cuba

Mad Mike Hoare: How a Businessman Became a Legendary Mercenary

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

With the exception of the French Foreign Legion, the concept of the mercenary, or soldier of fortune, seemed extinct after World War II. Read more

cuba

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

cuba

The 1903 Springfield Rifle’s Storied Military History

By Christopher Miskimon

On November 17, 1915, Major Smedley Butler and a small force of U.S. Marines approached the old French bastion of Fort Riviere in Haiti. Read more

cuba

The Rafael Trujillo Assassination: Why Did the CIA Follow Through?

By Peter Kross

From 1959 to 1961, the United States turned its focus to two of the most charismatic, ruthless, and despotic rulers in the Caribbean region, Fidel Castro of Cuba and Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. Read more

cuba

The Cuban Missile Crisis: On the Brink of Nuclear War

By Peter Kross

For 13 tension-filled days in October 1962, the world came closer to nuclear war than it has ever come before or since. Read more

cuba

South African Paratroopers’ Raid on Cassinga

By Thomas B. Blevins

South Africa in the spring of 1978 was a country besieged. The apartheid state was increasingly unpopular with its neighbors and unable to control its own restive black population. Read more

cuba

Fiasco at the Bay of Pigs

By Peter Kross

On the morning of April 18, 1961, readers of the New York Times awoke to a startling headline: “Anti-Castro Units Land in Cuba; Report Fighting at Beachhead; Rusk Says U.S. Read more

cuba

Healing the Wounded in Cuba

By Kevin M. Hymel

The khaki-clad soldiers wounded in the steaming jungles of Cuba during the Spanish-American War had distinct advantages over their Civil War brethren. Read more