France
The Black Death that ravaged England and France for a half-dozen years in the mid-14th century served merely as a brief intermission between the first and second acts of the painfully protracted struggle known as the Hundred Years’ War. Read more
France
On August 25, 1944, Larry Stevens and the rest of his Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber crew completed their 35th mission over Nazi-occupied Europe. Read more
France
Rudolf Jackl dove headfirst from the aircraft door, stretching his arms toward the ship’s port wing to keep from getting tangled in his parachute’s shroud lines as he was slammed by turbulent air. Read more
France
Young and ambitious, recently crowned English king Henry V had a dynastic point to make, one that would relieve him of the taint of royal illegitimacy born of the fact that his father had usurped the English throne a mere decade before. Read more
France
French King Louis XIV first standardized uniforms in 1657 when the king gave the companies of Masion du Roy blue uniforms. Read more
France
Spanish Legionaries charged into battle crying, “Long Live Death.” They sang of being “the Bridegrooms of Death” and proved they meant it with over 10,000 killed and 35,000 wounded. Read more
France
Thick metal helmets were used since ancient times to offer protection to their wearers in combat and are among the earliest forms of armor. Read more
France
On the morning of October 3, 1944, an all-out assault was launched to drive the enemy from Cleurie Quarry in northeast France. Read more
France
England’s survival hung in the balance. She had only recently clashed with an imposing Continental alliance, in a futile war characterized by unprecedented slaughter on obscure fields in Flanders. Read more
France
Early in June 1940, refugees from northern France and the low Countries who had flooded Paris in May fled with the residents of the city as the German advance neared. Read more
France
A regiment of Bavarian infantry advanced quietly in the dark, rising from its own trenches and moving toward the French lines across the desolate no-man’s-land in between. Read more
France
The Age of Chivalry brings to mind knights in shining armor and damsels in distress, along with traveling troubadours and minstrels singing chansons de geste, “songs of deeds,” telling of feats of arms and labors of love. Read more
France
Shortly after 8 am on June 6, 1944, a German officer overlooking the Vierville-sur-Mer Draw on Omaha Beach reported that the soldiers defending the beach were repelling the Americans: “The enemy is in search of cover behind the coastal zone obstacles. Read more
France
King Edward IV could not have asked for better news. On the evening of May 3, 1471, his scouts reported that the army of his Lancastrian archrival, Queen Margaret of Anjou, was camped a few miles south of the abbey town of Tewkesbury with its back to the River Severn. Read more
France
On June 19, 1778, Continental soldiers marched out of Valley Forge, happy to leave the rough wooden cabins where they had spent a miserable winter; cold, hunger, and disease had been their constant companions. Read more
France
The final defeat of the Saxon King Harold at the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066, meant that England became forever Norman. Read more
France
Mention Elizabethan England to most people, and they usually think of William Shakespeare, the Globe Theatre and Sir Francis Drake. Read more
France
The 2nd Dragoon Regiment traces its lineage to the 16th century as a cavalry regiment, fighting in various wars and engagements across western Europe. Read more
France
When the first tanks appeared in World War I, they were relatively lightly armored and protected the crews only against small-arms fire. Read more
France
The CSS Alabama went to her watery grave on June 19, 1864, off the coast of France, but the lingering effects of her wartime successes made naval history: she continued to haunt the American and British governments for years to come, embroiling the two English-speaking nations in a legal test of wills that would last well into the next decade. Read more
