A Brief History On August 8, 1918, the Allied offensive known as the “Hundred Days Offensive” began with the start of the Battle of Amiens. Allied forces swept 7 miles into German lines, an incredible distance when in the previous 4 years, progress had been measured in feet or yards. The Battle of Amiens was the first in a string of victories that would carry the Allies to victory in World War I but also inevitably sow the seeds of World War II! Digging Deeper Both sides experienced tremendous effects on morale due to the huge early Allied success of the…
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A Brief History On August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines landed on an island few Americans had ever heard of, Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. After months of being on the defensive, defensive victories at Coral Sea and Midway combined with the rapid buildup of troops and industrial production gave the U.S. its first opportunity to start taking instead of losing ground in the Pacific theater of World War II. Digging Deeper Although obscure in the minds of Americans, Guadalcanal is not an insignificant island. Sprawling over 2000 square miles and with mountains soaring over 8,000 feet, it is the world’s 110th largest island, about the…
A Brief History On August 4, 70 A.D., the Romans punished the rebellious Jews by destroying the Second Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In 66 A.D., the Jews had rebelled against Roman rule, and four years later, the Romans retook Jerusalem. (See our other articles about the Second Temple, Jerusalem, and Israel. These links are just some of our Jerusalem and Israel related articles. For more articles, use the search function.) Digging Deeper The original temple was built around 1000 B.C. and was known as Solomon’s Temple. After it was destroyed around 586 B.C., construction of the Second…
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 July 30, 1864, Union forces exploded 8,000 pounds of black powder in a tunnel underneath Confederate trenches at Petersburg, Virginia, creating a crater 170 feet long and 120 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. The unorganized rush of Union troops into the crater resulted in Union failure, with Federal troops suffering well over double the casualties inflicted on the Confederate troops. The Battle of the Crater as this action was called is an example of an unconventional military idea that did not work. Back on May 15, 2014 History and Headlines featured a list of 10 Weapons and Weapons…