The difference between a historian and a poet is not that one uses prose and the other verse. After all, you could take the History of Herodotus and turn it into verse, but it would still be history, not poetry.…
A signature piece of kit for American GIs in World War II, the bazooka was a tubular, shoulder-fired, 2.36-inch rocket launcher. It fired a projectile bearing a shaped-charge warhead, which contained a hollow cavity lined with metal. On contact with a target, the shaped explosive detonated, sending a slender jet…
Summer is in full swing, bringing with it the promise of long, bright days under the shining sun. This all-powerful celestial body has long been linked with kingship: Louis XIV of France, for example, famously chose the sun as his emblem and became known as the ‘Sun King’. In the…
DAVID PORTER ON MILITARY HISTORY’S DOOMED INVENTIONS.…
‘Siege’ derives from the Old French sege and had appeared in English by the 14th century.…
Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Britain all produced their versions of the type, such as the Bf 110, Potez 630, Fokker G.I, and the Beaufighter.…
Gladius was a general Latin word for ‘sword’. A gladiator was someone who fought with a gladius – a swordsman. As usually employed today, gladius refers to a double-edged short sword.…
What buddies could you prefer to a faithful wife? What brothers can you imagine skipping out on her for? A wife’s more trustworthy than friends, more faithful than a brother, and a beautiful bride even beats your mom for loyalty.…
All three of these aircraft originated with a 1940 requirement for a large assault glider in preparation for Operation Sealion, the projected invasion of Britain. Although Operation Sealion had effectively been cancelled by the time the requirement was issued in October 1940, there was still an urgent need for this…
Marcus Claudius Marcellus asked the Senate to grant him a triumph. He was refused because the fighting in his former province of Sicily was still ongoing, and his army was not with him to support his claim. Instead, he was given only an ovation.…
For the man who gives willingly, even if he gives much, rejoices in the gift and feels glad in his heart. The man who takes for himself, observing no sense of shame, even if it involves a small amount, hardens the heart.…
'Armageddon’ came to English, via Greek, from Hebrew har megiddo, meaning ‘mountain of Megiddo.’…
Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars offers a series of sensational biographies of Roman rulers from Julius Caesar to Domitian, highlighting moments of depravity, viciousness, scheming, and excess.…
‘Jeep’ was US Army slang meaning something that was unimportant or laughable.…
Although the design was an amazing technological achievement for its day, it was little more than a very expensive propaganda weapon.…
And here’s another point to take note of, that not everything people laugh at is witty.…
The designs of these outfits are based on two high-status graves, which contained some of the best-preserved Viking Age textiles in Denmark: a male burial from Bjerringhøj, dated to AD 970-971, and a female grave from Hvilehøj, dated to the late AD 900s.…
I headed for the battlefield monument to get my bearings – an obelisk erected in 1740 to mark the spot where Warwick the Kingmaker, the greatest figure of the Wars of the Roses, was supposedly cut down...…
David Porter on Military History's doomed inventions.…
Pawn emerges etymologically from the Anglo-Norman poun, which itself comes from the medieval Latin pedo (‘footsoldier’), derived from the Latin pes (‘foot’).…