The Vikings worshiped a pantheon of Gods, and a body of Norse mythology and lore developed around them prior to their conversion to Christianity.   More »

By Christopher Miskimon
Special Forces Sergeant Nick Brokhausen awoke to the taste of dirt in his mouth and the crump of exploding mortar bombs. Above him there were voices but he could not tell who they were. Hands pulled him from the ground where he had been lying face down. Nick   More »

By Jon Diamond
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto was not the only gambler in Imperial Japan’s military hierarchy. Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, appointed commander of the Imperial Japanese Army’s (IJA) 25th Army on November 2, 1941, to lead the invasion of Malaya and Singapore, also took risks to capture the prized British territory   More »

By Pat McTaggart
It was called Nordlicht, or Northern Lights. With Hitler’s drive toward Stalingrad in full swing, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW—German Armed Forces High Command) was also planning to end the almost year-long siege of Leningrad in a two-pronged attack to capture the city.
Failing to take Leningrad in 1941,   More »

By William E. Welch
On Sunday, March 18, 1582, 37-year-old Dutch Stadholder Prince William of Orange attended a festive luncheon in his palace in Antwerp to celebrate the birthday of major ally French Duke Francis of Anjou, who had arrived in the Low Countries the previous month to support the Dutch   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 »

By Steve Ossad

Afew months after the Normandy campaign and with other fronts competing for the American public’s attention, Lt. Col. S.L.A. “Slam” Marshall, a hard-living Chicago newspaperman, World War I veteran, and deputy historian in the European Theater, hand carried the first of the War Departmemt campaign publications, Omaha Beachhead,to   More »

By Kevin M. Hymel
“Bombs away!”called out the bombardier of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber Great Speckled Bird, signaling the release of a full bombload over an enemy target. He was wrong. Two stubborn bombs refused to fall, remaining in their bomb bay racks.
The bomber’s radioman, Technical Sergeant Thomas Fitzpatrick,   More »

By John J. Domagalski
General Alexander Patch had been thinking about moving some troops to the southwestern part of Guadalcanal since taking command of all American ground forces on the embattled island on December 9, 1942. Little more than a month later his soldiers were cautiously pushing the remaining Japanese troops   More »

By Michael Hull
As powerful, fast-moving German panzer and infantry columnsrampaged across Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and into northern France early in May 1940, the British held their breath and watched apprehensively from across the narrow English Channel.
The lightning “blitzkrieg” advance split the retreating French and British armies, and the outlook was   More »