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Lt. Col. John Eager Howard’s Continental infantry breaks up a British charge with a strong volley as Washington’s dragoons prepare to strike the British right flank.

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Frontiersman Daniel Morgan

By Simon Rees

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

Sailors and marines of the powerful Venetian Navy assault the seaward wall along the Golden Horn for a second time in April 1204. The Venetians suspended gangplanks from the masts and yard-arms of their galleys that served as flying bridges for marines to use in assaulting the tops of the city's walls.

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Sack of Constantinople

By William E. Welsh

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

Timothy O’Sullivan photographed the massive Union pontoon bridge over the James River at Weyanoke Point. Anchoring schooners can be seen in the background.

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Union Army Engineers

By Gustav Person

The Union Army’s ambitious Overland Campaign began on May 4, 1864. It was the fourth year of the Civil War, and Lt. Read more

The German flagship SMS Cöln takes fire from Commodore William Goodenough’s cruisers. Having suffered severe damage, her crew decided to scuttle her in the hope that they would be picked up by ships in close proximity. Sadly, all but one man perished at sea.

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Race to Victory

By John Protasio

Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt of the Royal Navy was in a grave predicament on August 28, 1914. His force was near the German base at Heligoland Bight. Read more

Mongol detachments conduct an amphibious assault at Hakata Bay in Kyushu in 1274 in a modern painting by Richard Hook. Mounted samurai supported by foot archers conduct a vigorous defense in an attempt to prevent the invaders from establishing a beachhead.

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Divine Winds Triumphant

By Eric Niderost

In the early 13th century the legendary Mongol Genghis Khan laid the foundations for the greatest land empire in history. Read more

Russian Czar Ivan the Terrible, hand on sword, claims the Livonian fortress of Konhausen during his quarter-century-long invasion of the neighboring country.

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When Ivan Became Terrible

By Louis Ciotola

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

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Death at the Crossroads

By Mike Phifer

An unrelenting rain soaked the gray-clad troops of Maj. Gen. George Pickett’s reinforced division of Confederate soldiers on the morning of March 30, 1865. Read more

U.S. helicopters not only transported South Vietnamese troops to firebases inside Laos, but also carried them to Tchepone when the armored column stalled on Route 9. The March 6 air assault by elements of the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division was the largest helicopter assault of the war.

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Mauled in Laos

By John Walker

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

The British fleet (right) and the French fleet are shown engaged at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay on September 5, 1781, in a modern painting by Patrick O’Brien. British Rear Admiral Graves made a number of questionable decisions during the battle that put his fleet at a distinct disadvantage.

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Grand Clash on the Chesapeake

By David A. Norris

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

Soldiers man a quad .50 anti-aircraft gun on the Place de la Concorde. Behind them stands the Hôtel de Crillon on the left, the Obelisk of Luxor in the center, and the Church of Madeline, to the immediate right of the Obelisk, and the French Naval Ministry on the far right. Belgian gates—German anti-tank obstacles—surround the gun nest.

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Americans in Paris

By Kevin M. Hymel

Almost every soldier on western European battlefront wanted to get to Paris. Once it was liberated on August 25, 1944, it became a mecca for Allied soldiers on leave who filled the streets, bars, and historic buildings, enjoying a brief respite from the war. Read more

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“God Has Been Our Shield”

By Joshua Shepherd

The regiment of Yankees, which was largely composed of German immigrants, advanced through a field of clover in the Shenandoah Valley in search of the Rebel line to its front on June 8, 1862. Read more

General Jean Baptiste Kleber’s French infantry form squares to defend against superior numbers of mounted Mamelukes on April 16, 1799. Kleber’s night raid on Jazzar Pasha’s camp at the base of Mount Tabor backfired when he failed to estimate how long it would take to reach the camp, and his approach was discovered at dawn.

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Napoleon’s Dramatic Rescue

By Robert Heege

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

Nixon at work in the Oval Office. Pentagon leaders made sure that if they received unusual military orders from the president they would be evaluated properly.

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The Secret World of Richard Nixon

By Blaine Taylor

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

Under a smoke-blackened sky, U.S. Marines, in their distinctive P42 camouflage uniforms, wade across the shallow lagoon toward the blazing Tarawa beachhead in the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati), November 20, 1943. The draft of the Higgins boats proved too great for the shallow water that covered the barrier reef encircling the lagoon, forcing many Marines to struggle ashore through heavy enemy fire. Painting by artist and U.S.M.C. Sergeant Tom Lovell.

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Terrible Toll at Tarawa

By Michael E. Haskew

Seventeen months after the juggernaut of Japanese conquest in the Pacific had come to an abrupt end with the Battle of Midway, American strategists were ready to launch their long-awaited offensive in the Central Pacific. Read more

An Israeli tank passes scorched enemy vehicles during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Egypt deployed large numbers of missile-armed infantry in the Sinai that inflicted substantial losses on Israeli armor in the opening stage of the conflict.

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Tank Clash in the Sinai

By Arnold Blumberg

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

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  • Though hydrofoil boats were very effective in their initial combat tours, financial difficulties prevented further implementation after Vietnam.

    Military History

    Famous Navy Ships: The Hydrofoil Boat
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  • As Robert E. Lee’s “right hand”, the death of Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was a crushing blow to the Confederate army. But was it pneumonia?

    Civil War

    The Battle of Chancellorsville and the Death of Stonewall Jackson
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