28 MAY 1754 WASHINGTON STARTS A WAR We know it as the French and Indian War, in Europe it was the Seven Years War between England and France. The war ignited in western Pennsylvania with control of North America as the Read More
15-22 NOVEMBER 1856 ACTION AT THE PEARL RIVER FORTS By the mid-19th century, most western nations had established commercial enterprises in China. China was, at the time, internally fractionated and militarily weak, and England, in particular, exploited this situation to compel Read More
16-18 OCTOBER 1859 JOHN BROWN’S RAID From the 1830s, the American public became increasingly polarized over the issue of slavery. Violence erupted for the first time in Alton, Illinois, in November 1837, when an angry mob raided the home of Elijah Read More
13 SEPTEMBER 1847 “FROM THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA…” (cont.) Meanwhile, a diversion created by Quitman’s troops allowed a second Army division under MGEN Gideon J. Pillow to carry the lower walls of Chapultepec from the west. And, to the south, Quitman’s Read More
13 SEPTEMBER 1847 “FROM THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA…” By this date in the 17-month-old war with Mexico, the United States had gained control of California from San Francisco to Los Cabos in southern Baja. But complete victory in the war required Read More
19 JULY-17 AUGUST 1779 SALTONSTALL AT PENOBSCOT Four hundred Continental and colonial Marines led the numerically superior American assault, clamoring up the cliff to within 600 yards of the fort. But here they came within range of the three small Read More
19 JULY-17 AUGUST 1779 PENOBSCOT EXPEDITION The land stretching northeast from the Kennebec River in modern Maine (location of Augusta) to New Brunswick was contested by France and England for a century. Then with the British victory in the French Read More
100th ANNIVERSARY 12 MAY 1923 THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF PETE ELLIS After World War I several of defeated Germany’s Pacific island possessions passed to Japan under a League of Nations mandate. Japan’s subsequent fortification of these islands in defiance of the Read More
19 FEBRUARY 1945 THE FIGHTING FIELD MUSICIAN Darrell Samuel Cole could see the war clouds on the horizon in the Fall of 1941. Wanting to be ready to fight himself, on 25 August 1941 he enlisted in the United States Marine Read More
2-4 OCTOBER 1912 THE CHARGE UP COYOTEPE The US Marines had been in Nicaragua off and on since December 1909, each time to quell civil unrest and prop-up conservative pro-American governments. In this latest foray, the administration of Adolfo Díaz had Read More