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53 BC - The Battle of Carrhae and the Death of Crassus
MAY 24 - May, 53 BC. The corpse of the Roman general is dragged before the Parthian commander, still fresh from his attempt at escape....
James Houser
May 23, 20209 min read
May 23, 192 - The Death of Dong Zhuo & China's Three Kingdoms Era
May 23, 192 AD. The warlord Dong Zhuo has dominated the court of the Han Dynasty for three years. Ousted from the capital by a coalition...
James Houser
May 22, 20209 min read
May 22, 1944 - Life Magazine's Infamous Skull Cover; Race and War in the Pacific
May 22, 1944. Life Magazine’s Photo of the Week features Natalie Nickerson, a young war worker in Phoenix, Arizona. She sits at her desk,...
James Houser
May 21, 20209 min read
May 21, 1809 - Battle of Aspern-Essling
May 21, 1809. On the banks of the Danube at Aspern and Essling, Napoleon’s French army suffers its first major battlefield defeat at the...
James Houser
May 20, 20208 min read
May 20, 1941 - The German Airborne Assault on Crete
May 20, 1941. It is a clear, hot early summer’s day on the Greek island of Crete. At 0800, the first wave of several thousand German...
James Houser
May 19, 20208 min read
May 19, 1935 - The Death of T.E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia"
May 19, 1935. A middle-aged man in an English hospital succumbs to his injuries from a motorcycle accident. So perishes Colonel T.E....
James Houser
May 18, 20208 min read
May 18, 1944 - Polish Armies in Exile & the Battle of Monte Cassino
May 18, 1944. The Polish II Corps, an army in exile far from their Nazi-occupied homeland, finally takes the German stronghold of Monte...
James Houser
May 17, 20209 min read
May 17, 1900 - Second Boer War & Relief of Mafeking
May 17, 1900. After 217 days of siege, a flying column of 2,000 British troops of Lord Frederick Roberts’ army break through the Boer...
James Houser
May 16, 20209 min read
May 16, 1943 - The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
May 16, 1943. The smouldering ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto are finally silent after a month of resistance. The Jews of Warsaw have made...
James Houser
May 15, 20207 min read
May 15, 1919 - The Greeks Land at Smyrna, beginning Turkish War of Independence
May 15, 1919. The dust from World War I has barely settled when Greek soldiers land at Smyrna, on the western coast of Turkey. The...
James Houser
May 14, 20206 min read
May 14, 1948 - Israeli War of Independence
May 14, 1948. At a ceremony broadcast live across the Middle East, David Ben-Gurion and his fellow Jewish leaders proclaim the...
James Houser
May 13, 20209 min read
279 BC - Pyrrhus of Epirus and the Pyrrhic Victory
May 13 - 279 BC. The sun sets at Asculum. As he watches the retreating Romans, the Greek King surveys the wreckage of his army. When he...
James Houser
May 12, 20208 min read
May 12, 1864 - The Battle of Spotsylvania
May 12, 1864. After their bruising fight at the Wilderness, the Union army of Ulysses S. Grant and the Confederate army of Robert E. Lee...
James Houser
May 11, 20208 min read
May 11, 1745 - The Battle of Fontenoy & Enlightenment Warfare
May 11, 1745. A long red line of British troops approach a French position in the heat of a spring battle. Their officers step forward...
James Houser
May 10, 20208 min read
May 10, 1857 - The Sepoy Rebellion
May 10, 1857. In the city of Meerut along the Ganges, over 2,000 Indian troops in British service, known as “sepoys”, break out into...
James Houser
May 9, 20207 min read
May 9, 1917 - The Nivelle Offensive & the French Mutiny
May 9, 1917. After a month of heavy fighting, the guns recede to a low murmur on the Western Front once again. One of the greatest French...
James Houser
May 8, 20208 min read
May 878 - Alfred the Great & the Battle of Edington
May, 878. In southwest England, an army of villagers and farmers gathers to take part in the decisive event of their times. Their...
James Houser
May 7, 20208 min read
May 7, 1864 - The Battle of the Wilderness
May 7, 1864. After two days of fighting, the Virginia woods west of Fredericksburg are burning. The armies of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert...
James Houser
May 6, 20209 min read
May 6, 1527 - The Sack of Rome and the Last Stand of the Swiss Guard
May 6, 1527. A horde of mercenaries 10,000 strong, enraged by the death of their leader, descends on Renaissance Rome intent on plunder...
James Houser
May 5, 20208 min read
May 5, 1945 - The Battle of Castle Itter
May 5, 1945. Hitler is dead, the Third Reich is dying. A platoon of American tanks is rolling through Germany when a German Army officer...
James Houser
May 4, 20208 min read