A Brief History On August 2, 216 BC, the Carthaginian army of Hannibal defeated the larger Roman Army at Cannae, a major battle during the Second Punic War. This battle was one of the most humiliating defeats in the history of Rome and is considered one of the great strokes of tactical military genius of all time. Digging Deeper After losing 2 major battles to the Carthaginians at Trebia and Lake Trasimene (218 and 217 BC respectively), the Romans had regrouped and sought a decisive battle against the invaders. Able to field an army of 86,000 men against only 50,000…
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A Brief History On August 2, 1916, the Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci was sunk in its own harbor at Taranto courtesy of Austrian sabotage. The mighty battleship was only 2 years old and was sunk by a magazine explosion, a sorry end to a capital ship. The Italian military and its Roman predecessors have had plenty of notable military triumphs over the years, but seem to have a reputation for disaster despite that. Here we list 10 Italian Military Disasters or Catastrophes. (Note: We are tempted to count World War I and World War II as 2 complete disasters…
A Brief History On August 2, 1916, Austrian saboteurs managed to sink the Italian battleship, Leonardo da Vinci as the great ship lay in Taranto harbor. Was the magazine explosion an accident, or did the Austrians use some sort of novel booby trap to sink the mighty vessel? Either way, World War I, like other wars, saw the imagination of arms designers and military engineers run wild. Here we list 10 of the weird weapons or contraptions dreamed up to help one side or the other win the war. What items would you add to the list? (See our follow on article,…
A Brief History On August 2, 1343, Olivier Clisson, a French nobleman from Brittany, was convicted of treason in Paris and beheaded. He had been fighting the British in the Hundred Years War, and when his success tapered off, he was criticized and accused of treason, perhaps to deflect blame from French losses. Digging Deeper Olivier, miffed and sensing danger, then defected to the English for real and was later arrested. Taken to Paris for trial, he was beheaded, as was the fate of traitors in those days. His head was placed on display at Nantes, and his enraged wife (widow)…
