more
Latest Posts
Tarawa: ‘Marine Corps’ Toughest Battle
By Flint WhitlockFor a week before November 20, 1943, U.S. Navy and Seventh Air Force planes did their best to destroy the Japanese defenses on the tiny Pacific atoll of Tarawa. Read more
Latest Posts
Castillon: Last Battle of the Hundred Years’ War
By William E. WelshEngland’s long downward slide to defeat in the Hundred Years’ War began with the failed siege of Orleans in 1428. Read more
Latest Posts
Ireland in World War II: The Swastika vs. The Shamrock
By James BilderThe south of Ireland, officially known as Eire and often referred to by many residing there as the “Free State,” declared its neutrality when World War II erupted suddenly in September 1939. Read more
Latest Posts
The Tragic Story of Mordecai Booth and the Burning of the Washington Navy Yard.
By Robert P. Watson, Ph.D.News arrived in the capital city that the British army had defeated a hastily-gathered and rag-tag collection of American soldiers, sailors, militiamen, and government clerks in Maryland at Bladensburg. Read more
Latest Posts
Joe Rosenthal: Flag-Raising Photographer
By Gene BeleyThe “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
Latest Posts
The Battle of Garfagnana: Italy’s ‘Battle of the Bulge’
By James BilderThere are important similarities between Hitler’s final great push into Belgium and Luxembourg and Mussolini’s drive south of Garfagnana. Read more
Latest Posts
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
Latest Posts
U.S. Coast Guard Goes to War
By Michael D. HullRecently 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
Latest Posts
Canadian Valor at the Battle of Amiens
By Mike PhiferThe drone of a Royal Air Force bomber could be heard overhead in the early morning of August 8, 1918, as it flew up and down the Allied line near Amiens, France. Read more
