With the promise of acquiring godlike powers, Americans by the thousands ante’d up, hoping for illumination
Search results
The Other 9/11: The Battle of Brandywine, 1777
Fresh from their major victory in New York City, the British looked to crush the fledgling nation in 1777 with a two-pronged offensive
Japan’s Trafalgar: The Battle of Tsushima Strait
In 1905 a Japanese admiral who fancied himself the reincarnation of Horatio Nelson waged a battle for the ages against a Russian fleet at Tsushima Strait
The Seven Days Campaign — A Turning Point More Important than Antietam?
George B. McClellan, Robert E. Lee, and a watershed campaign
A Controversial Question: Did the CIA Lead an Assassination Program in Vietnam?
A CIA-inspired plan to round up Viet Cong leaders, known as the Phoenix Program, was one of the most misunderstood aspects of the war
One of the Most Consequential Weapons in Military History: A Wristwatch
In wars throughout history, for better or for worse, the clock has always been ticking
‘Battle of the Beams’: Germany’s Invisible Secret Weapon That Could Have Devastated Britain
Physicist R.V. Jones helped foil the Luftwaffe’s sophisticated radio navigation system.
How Harlem Hellfighter James Reese Europe Became a Ragtime Legend
“He was our benefactor and inspiration,” Eubie Blake, the jazz great, once said of James Reese Europe, who wielded a baton, not a rifle, for much of World War I.
Thaddeus Stevens: The Evolution of the Egalitarian
The congressman did not start out a revolutionary; he became one
Elizabeth Freeman: The Enslaved Woman who Sued for Freedom in 1780—and Won
Using language in Massachusetts’ state constitution, Freeman, known as ‘Mum Bett,’ successfully challenged her enslavement in court.