MSN | War History

5 Military Events That Prove Friday The 13th Is Incredibly Unlucky

Clare Fitzgerald
King George VI and Elizabeth the Queen Mother during the London Blitz + downed Swedish plane in the ocean

Friday the 13th is considered one of the unluckiest days of the year. While many feel it’s just people being overly superstitious, others believe there’s…

A Submarine Made it Home with a Sail Made of Blankets

By today’s standards, a submarine from 1918 is rather basic, but even for a submarine of the time, using sails as a means of propulsion…

Operation Olive: The Allied Attempt To Break Through The Gothic Line

Two men carrying munitions + smoke emanating from a ground attack

The final years of the Second World War saw Germany fighting a defensive battle against the Allies. Germany had been pushed out of Africa and…

M50 Ontos – The “Thing” that was Hated by the Army and Loved by the Marines

The M50 Ontos Thing - Popular in Vietnam

In the early 1950s, the US was on the hunt for a lightweight air-transportable tank destroyer. Similar attempts were made during WWII, but limitations in…

In The Angolan Civil War, Angola Had An Unlikely Ally In Cuba

Mural of Castro and Angola's Agostinho Neto in Angola, 1987.

When Angola was plunged into a set of civil wars that lasted decades, the last country one might expect to join in might be Cuba.…

How The Bandung Conference Of 1955 Was The Beginning Of The End For Indonesia’s President

Asian–African Conference at Bandung April 1955

The Bandung Conference of 1955 was a meeting of Asian and African nations, many of which were newly emerging from colonial rule. It was an…

Kildin Island Incident: When a Russian Submarine Surfaced Right Under an American Spy Sub

Although the Cold War ‘ended’ with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the tensions built up over the previous 45 years did not…

Taking K-129: Howard Hughes, the CIA, and the Most Expensive Secret Plot of the Cold War

K-129

The Cold War was infamous as a time of bizarre weapons, vehicles, and projects. Because the US and the Soviet Union were not fighting a…

The “Great Impostor” — Fred Demara Pretended To Be A Ship’s Surgeon And Didn’t Lose A Soul

Ferdinand Waldo Demara (left) referred to in the past as the "Great Imposter" is shown with Deputy D.A. Manley Bowler May 8 after he surrendered himself upon learning he had been charged with grand theft auto.

Ferdinand “Fred” Waldo Demara Jr. was a monk, a surgeon, and a lawyer. Well, kind of. He was a very skilled American impostor who was…

The Saint-Chamond: The WWI Tank That’s No Longer Considered A Tank

Saint-Chamond driving down the street + the tank on the battlefield

Tank warfare was introduced during the First World War. The British began development in 1915, and when the war broke out, more countries began to…

The All-Female Civilian Organization That Provided Air Defense For Hawaii

Four WARDs and a male co-worker around a table

The Women’s Air Raid Defense (WARD) was a civilian organization working alongside the U.S. military to protect the Hawaiian Islands from Japanese air attacks during…

The Final Countdown Failed To Find Its Plot But Helped The US Navy Recruit

The Final Countdown Still

The 1980 naval action flick The Final Countdown received only average reviews at best upon its release. On the surface, it looks like a standard…