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1) End of World War II in Europe: The History of the Final Campaigns that Led to Nazi Germany's Surrend
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After the successful amphibious invasion on D-Day in June 1944, the Allies began racing east toward Germany and liberating France along the way. It was Hitler's belief that by splitting the Allied march across Europe in their drive toward Germany, he could cause the collapse of the enemy armies and cut off their supply lines. Part of Hitler's confidence came as a result of underestimating American resolve, but with the Soviets racing toward Berlin...
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The battle for Berlin would technically begin on April 16, 1945, and though it ended in a matter of weeks, it produced some of the war's most climactic events and had profound implications on the immediate future. By the time the fighting mostly came to an end on May 2, Hitler had already committed suicide and the chain of German surrenders in the field outside of Berlin took off like dominoes. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed Germany's unconditional...
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Just over one week after the landings in Normandy, American troops took part in a massive amphibious invasion of Saipan, but intense public interest in operations in Europe meant that this invasion received less media coverage at the time, and it has been the subject of far less interest from historians and writers since. Part of the reason seems to be the different perception of the war in the Pacific. During the war in Europe, Allied troops were,...
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As far as skirmishes go, Fort Pillow was a completely unremarkable fight. Before attacking, Forrest demanded the unconditional surrender of the Union garrison, a normal custom of his, and he warned the Union commanding officer that he would not be responsible for his soldiers' actions if the warning went unheeded. What made Fort Pillow markedly different was that a sizable amount of the Union garrison defending the Fort was comprised of black soldiers,...
5) End of the Civil War: The History of the Battles and Events that Destroyed the Confederacy and Finis
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Americans have long been fascinated by the Civil War, marveling at the size of the battles, the leadership of the generals, and the courage of the soldiers. Since the war's start over 150 years ago, the battles have been subjected to endless debate among historians and the generals themselves. The Civil War was the deadliest conflict in American history, and had the two sides realized it would take 4 years and inflict over a million casualties, it...
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At the end of 1776, the American war effort was on the verge of collapse, and despite Washington's success at Trenton, the British were confident that they could quell the rebellion in 1777. That winter, the British planned a complicated campaign in which British armies from Canada and New York would strike out across New England and link up, with the goal of cutting off the Northern colonies. Indeed, 1777 did prove to be the pivotal year of the war,...
7) Stonewall Brigade and Hood's Brigade: The History of the Most Famous Units in Robert E. Lee's Army
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The Stonewall Brigade went on to fight in every major battle in the Eastern theater of the American Civil War, to the extent that of the 6,000 men who fought with the brigade over the course of four years, less than 200 remained by the time General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. They were organized, trained, and mentored by one of the most revered military leaders in American history, and they made a decisive...
8) Oliver Hazard Perry: The Life and Legacy of the Commodore Who Became the War of 1812's Most Famou
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Americans had few things to celebrate during the War of 1812, and fighting on the frontier against the British and their native allies didn't go any better than the conflict did in other theaters, but one of the only major victories the Americans won came at the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813. That action made Oliver Hazard Perry, a veteran of the Barbary Wars and commander of the USS Lawrence, a legend whose name has endured for over 200 years....
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Given its importance, it's somewhat surprising in retrospect that the Union managed to capture New Orleans in an easier manner than places like Vicksburg and Atlanta. Admiral David Farragut's naval forces battered their shaky Confederate counterparts and were able to get over a dozen ships upriver past a couple of crucial Confederate forts along the Mississippi. By May 1862, Union forces occupied the city and General Benjamin Butler became its military...
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Emerging from France's catastrophic 1940 defeat like a bedraggled and rather sinister phoenix, the French State – better known to history as "Vichy France" or the "Vichy Regime" after its spa-town capital – stands in history as a unique and bizarre creation of German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler's European conquests. A patchwork of paradoxes and contradictions, the Vichy Regime maintained a quasi-independent French nation for some time after the Third...
11) Philippines Campaigns of World War II: The History of the Japanese Invasion in 1941-1942 and the Ja
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I came through and I shall return." - General Douglas MacArthur
Those who had decoded and seen the Japanese communications in early December 1941 would not be surprised when they heard about an attack on December 7, 1941. They would, however, be astonished when they heard where that attack took place. Posted on the other side of the world, it was early on the morning of December 8 in the Philippines when American general Douglas MacArthur received...
12) Admiral Chester W. Nimitz: The Life and Legacy of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's Commander in Chief dur
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All Americans are familiar with the "day that will live in infamy." At 9:30 a. m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, the advanced base of the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet, was ablaze. It had been smashed by aircraft launched by the carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. All eight battleships had been sunk or badly damaged, 350 aircraft had been knocked out, and over 2,000 Americans lay dead. Indelible images of the USS Arizona exploding...
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By the close of 1864, Abraham Lincoln had been reelected, the Union army had taken Nashville from General Hood, and Sherman had concluded his total war, "slash-and-burn" march of destruction to Savannah, Georgia, offering it as a Christmas present to Lincoln. Nevertheless, with everything seemingly falling to pieces, the South still held out hope of some sort of miracle, and Davis even attempted to send a peace delegation to meet with Lincoln in the...
14) Gran Sasso Raid: The History of the Nazi Operation to Rescue Benito Mussolini From Captivity During
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As Sicily fell and the Allies prepared to press on, Italy's fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, was actually arrested to prevent him from doing further damage. Il Duce still held considerable power in the eyes of many ground-level activists, and if left unchecked, the possibility of violence in the streets was genuine. He was jailed in Campo Imperatore on August 28, 1943, on one of the largest mountains in Central Italy, but when the new Italian government...
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By far the most important element in the Civil War from a native standpoint was what happened in and to Indian Territory, now part of the state of Oklahoma. There was a parallel civil war in Indian Territory, with the Cherokee nation splitting in two. While the 100,000 inhabitants of Indian Territory represent most of the experiences during the Civil War, many others were affected by it all over the country. In fact, men from more than two dozen tribal...
16) Stephen Decatur and Oliver Hazard Perry: The Lives and Careers of America's Most Famous Naval Off
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Americans had few things to celebrate during the Barbary Wars or the War of 1812, but one of them was the growing prestige of the U. S. Navy, and among those who were instrumental in its development, few were as influential as Stephen Decatur Jr. Decatur had an impact on nearly every war America fought in between the 1780s until his death in 1820, and his stardom ensured that he was a fixture among Washington, D. C.'s elite in his own lifetime. As...
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The Eastern Theater of the Civil War saw the bloodiest and most famous battles, as well as the biggest losses, giving the Iron Brigade a chance to demonstrate its mettle during legendary confrontations with Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, particularly at the battles of Second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, and Gettysburg. In fact, the brigade suffered the highest percentage of casualties of any brigade in the Civil War, rendering it...
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One of the most famous people in the world came to tour the city of Paris for the first time on June 28, 1940. Over the next three hours, he rode through the city's streets, stopping to tour L'Opéra Paris. He rode down the Champs-Élysées toward the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower, where he had his picture taken. After passing through the Arc de Triomphe, he toured the Pantheon and old medieval churches, though he did not manage to see the Louvre...
19) Air Raids Over Japan During World War II: The History of the Allies' Bombing Campaigns on the Japane
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The Americans would turn the war in the Pacific around in the middle of 1942, but in the wake of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, the country was in desperate need of a morale boost, and it would come in the form of the Doolittle Raid. In part to show that the Japanese were not invincible, and in part to reassure the American public that the nation would not lose the war, the Doolittle Raid included both Army and Navy units...
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After he had finished off the Persian Empire, Alexander must have been glad to leave Persia and its adjoining provinces at his back. Alexander was planning to march onwards, into India, and had made overtures to the wild tribesmen that inhabited the region that is now Pakistan, but he had been abruptly refused. The chieftains of the hill clans who guarded the passes of the mighty Hindu Kush mountains were determined to make a fight of it, secure in...
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