Early October 1993, as Americans went about their daily business, many were stunned to hear of the dramatic events that had taken place thousands of miles away in the impoverished, war-torn country of Somalia involving their own troops in a city few of them had ever heard of. Fought on the streets of the Somali capital, the Battle of Mogadishu, as American history books refer to it, took place on the afternoon of October 3rd 1993, through the night and into the next morning. For American...

War Thunder is a highly detailed vehicle combat game containing over 2000 playable tanks, aircrafts and ships spanning over 100 years of development. Immerse yourself completely in dynamic battles with unparalleled realism and approachability. Support the show

By 1942, the war was no longer another great European conflict. It was now a firmly global affair enveloping all of the world’s great powers as the Allies squared off against the tyranny and aggression of the Axis nations. Against such colossal forces, no one country could stand alone and events that affected one combatant would ultimately have consequences for the other further down the road. To that end, while the western Allies and the Soviet Union were effectively fighting separate wars...

The Wounded Knee Massacre was a massacre of nearly three hundred Lakota people by soldiers of the United States Army. This is their story.

As the drive for equality between the sexes gathered unprecedented momentum in the 1950s and 60s, historians began to reassess the importance women have played in many of the most pivotal events. Who were some of the most important women alongside the men responsible for some of the most heinous acts recorded within the pages of the Human story? In the case of Nazi Germany, Eva Braun is often cited as being equivalent to the wives of Allied leaders and rightly so for she stood by Hitler until...

Dive into the gripping story of the Battle of Midway, a pivotal moment in World War II that changed the course of history. In this video, we'll explore the strategies, key players, and decisive moments that led to the stunning victory of the United States against the Japanese Empire. Witness how the bravery and determination of the Allied forces turned the tide of the war in the Pacific, and learn about the lasting impact of this monumental battle on the outcome of World War II. Join us here...

It was a place few expected to be fighting in when war broke out in 1939. It was a conflict Hitler never wanted. It was a fight on terrain that at times was as hostile as the enemy. It was a battlefield that relied on chariots of steel and wings of vengeance and one that could only be won through cunning, ruthlessness and above all – an effective supply chain. For many, the battle for control of North Africa is seen as something of a side show to the war in Europe but this conceals the truth...

It would be too simplified an explanation for the motivation of Adolf Hitler to merely state that he desired conquest and power. Nazi Germany, including the lands to which its power reached, was to be a society unlike any other. Purged of those with attributes deemed undesirable in his new order, the new German people would be pure and united in their goal of achieving their country’s destiny; to become the greatest nation on Earth. Technologically. Militarily. Scientifically. Germany was to...

No war – won or lost – is ever waged without sacrifice. Those sacrifices can be material in the loss of equipment or infrastructure, monetary in the cost to a nation’s economy of waging a war but always it is in blood. Death is at the very nature of war and while armies going back to antiquity have sought to limit their own casualties whenever they could, the threat of death is forever present. However, death is not always a matter of the unfortunate circumstance a combatant may find...

In 1916, France was a nation cut in two by a string of trenches cut into the Earth running from north to south, separating two vast opposing military forces who fielded weapons that seemed the stuff of science fiction just a generation earlier. So confident in these weapons were both sides that they expected the fighting to be a short and sharp affair, both expecting victory but, in the end, it was nothing more than bloody, senseless stalemate. Britain had gone to war in honour of a treaty...

The Vietnam War would see the realisation of the Vietnamese dream of a single unified, independent country taking its place in the world free of outside oppression and rule. It is the type of story that has been told throughout history and had it occurred at any other point in history then it would have likely been largely forgotten outside of the small South East Asian country as so many wars of independence are. But because of events elsewhere in the world, the battlefields of Vietnam...

On the morning of August 9th 1945, air raid sirens began to ring out in the Japanese city of Nagasaki. However, a short while later the sirens rang out again indicating that there was no danger and people began to climb out of their shelters to carry on about their daily business. Japanese spotters had only identified two United States Army Air Force B-29 bombers and they had previously flown to the city of Kokura without dropping any weapons so Japanese authorities presumed they were merely...

With the onset of Spring 1942, the war in the east was ready to begin again but the problem of supplies particularly of oil was forever a worry for the German High Command and so they planned for an offensive that if successful would not only alleviate their fuel shortage but also deny the Soviets their own fuel stocks. Part of that plan involved a city on the edge of the Volga River in eastern Ukraine. This city formerly known as Volgagrad had since been bestowed with the name of the Soviet...

In part 2 of our Battle of Britain documentary, we explored how after Germany had swept over continental Europe, Britain under Prime Minister Winston Churchill refused to give in to Hitler’s will but while the British have spirit to spare, fighters and pilots to fly them were becoming increasingly scarce and unless things changed dramatically, Fighter Command would be whittled down into defeat. It was just a matter of time. In this episode we are going to explore the climax of the Battle of...

Fuelled by the euphoria of his successes thus far, Hitler was certain that the recently appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill would have no choice but to sue for peace. He was wrong. Churchill made it abundantly clear that Great Britain would never surrender to the Nazi tyranny. That Hitler’s troops were going to have to fight for every square inch of the British Isles for in Churchill’s mind and the free world itself, surrender was simply not an option. In this, the first of a...

"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time" So remarked the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, as the European continent geared up for war in the summer of 1914. Although at first glance his words appear somewhat fatalistic the fact is that what would transpire over the following four years would so dramatically change the world that the consequences of which would not be fully resolved until the end of the century when all the key...

At 8:46am on September 11th, 2001 - the world changed forever... A hijacked airliner was flown deliberately into the north tower of the World Trade Center followed seventeen minutes later by another plane which hit the south tower. A third airliner was flown into the Pentagon from where the US directed its global military operations while a fourth was brought down by courageous passengers who wrestled for control of the aircraft with the hijackers. For decades, the US had believed that it...

The United States of America was born out of the yearning of the many people who had traveled there from the old world of Europe to be free of the imperial powers that had dominated them for centuries. To have democracy, liberty, justice for all and to take command of their own destiny.  The birth of the American nation was a painful one, first by having to fight against the forces of the British and then against the indigenous people of North America, within and from outside of the new...

On a sleepy Sunday morning in 1941, the Hawaiian island of Oahu couldn’t have looked anymore idyllic. Even with the fairly recent arrival of the United States Pacific Fleet which had deployed to the island from San Diego to their new main base at Pearl Harbor only seemed to harbinger nothing more than a display of US naval prestige. Arranged off Ford Island in a line were seven of America’s mightiest battleships. This part of the harbor had become known appropriately as Battleship Row and the...

On Sunday 15th August 2021, after an almost 20 year-long absence, the Taliban recaptured the Afghan capital city of Kabul. As the US-led coalition withdrew, the Taliban regrouped and began expanding outward once again. Facing little opposition from the Afghan National Army that had been trained and equipped by western forces, they only grew bolder and began an almost Blitzkrieg-style campaign to retake villages, towns, cities and then entire provinces until they were once again in near-total...

The end of the Second World War was met with riotous jubilation at the victory over the Axis powers and with the establishment of the United Nations there was the dream of a new world order of freedom, prosperity and above all peace. Even the advent of the Atom Bomb, the decisive weapon that ended the war was celebrated for it was believed it was so powerful it would render warfare obsolete. And yet even before the guns fell silent, concerned whispers were being shared in the halls of power...

Between 1939 and 1941, the forces of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany blazed a path of destruction, oppression and murder across the map of Europe and beyond and it seemed his ambition could never be satisfied. The world was his goal. Death was his tool. Only a badly beaten and barely holding-on Britain managed to hold back the tide long enough to guarantee that all of Europe wouldn’t be draped in a flag bearing the Swastika. And yet within three years Britain, Canada and the United States along...

War! The Human race never seems to fail in finding reasons for which to wage war upon itself. When we look back at the history of war and try to understand why they have broken out, we tend to see some causes appear over and over again as if we as a species are determined to repeat past mistakes rather than learn from them. Resources. Religion. Ideology. Border disputes. A hunger for power and conquest or simply good old-fashioned hatred of another. These are the reasons we have come to...

The cost of war can be measured in many ways. Financially, materially, politically or of course in blood. However, there is a fifth cost that often gets overlooked in the history books and yet is arguably even more painful for the families back home, for it leaves them with no body to bury, no grave to visit and only questions that seem to never go answered as the world moves on. This is the cost of war for the families of those who disappear in the chaos of armed conflict. In this episode,...