This Russian-born FBI agent was the bureau’s spycatcher
George Tromiloff was a retired U.S. Army officer who had been passing information onto the Soviet KGB for decades as a means of paying his debts. He was finally caught…
The Germans tried to use an armored tractor as a mine clearer
Land mines pose a serious threat to advancing ground forces. These buried explosive devices, capable of disabling even the most heavily armored vehicles, can block certain routes and funnel formations…
The British and Germans built these deadly hollowed-out trees in WWI
As if the lowly soldier of World War I didn’t have enough to worry about on the hellish battlefields of France — from massive flamethrowers, to giant artillery guns to poison gas — there was a lot of nastiness that could kill you in no-man’s l…
Today in military history: Battle of the Somme
On March 21, 1918, Germany launched its first major offensive in over a year. Known as the Battle of the Somme in World War I, the Germans bombarded the British…
‘The Greatest Raid of All’ was an explosive seaborne suicide mission
The early days of World War II for Britain and the United States were pretty bleak. German submarines were sinking American merchant ships faster than new vessels could be built….
How German nuclear scientists reacted to news of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
The United States wasn’t the only country working on creating the world’s first atomic bomb during World War II. The British had their own atomic weapons program at the beginning…
Why ‘Blitz Spirit’ was a defining moment in British history
It was what many feared most. Germany’s blitzkrieg tore through its neighbors and the Nazis next set their sights on the British Isles. The air-raid sirens cried out as the Germans began a bombing run on September 7th, 1940, that would con…
WATCH: Today in military history, Germans test Luftwaffe on Guernica
On April 26, 1937, Hitler’s army tested their powerful Luftwaffe Air Force on the town of Guernica in northern Spain. At the height of the Spanish Civil War, the small…
Today in military history: Germans ambush allies during secret Normandy landings practice
On April 28, 1944, German E-boats ambushed allied forces during a secret dress rehearsal for the historic Normandy landings called “Exercise Tiger.” Exercise Tiger was one of the largest scale…
Germans helped U.S. troops save this Austrian castle during WWII
Called “the strangest battle of World War II” is the Battle of Castle Itter. Staged at a beautiful Middle Ages-era structure in the Austrian Alps came a fight like we’ve…