The sinking of RMS Lusitania during WWI RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915. The luxury passenger liner was crossing the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool when the German submarine U-20 fired without warning. After a second explosion – the cause of which is still debated – the ship quickly sank. It…
Tag: Military History
The Story of ANZAC Day: History and Legacy
The Story of ANZAC Day: History and Legacy ANZAC Day history began in the darkness before dawn, as Australian and New Zealand soldiers rowed towards Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. The landing at Gallipoli was anticipated to be a quick action that would remove Turkey from World War I (WWI). Instead, it escalated into…
War’s of Distraction
Napoleon Bonaparte took part in seven major coalition conflicts during the era known as the Napoleonic Wars, which lasted from 1803 to 1815. These wars pitted France against shifting alliances of European powers determined to curb his influence. When counting individual engagements instead of entire wars, historians generally estimate that Napoleon personally commanded around sixty…
Booby Traps from the Vietnam War
Assessing “Cognitive Warfare”
Despite its introduction over a decade ago by the People’s Liberation Army, there is no common understanding of Cognitive Warfare. Nor is there an agreement on the existence of a human or cognitive domain. These concepts compete in a crowded and confusing field centered around information technology and the related information dimension of statecraft….
The Burning of Alexandria
The Burning of Alexandria The Yankees occupied New Orleans and its surrounding environs from April, 1862 until the end of the Civil War. In 1863, Gen. Nathaniel Banks left New Orleans to start an advance toward Shreveport. He hoped to seize the busy river port. He followed the Red River upstream. Banks joined with forces…
In Memoriam: John C. Cole, USMC, Last of the Old Breed
John C. Cole, a United States Marine Corps veteran, was born on May 23, 1927, in Moran, Texas, and passed away peacefully on March 9, 2025, in Roy, Utah, at the age of 97. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1944, following in the footsteps of his brother and uncle, and served as…
Know Your Military History: The Black Hawk Down Story as told by CWO4 Mike Durant, 160th SOAR (Night Stalkers)
Flying over the MOG (To the tune of Take it Easy by the Eagles)
*This was taken from the Documentary Battle of the Black Sea, Msgt. Paul Howe’s Untold Story of Black Hawk Down. I was flying down the road trying to shoot another load I’ve got seven sammies on my mind, four that wanna stone me, two that wanna hose me, one he’s very hard to find…
On This Day in Military History 1992: Operation Restore Hope Begins in Somalia
1992-12-09 US Marines and allied nations launch an amphibious and airborne operation in Mogadishu, Somalia, to restore order to the war-torn nation. Authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 794, passed on December 3. A civil war in Somalia had raged since the late 1980s when dictator Siad Barre began to face significant resistance to…