A battlefield of 3,250 years ago in Germany is yielding remains of wounded warriors, wooden clubs, spear points, flint and bronze arrowheads and bronze knives and swords. The gruesome scene, frozen in time by peat, is unlike anything else from the Bronze Age in Northern Europe, where, researchers thought, large-scale warfare didn’t begin until later….
Category: Obscure History
Obscure Weapons: 1846 Norwegian Knife-Pistol
This is one of the more practical knife/pistol combinations I have seen – it actually has a pretty reasonable grip when used in either capacity. It has two muzzleloading smoothbore barrels, with a percussion cap hidden under each top ear of the crossguard and a folding trigger in the body of the grip. After I…
Obscure History: The Death Penalty Abolitionist Who Invented the Guillotine
The 18th-century doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin hoped a more humane method of execution would eventually lead to the end of capital punishment. One day in May 1738, legend has it, a woman approaching the end of her pregnancy was walking down a street in Saintes, France, when she heard the cries of a man being…
History of Domestic Terrorism: America’s Original ‘Lone-Wolf’ Terrorist
No one noticed as the tall, thin man carried a package into the Capitol and left it in the Senate reception room. It was nearly July 4, 1915, and Congress hadn’t been in session since March, but many of the legislative buildings were open and thinly guarded. Frank Holt, 44, sneaked back out and made…
World War Two History: The Worst U.S. General of World War II
I was watching Patton with George C. Scott again the other day for about the 400th time and one of the scenes I remember the most was when Fredendall got Relieved by Patton after the disaster at Kasserine Pass in 1943…Even though the Americans were under the command of the British during Kasserine, Fredendall got…
Cold War Files: Some Obscure Cold War History (In Comics)
The World’s Highest War … in Comics ‘Siachen: The Cold War’ depicts a pointless conflict In 1984, India and Pakistan went to war over the Siachen Glacier. A 2003 ceasefire halted most of the fighting, but troops from both sides are still facing off and losing more soldiers every year to the climate, altitude and…