In 218 bc, Hannibal Barca left Iberia to take the Second Punic War to Rome — leading a disparate 84,000-man army.
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Sparta: The Fall of the Empire
Sparta, the greatest military power in ancient Greece, was in the end its own worst enemy.
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The History of the Roman-Persian Wars
Missiles fell on the capital city of Iraq. The invaders were speedy and destructive, compelling surrender, occupying much of the country. It sounds like today’s headlines, but it comes instead from ancient Rome’s 600-year struggle for world domination, one of the earliest tests of East versus West.
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Ottoman-Hungarian Wars: Siege of Belgrade in 1456
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 sent shock waves through Christendom. Then, in 1455, the young Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II mobilized his army to march on Belgrade — and from there, possibly move on to the European heartland.
Posted inFeature
Espionage in Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome is remembered as one of the greatest military powers in history, its fame derived from the fearsome reputation of the empire’s legionnaires. Lost in the telling, however, is the important role that espionage played in Rome’s ascent to empire.
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First Italo-Abyssinian War: Battle of Adwa
On March 1, 1896, Italian General Oreste Baratieri knew he was outnumbered. But he seriously underestimated his Ethiopian opponents—and overestimated the merits of his own battle plan.
Posted inStories
Homer Lea: Author of The Valor of Ignorance
Homer Lea, a frail American hunchback, helped make China a republic and prophesied the apocalyptic convulsions of two world wars.
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Third Crusade: Siege of Acre
A magnet for centuries to competing armies, Acre at last would be leveled-but not before it would house both warring Christians and Muslims during the Crusades.
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Ancient History: Walls of Constantinople
For almost 1,000 years that wall of Constantinople defended Western Christendom-only to be compromised by Crusaders and finally breached by Turkish cannons.
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Gothic War: Byzantine Count Belisarius Retakes Rome
As Byzantine Emperor Justinian revived the Eastern Roman empire, he sent his greatest general west to retake Rome.