With Sultan Mohammed II’s Turkish horde at the gates of Rhodes, the city’s Knights Hospitallers prepared an unholy welcome for the Ottoman siege.   More »

Norway’s King Harald Hardradi, known as ‘the Land Waster,’ came close to conquering England before William the Conqueror in 1066.   More »

Led by ‘General’ William Eaton, one of the strangest invading forces in history set out across the desert near Tripoli to avenge American honor.   More »

In the 11th century, Crusaders battled the Seljuq Turks at the Siege of Antioch, the final obstacle on their path into Jerusalem.   More »

By William E. Welsh
An assault on an Alan woman by an Almogavar of the Catalan Company exploded into a skirmish between the two groups of allies in the pay of the Byzantine Empire on April 9, 1303. The incident occurred at   Cyzicus on the southern shores of the Sea of   More »

Mehmed the Conqueror, the Sultan Mehmet II, wanted to capture Constantinople in 1453, but the city’s defenders fought with all their might.   More »

Subsequent failed campaigns to capture regions of the Byzantine Empire led Igor I of Keiv to be considered one of the worst leaders in history.   More »

By Alex Zakrzewski

In late 1917, the most successful cavalry charge of World War I took place not on the muddy killing fields of the Western Front, but at the foot of the Judean Hills in southern Palestine. The sun had just begun to set over the desert town of Beersheba   More »

Mary, Queen of Scots was let down by a faulty cipher and her misplaced trust in the reputed cleverness of her co-conspirators.   More »

“An obol for Belisarius!” became a catchphase for the shabby treatment governments meted out to their ex-soldiers. But what was the origin of the legend?   More »