Browsing: Military

A Brief History On May 10, 1865, Union troops ambushed, shot and captured infamous Confederate raider William Quantrill.  Quantrill had terrorized the Union and Union sympathizers during the Civil War (not so “civil!”) and was perhaps the most famous of the “Bushwhackers” as these guerilla raiders were known.  Quantrill died 4 weeks later at a Union prison camp, paralyzed from the chest down.  He was only 27 years old. Digging Deeper Throughout history, men and women have conducted raids, and some have become famous or infamous for their raids.  Here we list 10 of the most notorious.  (Note: The order…

A Brief History On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally to the allies and ceased to exist as a state. You may count Germany invading Poland in 1939 as the start of World War II (also known as The Second World War) or the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1937, but in any case most people would guess correctly that World War II cost more lives than any other war in history. (Please note that total lives lost in each war are also debatable, and the list can be rearranged somewhat depending on your analysis of the sources.) The…

A Brief History On May 7, 2004, American inventor and businessman Nicholas Berg, only 26 years old, was beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Iraq, a barbaric event made all the worse because the terrorists posted a video of the murder on the internet, to the chagrin of horrified Americans.  The fact that he was Iraq for humanitarian reasons made the murder that much harder to understand. Digging Deeper Nick Berg the inventor of a construction brick he called “Bovl Block” and owner of a construction company, was traveling overseas to teach poor countries how to make his bricks so they…

A Brief History On May 7, 1429, Joan of Arc, The Maid of Orleans, pulled an arrow out of her own shoulder and went back to fighting, leading the final charge that lifted the Siege of Orleans. Some warriors are like that, they get wounded and care more about getting the job done than taking care of themselves. Almost all of US Medal of Honor winners qualify in this way, but we would like to present a variety of special warriors from various times and places. Here we list 10 such brave fighters. Digging Deeper 10. Manfred von Richthofen, 1918.…

A Brief History On May 7, 1999, the United States accidentally killed 3 Chinese embassy employees and wounded 20 more when a NATO jet mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Since explosives have been used in warfare, people have accidentally blown up the wrong target, often killing unintended victims. Here are 10 of these more interesting cases (there are many, many cases indeed).  (Note: While Pope Francis dropped an accidental “F-bomb” in March of 2014, those kind of bombs do not count!) Digging Deeper 10. Iraq Suicide Bomb Training. In February of 2014 it was reported a terrorist…