Search & discovery
Find a person, battle, citation, article, book or episode. Start with a name or identifier, then explore the connections.
Showing 181–198
During the Korean War, President Harry Truman made a decision that highlighted the core American principle of civilian control over the military. General Douglas MacArthur, widely respected for his leadership in the Pacific during the Second World War and early operations in Korea, had increasingly clashed with Truman and other civilian leaders over war aims and public statements.
After months of siege warfare around Petersburg, Virginia, General Grant ordered a major assault on the overstretched Confederate lines protecting both Petersburg and the capital at Richmond. Union forces, including troops from several corps that had been steadily probing and extending the siege lines, attacked at multiple points along the defensive works. The Confederate positions, manned by weary soldiers of Genera
During the American Civil War, control of rivers was as important as control of railroads, and Union commanders in the Western Theater understood that geography could be a weapon. On February 6th, 1862, combined Union army and navy forces under Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew Foote attacked Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, a Confederate strongpoint guarding access into the Deep South.
Two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and months after the main Confederate armies had surrendered, Union military authority was still spreading across the far corners of the former Confederacy. On June 19th, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger landed in Galveston, Texas, at the head of Union troops and read General Order No. 3, announcing that enslaved people in Texas were free under federal law.
On February 22nd, 1865, Union forces completed the capture of Wilmington, North Carolina, after earlier seizing nearby Fort Fisher and fighting their way up the Cape Fear River. Wilmington had been the Confederacy’s last major Atlantic port, a vital outlet for blockade runners bringing in weapons, cloth, and other supplies from overseas. Once the harbor’s ring of forts fell and Union gunboats controlled the approache
Two years after the Civil War, Americans still debated how far their nation should extend and where strategic interests lay. On March 30th, 1867, Secretary of State William Seward signed a treaty with Russia to purchase Alaska, a vast, sparsely populated territory stretching from the Pacific into the Arctic. Critics mocked the deal as “Seward’s Folly,” seeing only ice and distance in exchange for seven point two mill
On January 28th, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation merging the Revenue Cutter Service and the Life-Saving Service into a single organization: the United States Coast Guard. The revenue cutters had long chased smugglers, enforced customs laws, and supported naval operations, while life-saving crews manned small stations along dangerous coasts, ready to pull shipwrecked sailors from the surf.
Four days after Wilson’s address, Congress approved the declaration of war, formally bringing the United States into World War I on the side of the Allies. The decision triggered a sweeping mobilization effort at home, including the enactment of the Selective Service system to raise a large national army. The American Expeditionary Forces, under General John J.
Nearly four decades after independence, the United States again found itself in conflict with its old imperial rival. On June 18th, 1812, after months of debate over British interference with American trade, the impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy, and tensions along the frontier, Congress passed and President James Madison signed a declaration of war.
During the Spanish–American War, American forces stepped ashore on the southern coast of Puerto Rico and opened a new front in the conflict with Spain. Troops under Major General Nelson Miles landed near the small harbor of Guánica, taking advantage of surprise and local currents to avoid heavier defenses elsewhere. Initial resistance was limited, but skirmishes soon broke out as Spanish and Puerto Rican troops probe
Before the United States formally entered the Second World War, its leaders faced the challenge of preparing a still-divided public for the scale of the coming struggle. On May 27th, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used a nationwide address to proclaim an “unlimited national emergency,” warning that Axis victories overseas threatened American security. The declaration did not yet mean war, but it unlocked broad
Just days after Fort George fell, another drama played out at sea off the American coast. On June 1st, 1813, the American frigate USS Chesapeake sailed from Boston to challenge the British blockading ship HMS Shannon. In a furious, close-range engagement that lasted only minutes, British gunnery and boarding tactics shattered the Chesapeake’s crew, leaving Captain James Lawrence mortally wounded.
A story of nuclear propulsion, undersea endurance, and how one boat reshaped the Cold War at sea.
On a winter day on the Potomac River in 1844, the brand-new steam warship USS Princeton hosted Washington dignitaries for a demonstration cruise. The pride of the ship was a massive naval gun nicknamed “Peacemaker,” intended to showcase the Navy’s technical skill and the promise of long-range, heavy artillery at sea.
During the Mexican-American War, General Winfield Scott led one of the earliest large-scale amphibious campaigns in United States history, landing an expeditionary force near the port city of Veracruz. After a carefully planned bombardment involving both the Army and Navy, the city’s defenses began to crumble under heavy fire. On March 29th, 1847, Veracruz surrendered, giving Scott a secure deep-water port and a base
A Medal of Honor story of sacrifice and steadfast loyalty in the air war over Europe in World War II.
The B-17 was almost home when the choice arrived over the radio: bail out, or try to land a dying airplane. The long mission over Leipzig was behind them, but the bomber itself was torn open—control cables shot away, engines coughing, the fuselage peppered with holes where German fighters had raked the formation. In the cockpit, the copilot lay dead. The pilot, badly wounded, had been dragged from his seat and now dr
On May 13th, 1846, Congress responds to President James K. Polk’s war message and formally declares that a state of war exists with Mexico. Skirmishes along the Rio Grande have already led to American and Mexican casualties, and the vote unlocks the use of the regular Army and newly raised volunteers on multiple fronts. Over the next two years, United States forces will fight along the border, across northern Mexico,