Niihau Incident at Pearl Harbor – Local Hawaiians Fought Downed Japanese Pilot and Sympathizers
Shigenori Nishikaichi knew his Zero was doomed once his fuel tank was hit by American fire. He had already successfully guarded a group of bombers…
The Mad Baron: The Austro-Russian Who Saved the Khan & Mongolia
Although Roman von Ungern-Sternberg was born to a noble family of Austrian and Estonian heritage, it was his more distant Hungarian ancestry of which he…
Nuking the Moon? Secret U.S. Plan A119 Military Project Included Carl Sagan
Mere months after Sputnik terrified Americans and signified the early Soviet lead in the Space Race, the American military came up with a bold, and…
“Winning Hearts and Minds” – The Long History of a Failed Strategy
How does a conquering army overcome resistance from the local population? For the United States, the answer has often taken the form of the somewhat…
“Duck and Cover” – Futile Measures, or a Life-Saving Plan?
Every American who went to school in the 1950s or 60s will remember air raid drills, the “Duck and Cover” slogan, and talk of fallout…
How Communists in Germany Allied with Nazis to Destroy Democracy
The cooperation between the communist and Nazi parties in Germany to undermine social democracy must be one of the strangest and most extreme partnerships in…
Total Victory Lost – Why the South Lost Civil War at Chancellorsville not Gettysburg
While Chancellorsville is often regarded as General Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory, many would be surprised to know that after the battle he remarked “We…
Worst Weapons of WWII: Luckily Some Were Never Used
Desperate times call for desperate measures, but sometimes soldiers were sent into battle with shockingly incompetent weaponry: either inherently seriously flawed, extremely outdated, insufficient for…
The Stonewall Brigade: More Than the Man
The Confederate left flank was on the verge of complete collapse at the First Battle of Manassas, and General Barnard Bee was struggling to instill…
MiG-19 – 1st Soviet Supersonic Fighter
In the early 1950s, as the world’s superpowers realized that a Cold War was inevitable, the United States and the Soviet Union began to compete…
Celtic Warriors Limit Roman Power at Hadrian’s Wall
The Roman Empire’s success, like that of many empires, was closely linked with its ability to expand. Rome’s history was borne of conflict, and for…
Baltic Crusaders – Pagans Defeat Christian Knights at the Battle of Saule
By 1200 Christianity was the dominant religious force throughout almost all of Europe; however, one group of pagans, in the last stronghold of their beliefs,…