On the afternoon of September 7, 1940, the people of London heard a sound they had been dreading for years: the ominous drone of aero engines. High above, the sky filled with waves of German bombers, and a torrent of high explosives and incendiaries began to rain down on the British capital. The bombardment continued through the night, and by […]

In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, a massive Allied invasion force comprising some 5,000 ships, 1,200 aircraft, and 160,000 troops steamed across the English Channel towards the beaches of Normandy. It was the opening act of Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious invasion in history and the battle that would finally secure an Allied foothold in western Europe […]

It is the ultimate naval weapon. Lurking unseen beneath the waves, it can travel the world’s oceans at will and appear without warning, unleashing a deadly salvo of ship-killing torpedoes or world-ending nuclear missiles before melting away back into the depths. It is, of course, the submarine. But the stealthy, ultra-sophisticated nuclear submarines of today did not suddenly appear fully-formed; […]

If you ever read the Iliad, you might find yourself asking a few questions: Why does the story pick up nine years into the war? Where’s the Trojan Horse? Wait, they don’t sack Troy in this poem? Will Achilles ever stop whining? What about his heel? Reading the Iliad for the first time can be frustrating. The events the Trojan […]

Of all major military conflicts of the Twentieth Century, the Second World War stands apart. Not only was it the deadliest conflict in modern history, claiming an estimated 85 million lives, or about 1 in every 25 people, but it was also arguably history’s first truly technological war. While many now-ubiquitous military technologies such as aircraft, tanks, and submarines saw […]

On the 25th of April, 1917, the British satirical magazine Punch ran an evocative political cartoon. In it, a stern Kaiser Wilhelm II, dressed in full regalia, stands before a young German army recruit. Pointing out the window to a giant factory belching black smoke, he declares: “And don’t forget that your Kaiser will find a use for you—alive or […]

It is one of the most iconic and enduring images in American history: a hollow-cheeked, white-haired figure with bushy eyebrows and a pointy goatee dressed in a tophat and tails emblazoned with the stars and stripes, pointing sternly at the viewer and declaring I WANT YOU FOR THE U.S. ARMY. This, of course, is Uncle Sam, the flamboyantly-dressed personification of […]

If I say the word “balloon”, the image that pops into your head is likely a benign one – a colourful helium party balloon, perhaps; or a hot air balloon drifting serenely over a city. But, as with pretty much all of mankind’s creations, these seemingly docile flying machines can and have been turned into weapons of war. As we’ve […]

On the morning of August 16, 1956, an alert reached controllers at Oxnard Air Force Base, just north of Los Angeles: a rogue aircraft was headed towards the City of Angels. It was the call the pilots of the 437th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron had been waiting for their entire careers. Minutes later, a pair of fighter jets roared down the runway […]

On July 9, 1916, an unusual vessel suddenly appeared in Baltimore Harbour: a German U-boat, proudly flying the red, white, and black Imperial flag. Yet no warships or gunfire greeted the foreign intruder, for she was on a mission not of war, but of commerce. The 60 metre long, 2,300-ton unarmed vessel, specifically designed to evade British naval blockades, was […]

Writing a book or a movie? Want to instantly communicate that your story takes place in an alternate reality? Just add zeppelins! More than any other form of transportation, rigid dirigible airships or zeppelins are emblematic of a bygone era of technology – and of a romantic, optimistic future that never was. From the flights of the first zeppelins at […]