PN1501 In late November 1941, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem sat down with Adolf Hitler in Berlin and asked for a military force to liberate the Arab world. Nazi racial law barred Arabs from serving in the Wehrmacht, but Hitler granted an exception. The plan was ambitious: march on Baghdad, push the British out of the … Read more
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, effectively ending German democracy. In the months that followed, he used emergency decrees and political pressure to dismantle democratic institutions, eliminate opposition parties, and strip away individual freedoms, including freedom of the press, speech, and assembly. But ideology alone does not build tanks or fire … Read more
Lewis Wetzel was a frontiersman, scout, and Indian fighter born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1763. In 1770 his family moved to a frontier settlement near Wheeling Creek in what is now West Virginia. The Wetzel family and their neighbors were frequent targets of Indian attacks. One such attack led Lewis Wetzel to swear a … Read more
When Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, the Luftwaffe used paratroopers to seize tactical points and support the advance of ground troops. Heavy aerial bombardment accompanied the invasion, and Rotterdam was devastated on May 14, with its entire historic center destroyed. Because the Germans threatened to bomb Utrecht in the same way, … Read more
Fanny Kelly’s account of her captivity among the Sioux offers a rare firsthand view of life inside a Native American village during the 1860s. Her book, Narrative of My Captivity Among the Sioux Indians, was published in 1871, several years after her rescue. It remains one of the best-known captivity narratives of the era. Among … Read more
Lewis Wetzel was a frontiersman, scout, and Indian fighter born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1763. In 1770, his family moved to a frontier settlement near Wheeling Creek in what is now West Virginia. The Wetzel family and their neighbors were frequent targets of Indian attacks. One of these attacks led Lewis Wetzel to swear … Read more
In January 1945, in eastern France near the German border, General George S. Patton received a three-page intelligence report about a German POW camp that had just been overrun. The language was clinical. The numbers were not. The report described 380 American prisoners. Their average weight at liberation was 94 pounds. A year earlier, at … Read more
When tempers flared in the old West, the fastest draw often decided the argument. Some men built entire reputations on that speed, carving their names into history with bullets and blood. From lawmen who pursued justice to outlaws who embraced chaos, these gunfighters left an unmistakable mark on the American frontier. John King Fisher was … Read more
Late on the night of December 28, 1881, roughly two months after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Tombstone city police chief Virgil Earp was seriously wounded outside the Oriental Saloon. Several hidden attackers reportedly fired from across the street. Virgil suffered severe wounds to his left arm and shoulder, and doctors later removed damaged … Read more
Before dawn on November 19, 1875, a dying man waded into the Rio Grande. The water was cold and rose past his waist. Behind him in the darkness, a few dozen young men followed the sound of his coughing across the river, out of Texas and into another country. The country on the far bank … Read more