CATEGORIES

NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES

In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes

OPERATION MANNA

In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food

GASSING HITLER

Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?

SALAMANCA

After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia

HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE

Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive

LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN

One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength

MAD DAWN

How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day

BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON

Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses

THE DEADLY RACE

How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT

Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war

COUPS & CHAOS

How the French armed forces lost the war in Algeria and almost destroyed French democracy in the process

BATTLE OF ALGIERS

When the Front de libération nationale FLN) took its war to the streets of the capital, France’s military responded with merciless wrath

THE RISE OF ALGERIAN RESISTANCE

How the anti-colonialist struggle around the globe helped inspire Algeria’s liberation movement to organise and fight back

ROOTS OF REVOLUTION

A century of French occupation led to a genocide in Algeria that provoked one of the bloodiest showdowns of the modern age

DWIGHT W BIRDWELL

In the opening hours of the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, this Specialist Five led his armoured cavalry detachment in repulsing a fierce communist assault against Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon

THE FIVE STRATEGY AND LEADERSHIP

Phillips O’Brien discusses how this quintet of national leaders impacted the course of the Second World War

Great Battles FLODDEN

On the morning of 9 September 1513, King James lV of Scotland stood atop Flodden Hill with what seemed an insurmountable advantage over the English. Yet by the day's end he would lay slain and his army shattered

FERDINAND 'THE BLOODY'

Known for his brutal martial punishment and execution of his own men, Ferdinand Schérner’s ruthlessness was matched only by his devotion to Nazi ideology

AIRBORNE UNDER SIEGE ARNHEM

For nine days the heroic 1st Airborne fought desperately, waiting vainly for relief that never came

SCANDINAVIA UNDER ATTACK

Hitler’s forces smash through Denmark and Norway ina grim foretaste of the terrible fate awaiting the rest of Western Europe

DEFEAT & OCCUPATION

Nazi victory in the north ushered in five years of occupation characterised by collaboration and brutal retribution

ALLIED FIGHTBACK

Britain and France race to Norway’s aid as the two nations suffer their first defeats and score their earliest victories of the war

PLOTTING THE STRIKE NORTH

Ahead of his push west, Hitler launched a pre-emptive assault on neutral Scandinavia to secure iron ore supplies and Nazi control of the North Sea

RUSSIAN ROULETTE Q&A WITH ANNA REID

As WWI reached its bloody crescendo, a foolhardy intervention was launched into Russia's civil war -a move that descended into sinister complicity and defeat

The FIRST BATTLE

At the end of the 7th century, a battle you've probably never heard of took place between two emerging nations, soon to be historic rivals. The fighting settled a border that still endures over 1,300 years later

BRITS BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

At the beginning of the Cold War, a peculiar military mission began its work officially, and unofficially, gathering intelligence inside Soviet-occupied East Germany

TALI-IHANTALAI

Outnumbered and outgunned, the Finns’ spirited defence of a natural choke point turned back the Red Army during the largest battle in the region's history

Heroes of the Medal of Honor LUCIAN ADAMS

Armed with a Browning Automatic Rifle and hand grenades, this lone sergeant silenced three enemy machine gun emplacements in the mountains of northeastern France

HOME GUARD

Beginning as veteran volunteers in Britain's 'Darkest Hour', the nation's defence forces grew to take on a range of dangerous and secretive roles

THE OTHER OPERATION OVERLORD D-DAY'S GHOST ARMY

Historian Taylor Downing discusses the cunning use of intrigue and deception during Operation Fortitude