Category: Odd Facts
Unsinkable! – Meet Military History’s Luckiest Mariners
“By 8 a.m., the warship had turtled and Wykeham-Musgrave was in the drink yet again – his third plunge in fewer than 90 minutes.” Wenman Wykeham-Musgrave, a midshipman aboard HMS Aboukir at the outbreak of…
Technicolor Revolutionaries – The Red, White, Blue and Green Armies of the Russian Civil War
Most remember the Russian Civil War as a fight between the Bolsheviks or Red Army and the anti-communist White Russian forces. While it’s true that these two opposing factions represented the largest and most powerful…
The Forgotten Trench Diggers of the Western Front – Meet WW1’s Chinese Labour Corps
“Their efforts have been all but forgotten amid the wider narrative of the First World War.” BY LATE 1916, the Allied armies on the Western Front were being bled white. The British had lost more…
Il Duce’s Blitz — Italy’s Forgotten Role in the Battle of Britain
“Although not a major contributor to the 1940 air campaign against Britain, Italy did volunteer as many as 170 planes to the effort. In fact, more than five per cent of the 2,500 Axis aircraft…
Operation Downfall — The Campaign to Conquer Japan Would Have Dwarfed the D-Day Landings
“The U.S. military, expecting the resistance of a ‘fanatically hostile population’, were making preparations for between 1.7 and 4 million casualties.” IT COULD BE called the world’s greatest battle… that never happened. Operation Downfall, the codename…
The Odd Couple – How Many Times Have England and France Joined Forces?
“Despite the centuries of bad blood between the French and English, there were a few rare moments between 1066 and 1815 when the two nations joined forces to defeat common enemies.” WAS ANYONE more uneasy…
