During WWII, the Japanese sent thousands of floating deathtraps across the ocean with one goal: burn down the Pacific Northwest. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was a shocking display of its ruthless military tactics during World War II. Over 2,400 U.S. servicemen died during the surprise attack, thrusting the United States…
Category: Obscure History
Cold War Files: The Men Who Stare At Tripping Cats
“In laboratory experiments, a normal cat displays the normal hunter instinct toward a mouse,” a narrator explains in a droning monotone. Donned in a stereotypical white lab coat, the scientist locks the feline in a box and sprays it with lysergic acid diethylamide. A hallucinogenic drug better known as LSD. “After 45 seconds, the effects…
Obscure Military History: Tank Warfare in the Dominican Republic, 1965
Tanks have rarely been used in battle in the Western Hemisphere — and fights between tanks are even rarer. But the Dominican Republic in 1965 was one of the exceptions, when Constitutionalist rebels fought the armored vehicles of invading U.S. Marines in the streets of the capital city, Santo Domingo. Stranger yet, the Dominicans were using Swedish tanks….
Obscure World War II History: The Failed Japanese Coup of 1945
A last-ditch attempt to overthrow the Japanese government at the end of World War II was a bloody embarrassment Open Road Media sponsored this post. By August 1945 more than two million Japanese soldiers, sailors and aviators had died in eight years of war stretching from China and Southeast Asia to halfway across the Pacific….
Know Your Weapons: French Marine Commando’s with CETME Rifles
I was doing some reading up on the early roller-delayed rifles (in Blake Stevens’ exquisitely technical and detailed book Full Circle: A Treatise on Roller Locking) and came across this very cool story, which I wanted to share… Spain formally adopted the CETME Model B in 1958. It was mechanically pretty much the same gun…
Obscure History: The Supreme Court Justice Who Shot a Senator
If, like me, you are dispirited by our national political climate, you may occasionally entertain the sense that you are witness to an era of unprecedented moral debasement. Creeping oligarchy, the re-emergence of an atavistic paleo-conservatism, the slow death-wheeze of the fourth estate, the rise of a relentlessly cheery techno-utopian Gatsby class—we’ve got a lot…
Obscure Weapons: The Standschultze-Hellreigel Submachine Gun
The Austro-Hungarian Standschutze Hellriegel debuted in 1915. Today the automatic, light firearm is something of a mystery. The prototype blended pistol-caliber ammunition with the firepower of a machine gun, making it one of the first weapons which could be considered a “submachine gun.” That much, we know. The rest is … conjecture. The images in this…
Espionage Files: CIA Tip Led to Mandela’s Fateful 1962 Arrest
The older I get, the more I am learning that ALL History has always had 2 faces: The Public Face, or the one most everybody is shown and taught in school, and the Real Face, or the face that has been hidden because it is not really fit for “public consumption”. My Goal since I…
U.S Naval Military History: The First Submarine Ever Built
The Connecticut River Museum in Essex holds a fully-functional replica of the “Turtle,” the first American submarine ever built. Little-known fact: the first submarine and underwater time bomb were created during the American Revolution–before electricity, and before Jules Verne. It was 100% human-operated (no engines just hand cranks and foot pedals) and used phosphorescent moss as…
World War Two History: The Amazing Story of Wojtek, The Polish Soldier Bear
After being released from a Siberian labor camp during the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1942, the 22nd Polish Supply Brigade began a long trek south toward Persia. Along the way, they bought an orphaned bear. In the spring of 1942 following the release of Polish prisoners and deportees in the labour camps in Siberia,…