Warfare

Rocket cat and rocket bird, Buch von den probierten Künsten, Franz Helm, c 1535.

Incendiary Bats, Rocket Cats: Military Strategists Will Dream of Attaching Firepower to Anything That Moves

In 16th century manuscripts, drawings of feline grenades

This double-edged iron sword was found in Denmark’s Tisso Lake.

The Vikings’ Bad Boy Reputation Is Back With a Vengeance

A major new exhibition is reviving the Norse seafarers’ iconic image as rampagers and pillagers

The storming of the Bastille

The French Revolution in Pictures

The French Revolution Digital Archive has more than 14,000 images from the Revolution of 1789

A mosquito of the genus Anopheles.

Nazi Scientists Wanted to Use Mosquitoes to Send Diseases Behind Enemy Lines

The Nazi SS ran an entomological research facility

The XStat is designed so that as many as 97 tiny sponges can be injected into open wounds to stop bleeding in seconds.

An Injectable Bandage Can Stop Heavy Bleeding in 15 Seconds

A new technology developed for the military has the potenial to save soldiers from fatal gunshot wounds

Which Sci-Fi Armor Is the Military's Fancy New Battle Suit Actually Like?

They're calling it the "Iron Man" suit, but we think there's a closer analogy

What Prompts People to Eat Human Flesh?

Power, violence, revenge—and the heat of the moment

War elephants depicted in the battle of Zama, 202 BC.

A Lesson from History: When Assembling an Army of War Elephants, Don’t Pick Inbred Ones

Even though African elephants usually trump Asian elephants for might and aggression, in 217 B.C. Ptolemy made the crucial mistake of choosing inbred ones

The Battle of Chapultepec, which resulted in a U.S. victory, was waged on September 13, 1847 in Mexico City.

Brainpower and Brawn in the Mexican-American War

The United States Army had several advantages, but the most decisive was the professionalism instilled at West Point

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The Early History of Faking War on Film

Early filmmakers faced a dilemma: how to capture the drama of war without getting themselves killed in the process. Their solution: fake the footage

Low-altitude images, previously unpublished, reveal gaps in U.S. intelligence. Analysts failed to detect tactical nuclear warheads at a bunker near Managua.

The Photographs That Prevented World War III

While researching a book on the Cuban missile crisis, the writer unearthed new spy images that could have changed history

A nighttime German barrage on Allied trenches at Ypres

Fritz Haber’s Experiments in Life and Death

The German chemist helped feed the world. Then he developed the first chemical weapons used in battle

Soldiers and police officers respond to a terrorist attack at an airport of the future (1981)

Fighting Terrorism in the Future

A 1981 book predicted that the soldiers of the future could be more like heavily armed policemen than a fighting force

The craze for collecting toy soldiers began with the French in the 18th century. In this scene, British foot soldiers attack a French officer.

The Great Battles of History, in Miniature

At a museum in Valencia, Spain, over one million toy soldiers stand at attention, prepared to reenact the wars that shaped the world

The Union is defeated at Ball's Bluff, where Col. Edward D. Baker becomes the only U.S. senator to be killed in battle as illustrated here in Death of Col. Edward D. Baker: At The Battle of Balls Bluff Near Leesburg, Va., October 21st, 1861.

Scattered Actions: October 1861

While the generals on both sides deliberated, troops in blue and gray fidgeted

Union generals lost a week long siege of Lexington, Missouri, shown here, but took control of Ship Island, off Mississippi's coast.

September 1861: Settling in for a Long War

During this month, the civil war expands to Kentucky and West Virginia, and President Lincoln rejects an attempt at emancipation

Ruins in front of the Capitol in Richmond showing some of the destruction caused by a Confederate attempt to burn Richmond.

Battlefields

Casualties mounting on two fronts

After Union troops refused to evacuate Fort Sumter, today a National Monument, Confederates opened fire.

Fort Sumter: The Civil War Begins

Nearly a century of discord between North and South finally exploded in April 1861 with the bombardment of Fort Sumter

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Reconsiderations

Botched battles and preconceptions overturned

In the 1940s, the Soviet Union launched an all-out espionage effort to uncover military and defense secrets from the US and Britain (Klaus Fuchs, left, and David Greenglass, right).

Spies Who Spilled Atomic Bomb Secrets

As part of the Soviet Union's spy ring, these Americans and Britons leveraged their access to military secrets to help Russia become a nuclear power

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