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On March 25, 1900, British governor Frederick Hodgson stood before Asante leaders in Kumasi and demanded the Golden Stool so he could sit on it. The British had occupied Asante since 1896 and exiled King Prempeh I, and Hodgson also claimed debts dating from the 1874 war. To the Asante, the stool, said to have descended from the sky in the late 17th century, held the sunsum, the soul of the nation'...

The idea of honoring an unidentified fighter predates the First World War. After the defense of Jinju during the 1592 Japanese invasion of Korea, locals built a shrine to all who died on the walls, soldiers and civilians alike, and rites were held every spring and autumn from 1593 until a Japanese edict ended them in 1908. In 1849, after the First Schleswig War, Fredericia in Denmark raised what i...

By April 1746, Charles Edward Stuart's Jacobite army, back from Derby and based around Inverness, was cut off by a Royal Navy blockade, unpaid and starving. Adjutant General John O'Sullivan chose flat, boggy Drummossie Moor to cover the Inverness road, overruling Lord George Murray. On the night of April 15, the Duke of Cumberland's 25th birthday, when each government regiment was issued two gallo...

In January 1879, British High Commissioner Sir Henry Bartle Frere, acting without London's approval, sent King Cetshwayo an ultimatum to disband the Zulu military system, knowing it would be refused. Lord Chelmsford invaded with Martini-Henry rifles, seven-pounder guns and rockets, crawling about 10 miles in 10 days behind wagons loaded with officers' luxuries. He timed the invasion for the harves...

Digging in is far older than 1914: Julius Caesar described flooded trenches at Alesia, and Thucydides recorded trench building in the fifth century BC. In the 17th century the French engineer Vauban turned siege trenches into a system of parallels linked by zigzag saps that blocked enfilade fire. Rifled muskets and better artillery at Vicksburg and Petersburg made trenches a defensive necessity, y...

Publius Cornelius Scipio, born around 236 BC into the Cornelii Scipiones, reportedly saved his consul father at the Ticinus at 18, then survived Cannae in 216 BC and rallied survivors at Canusium. Livy claims he forced nobles planning to flee Italy to swear at sword point never to abandon Rome. Elected curule aedile at 24, well under the usual age, he was given proconsular command in Spain in 210...

Centurions wore their helmet crests turned sideways so their own men could find them in the chaos of battle, making themselves deliberate targets. Despite the name, a centuria rarely held 100 men: early Republican units ran 30 to 60, and after the Marian reforms a standard century held about 80, with six per cohort and ten cohorts per legion. That gave each legion 60 centurions in a strict ladder,...

Why Napoleon Lost at Waterloo

Why Modern Armies Still Use Trebuchets

Why Janissaries Threw Fruit at Lepanto

Why Germany Lost the Marne

Why Geography Made Orléans a Constant Battlefield

Why Empires Lose to Guerrilla Warfare

Why Custer Failed at Little Bighorn

Why Crusaders Sacked Constantinople

Why Blitzkrieg Never Actually Existed

Why Bayonets Were a Psychological Weapon

Why Baghdad Fell to the Mongols

Why Armies Burn Their Own Land

Why Alaric Really Sacked Rome

Why Aetius Spared Attila the Hun

What Really Defeated the Spanish Armada

What History Got Wrong About Talas

What Doomed the Light Brigade

What Cinco de Mayo Really Celebrates