Until the atomic bomb could be tested, doubt would remain about its effectiveness. The world had never seen a nuclear explosion before, and estimates varied widely on how much energy would be released. Some scientists at Los Alamos continued privately to h…
The Great Famine of 1876–78, also known as the Madras famine of 1877, covered a major part of south India and took an estimated 5.5 million lives. The famine ultimately covered an area of 670,000 square kilometers (257,000 sq mi) and caused distress to …
The Second World War changed the United States for women, and women in turn transformed their nation. Over three hundred fifty thousand women volunteered for military service, while twenty times as many stepped into civilian jobs, including positions pr…
For most of Finland's history, the country had lived on the periphery of world events, but for a few weeks during the winter of 1939-40, Finland stood at the center of the world stage. Finland's stand against Soviet aggression aroused the world's admira…
In the years leading up to the First World War Britain and Germany engaged in a naval arms race. Britain had peaceably enjoyed its status as the world’s dominant naval force since the Napoleonic Wars but Germany now sought to contest that dominance. A n…
The photo first appeared in The Vidette-Messenger of Valparaiso, Indiana on August 5, 1948. The children looked posed and a bit confused as their pregnant mother hides her face from the photographer. The caption read: “A big ‘For Sale’ sign in a Chicago…
Czeslawa Kwoka, age 14, appears in a prisoner identity photo provided by the Auschwitz Museum, taken by Wilhelm Brasse while working in the photography department at Auschwitz, the Nazi-run death camp where some 1.5 million people died during World War II.…
Dressed in their finest suits and ties with their top hats cocked towards the camera, these men and women seem to be posing for expensive portraits. But behind their tidy appearances are guilty eyes that hide some of the most sinister crimes policemen of t…
The Germans, as the only colonial power amongst the Central Powers, used plenty of African soldiers of their Schutztruppen in the African theatres of war, but they had never planned to deploy these troops in Europe and would not have been able to do so dur…
Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda is the most famous of the so-called Japanese holdouts, a collection of Imperial Army stragglers who continued to hide out in the South Pacific for several years after World War II had ended. An intelligence officer, Onoda had been…
Hoover Dam is as tall as a 60-story building. It was the highest dam in the world when it was completed in 1935. Its base is as thick as two football fields. Each spillway, designed to let floodwaters pass without harming the dam itself, can handle the …
The 1989 Hillsborough disaster was an incident that occurred during the FA Cup semi-final match on 15 April 1989 at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. The crush resulted in the deaths of 96 people and injuries to 766 others. The victims suf…
Recommended Historical Reading List. (Temporary list - More books will be added). General World War I World War II Eastern Front: General Accounts Red Army German Army Barbarossa For Stalingrad/Leningrad Kursk …
In the early 1900s, the age-old custom of pistol dueling was briefly resurrected as a non-lethal sport by using wax bullets. While it still involved men shooting firearms at one another, the difference here was that defeated parties could be “theoretica…
During the final days of the war, a platoon of machine gunners entered a Leipzig building looking for positions to set up covering fire points that would protect foot soldiers of the 2nd U.S. Infantry advancing across the bridge. Two members of the plat…
Amon Leopold Goeth (German: Amon Göth) the villain of the movie Schindler's List, was born in 1908 in Vienna, Austria. At the age of 24, he joined the Nazi party. In 1940, Amon Goeth became a member of the Waffen-SS. He was assigned to the SS headquarte…
The invention of the cannon in the 12th century revolutionized warfare, and soon after, this powerful weapon found a horrifying use – executions. Cannons became instruments of torture, with condemned prisoners strapped to their muzzles and blasted to pieces…
“Wait for Me, Daddy” is an iconic photo taken by Claude P. Dettloff on October 1, 1940, of The British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles) marching down Eighth Street at the Columbia Street intersection, New Westminster, Canada. Pictured …
Chased by youth armed with clubs, this woman is fleeing from a "death dealer" whose left leg can be seen at the left-hand edge of the photograph. The Lviv pogroms were the consecutive massacres of Jews living in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), per…
On April 27, 1926, the Cañon City Daily Record ran a surprising bulletin on its front page. Right under a notice that the local junior high school was putting together a variety show, the local newspaper of the small central Colorado town printed the headl…