History of War

When King John refuses to accept and abide by the terms of Magna Carta, rebellious Anglo-Norman barons revoke their fealty to him. They invite Prince Louis of France to invade England and take the English throne. John flees and Louis is proclaimed ki

In 1264, nearly 50 years after the Magna Carta, the Second Barons’ War broke out. It was provoked by a breakdown in trust between Henry III and a group of his leading barons. As with the first civil war, it was fought over the importance of upholding

The warships of the world prior to the advent of steam power relied upon either the wind or on the muscles of oarsmen to power them forward. Within the relatively sheltered confines of the Mediterranean Sea, the war galley, propelled by banks of rowe

On 19 October 1216, King John died, leaving behind his son and successor, Henry III, who was only nine years old. The warrior-knight William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, was appointed Regent of the Kingdom. At the time, Marshal was around 70 years old.

King John, the youngest son of Henry II, was a disaster as king. Between 1199 and 1204 he lost the duchy of Normandy and most of his French lands to Philip Augustus, causing the collapse of the Angevin Empire. He had a flair for administrative reform

The 19th century witnessed a dramatic change in naval warfare. Whereas navies previously had been dominated by ships that relied upon the wind or oars for movement, the advent of a new technology, steam, made it possible to manoeuvre regardless of th

World War II provided the ultimate test of the future of naval power. While the aircraft carrier reached maturity, projecting the strength of combat aircraft across the broad expanses of the world’s oceans and asserting that no surface ship was imper

The name of Schill is rarely recognised outside of Germany, even by history enthusiasts. This fact is surprising considering that this officer’s revolt was discussed all over Europe at the time, and happened just at the point the French public was be

Naval power enabled nations to build, develop and defend empires, projecting military might across the globe during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. The fates of nations rested on the outcomes of great battles, and naval heroes set standards

Auschwitz is a name that symbolises industrialised terror, genocide and sickening evil. Approximately 1.1 million people were murdered at this camp complex, with the vast majority being Jews from across Nazi-occupied Europe. With its gas chambers and

An SS officer and qualified doctor, Mengele was the chief camp physician of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) from 1943. He became notorious for conducting genetic research on human subjects with no regard for their welfare or safety. He experimented on twins

Solomon Schonfeld (1912-84) was the head of an Orthodox Jewish community in London. Before 1939 he procured help from the Home Office to secure visas for German rabbis and synagogue officials to come to Britain with their families. After Kristallnach

Most tanks in 1938-39 had vision slits cut into the armour plate. The advanced Stridsvagn m/38 tank used optical periscopes and vision ports with armoured covers that were fitted with bulletproof thick glass blocks to protect the driver’s eyes. The

In 1419, four years after the renegade preacher Jan Hus was burned at the stake, his followers, the Hussites, found themselves at war with the combined might of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. Despite inferior numbers, training and equ

In 15th-century Bohemia, part of the Holy Roman Empire, years of oppressive rule by the German minority led to a rise in Czech nationalism, coupled with resentment for the materialist nature of the Catholic clergy. Amid a papal schism, the reformist

The city of Lucknow, located on the west bank of the Gumti River some 42 miles east of Cawnpore, was the capital of Oude province. The province itself had been annexed by the British East India Company only the year before the outbreak of the Indian

Located in the heart of the city of Lucknow, the Residency was a collection of buildings covering some 60 acres and assigned to the British commissioner. It became the focal point of the defence of Lucknow in 1857, where almost 1,700 European and loy

The Takao-class heavy cruiser had been a threat to US and allied forces throughout the Pacific War. It had been in action since 1941 and participated in many engagements, sinking enemy shipping and supporting landings and evacuations. It had also sur

The Imperial War Museum has been donated a piece of a US Navy battleship that was sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor On the morning of 7 December 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii. Their intenti

After failing to make a breakthrough against the Finnish defensive line, known as the Mannerheim Line, the Soviets launched a second massive offensive across the Karelian Isthmus, near the village of Summa. On 1 February, over 300,000 artillery shell

Director: Terrence Malick Starring: August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Franz Rogowski, Bruno Ganz Distributor: Fox Searchlight Released: Out now WWII conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter was declared a martyr in 2007 and beatified by the Catholic C

The 1906 introduction of HMS Dreadnought, a modern battleship of steel and big guns, rendered other warship types obsolete and came to describe the generation of naval power that sparked a monumental arms race. The Dreadnought class became central to