Browsing: Military

A Brief History On November 8, 1520, the Stockholm Bloodbath began, an event that followed the successful invasion of Sweden by Danish forces and resulted in the execution of around 100 people. Digging Deeper In 1520, Sweden was divided between two factions.  The first consisted of Swedes who favored a union of Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), a union that had been established in 1397, and the second faction consisting of those Swedes who advocated for Swedish independence.  Denmark’s King Christian II launched the invasion of Sweden to maintain the union of Scandinavia. Having succeeded in his military intervention…

A Brief History On November 6, 1632 at the Battle of Lützen during the Thirty Years’ War, the Swedes won, but their King, Gustavus Adolphus, died in the battle. Digging Deeper The Thirty Years’ War was probably central Europe’s all-time worst religious war fought between Catholics and Protestants.  Around two dozen different European countries and their colonies were involved in the conflict at some time or another from 1618 to 1648.  With so many countries involved for so long, it should not be all that surprising that around 8 million soldiers and civilians are counted among the casualties of one…

A Brief History On October 31, 1944, Dr. jur. Erich Göstl, a member of the Waffen SS, was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, to recognize extreme battlefield bravery for losing his face and eyes during the Battle of Normandy during World War II and continuing to fight while blind. Digging Deeper It is easy to dismiss Nazi Germany for its evil war crimes and the popular culture stereotypes of Germans during that dark moment in human history.  Indeed, even this article is not intended to offer any praise to that ultimately failed state, but rather to remember…

A Brief History On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the North of Russia; at 50 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise by humankind! Digging Deeper Roughly a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to plunge the world into a nuclear world war in which both sides possessed large arsenals of weapons of annihilation, the Soviets showed off their nuclear potential by testing the “Tsar Bomb”. The bomb weighed 27,000 kilograms (60,000 lb) and was 8…

A Brief History Greece celebrates October 28 as a national holiday commemorating the entry of Greece into World War II (WW2).  The Greco-Italian war of 1940 was a military conflict between Greece and Italy lasting from October 28, 1940 until April 23, 1941 that became the Axis powers’ first defeat.  Digging Deeper This war was the result of the expansionist policy of the fascist regime that Benito Mussolini had established in Italy.  In 1940, Mussolini, fascinated and jealous of the conquests and accomplishments of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi control of most parts of Europe, wanted to prove to his idol…