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Cortés, wielding his sword beneath his red battle flag, leads an attack against Mexican coastal Indians at Tabasco. The Indians were horrified by their first sight of men on horseback.

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Hernándo Cortés on the plains of Cintla

By Charles Hilbert

In March 1519, a small square of 400 Spanish adventurers under the command of Hernándo Cortés stood at bay on the plain of Cintla in Tabasco, Mexico. Read more

At the Battle of Edgehill, Cavalier horsemen broke off their attack to loot the Roundhead wagon train, fatally stalling their own momentum. Painting by Richard Beavis. The Art Archive/Private Collection

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The Battle of Edgehill: Halting the Royalist March on London

By William E. Welsh

Robert Devereux, the third Earl of Essex, was on his way to church in the small village of Kineton in Warwickshire on the morning of October 23, 1642, when he received word that the enemy was at hand. Read more

British commandos march through the ruins of the French town of Caen. An objective of the Allied D-Day landings that was supposed to have been captured on June 6, stiff German resistance prevented the city from being liberated until a month later.

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Fleming, Ian Fleming

By Hervie Haufler

Some accounts of Ian Fleming’s life make it seem that only at the age of 44, as an antidote to the shock of finally agreeing to get married, did he suddenly commit himself to the unplanned task of creating his James Bond novels. Read more

Hueys prepare to pick up members of Company A, 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry to airlift them to a reported enemy ammunition dump in Thang Binh province, 24 miles north of Chu Lai, Jan. 17, 1968.

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The UH-1 Iroquois “Huey” Helicopter

By Ignacio Pullum

As an icon of the Vietnam War and an angel of mercy for American troops who fought there, the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, affectionately known as the “Huey,” has gone on to become the most recognizable helicopter in the world. Read more

U.S. Navy dive-bombers attack a Japanese cruiser at the Battle of Midway in this painting by Robert Benny.

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Lifting the Japanese Military

By John W. Whitman

Japanese military successes in 1941 and 1942 shocked the West. Behind those successes lay a logistics effort not often appreciated, that of shipping. Read more

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King Arthur Saves Britain

By Robert Barr Smith

Britain was a battleground in the last years of the fifth century. The occupying, and in some sense stabilizing, Roman legions long since had gone, never to return, and the native Britons found themselves locked in a long, heartbreaking struggle against waves of brutal North German invaders—Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—who delighted in bloodshed, rape, and murder. Read more

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Bairnsfather’s “Fragments from France”

By Robert Whiter

You should send that into one of the illustrated papers or magazines,” said a young subaltern, looking over the shoulder of an officer who was sitting in front of a makeshift table finishing a pen-and-ink drawing. Read more

Ernie Pyle, the GIs best friend and chronicler during World War II.

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David Chrisinger’s ‘The Soldier’s Truth’

By Christopher Miskimon

On December 16, 1943, journalist Ernie Pyle climbed Mount Sammucro, near the Italian town of San Pietro Infine. Read more

Sailors aboard PT-321 prepare to lift a Japanese survivor clinging to a tree branch out of the water in the Surigao Strait in 1944.

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C.J. Skamarakas’ ‘The Devil Boats’

By Christopher Miskimon

“Devil Boat” was a nickname given by the Japanese to American Patrol Torpedo (PT) boats during World War II. Read more

A wounded American soldier tumbles down a snow-covered mountainside during fighting on Attu as his fellow soldiers look on from protected positions. The Americans sought to pry the Japanese from Attu and Kiska before they could construct airfields.

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Bil Paul’s ‘Awaiting the Sun’

By Christopher Miskimon

The Aleutian Islands were the only North American territory to be invaded and occupied by an Axis power during World War II. Read more

Soviet infantrymen crouch as they rush past the mangled wreckage of German tanks. The soldier at right carries a heavy antitank rifle, which was woefully ineffective against German medium and heavy tanks.

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Chris McNab’s ‘Waffen SS Soldier versus Soviet Rifleman’

By Christopher Miskimon

Waffen SS units made up only a small part of the German Wehrmacht, but they found frequent use as “fire brigades” across the Eastern Front. Read more

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Ian Baxter’s ‘The Soviet Destruction of Army Group South’

By Christopher Miskimon

After the destruction of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in February 1943, the German Army Group South began a slow westward withdrawal, inexorably pressed by advancing Soviet forces of what would eventually be named the First through Fourth Ukrainian Fronts. Read more

Members of an all-black Seabee battalion practice disembarking from an LCP(L) (Landing Craft Personnel, Large), December 1942.

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Peter Harmsen ‘Darkest Christmas’

By Christopher Miskimon

The darkest, deadliest Christmas in human history occurred in December 1942. Around the globe, as Christians celebrated their holiday of peace and goodwill, peoples of many different faiths and beliefs continued to slaughter one another. Read more

In a rare photo that includes Japanese armored vehicles, victorious infantrymen cross a makeshift bridge during the advance through Burma. The Japanese capture of Rangoon marked a low point for the Allies in the China-Burma-India Theater. (National Archives)

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Tim Moreman’s ‘Conquest of Burma 1942’

By Christopher Miskimon

The Japanese invasion of Burma in January 1942 pitted its well-trained, mobile, and hard-hitting Fifteenth Army against a conglomerate Allied force composed of British, Commonwealth, Indian and Burmese troops in various states of training, equipment and experience. Read more

A German Tiger I tank rumbles along a road near Villers-Bocage, a key objective west of Caen. Two companies of Heavy Tank Battalion 101, a Waffen SS unit, on June 13 ambushed tank columns of the British 7th Armored Division.

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Otto Henning’s ‘Panzer Leader’

By Christopher Miskimon

Otto Henning, born in 1924, joined the German Army in the summer of 1941. Volunteering allowed him to avoid the compulsory labor service and choose his branch of service. Read more

Searchlights and flares cut through the darkness during the night action at Sunda Strait in February 1942, in this painting by John Hamilton. The Japanese bested the Allies there, taking control of the Java Sea.

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Working on the Railway of Death: A POW’s Story

By Eric Niderost

When Howard Brooks joined the United States Navy in 1939, the 20-year-old farm boy from Tennessee had no idea that he was going to experience one of the most harrowing adventures of World War II. Read more

Displaying the disciplined valor that would become a national characteristic, Prussian troops advance into withering fire at the climax of the Battle of Mollwitz on April 10, 1741.

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The Battle of Mollwitz: Opening Move For Prussian Expansion

By Arnold Blumberg

On October 20, 1740, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of Austria, died, leaving his vast holdings and titles to his 23-year-old daughter, Maria Theresa. Read more

A Japanese balloon bomb in flight during World War II. The Japanese launched some 9,000 such weapons, one-tenth of which reached the continental United States.

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Project Fugo: The Japanese Balloon Bombs

By Allan T. Duffin

On Saturday, May 5, 1945, three days before the end of World War II in Europe and just three months before the Japanese surrendered, spinning shards of metal ripped into the tall pine trees, burrowing holes into bark and tearing needles from branches outside the tiny logging community of Bly, Oregon. Read more