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Reporting from Newport News, Va. — When archaeologists and Navy divers recovered the warship Monitor's steam engine from the Atlantic in 2001, the pioneering Civil War propulsion unit was enshrouded in a thick layer of marine concretion. Sand, mud and corrosion combined with minerals in the deep waters off Cape Hatteras, N.C., to cloak every feature of Swedish American inventor John Ericsson's ingenious machine, and they continued to envelop the 30-ton artifact after nine years of desalination treatment. This month, however, conservators at the Mariners' Museum here and its USS Monitor Center drained the 35,000-gallon solution in which the massive...

Enter the KING WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work to-day! KING. What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; If we are mark'd to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such...

Under a slate grey sky, the words of Winston Churchill rang defiantly around Westminster: 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.' It may be 70 years old, but the resounding call to arms during the Battle of Britain still stiffened the sinew bringing pride and not a few tears yesterday. Churchill's famous address was delivered by actor Robert Hardy at 3.52pm  -  exactly the time they were originally spoken in Parliament by the wartime Prime Minister on August 20, 1940.   Former fighter pilots, Churchill's daughter Lady Soames and...

EXCLUSIVE:  The son of the U.S. Air Force pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb in the history of warfare says the Obama administration's decision to send a U.S. delegation to a ceremony in Japan to mark the 65th anniversary of the attack on Hiroshima is an "unsaid apology" and appears to be an attempt to "rewrite history." James Tibbets, son of Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., says Friday's visit to Hiroshima by U.S. Ambassador John Roos is an act of contrition that his late father would never have approved. "It's an unsaid apology," Tibbets, 66, told FoxNews.com...

Jul 21, 1861: First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) The war erupts on a large scale in the east when Confederate forces under P. T. Beauregard turn back Union General Irvin McDowell's troops along Bull Run in Virginia. The inexperienced soldiers on both sides slugged it out in a chaotic battle that resulted in a humiliating retreat by the Yankees and signaled, for many, the true start of the war. At the insistence of President Lincoln, McDowell set out to make a quick offensive against Manassas Junction, a key rail center 30 miles from Washington. On July 18, the Yankee...

It was night and low visibility, but I saw a guy with an AK-47 lit up by the porch light in a doorway about 400 meters away. I watched him through the sights. He looked like just another Iraqi. I hit him low in the stomach and dropped him.’ – Specialist James Wilks, 25, from Fort Worth, Texas. Concealment is key to becoming a great sniper. Highly trained marksmen who can shoot accurately from incredible distances with specialized training in high-precision rifles. In addition, they are trained in camouflage, field craft, infiltration, reconnaissance and observation, making them perhaps the most...

(edit) By now, the SS knew of Albert's work. From 1939, they kept a file documenting his 'acts of terrorism'. Albert was declared a 'public enemy' of the Third Reich. An arrest warrant was issued, but his brother Hermann quashed it. Hearing reports of the atrocities taking place at concentration camps, Albert confronted his brother, who brushed the claims aside. So Albert made his most audacious move of all - driving a convoy of trucks to Theresienstadt concentration camp, where 33,000 prisoners died. His friend Benbassat says: 'He said: "I am Albert Goering, Skoda Works. I need workers." 'He filled...

The dashing young airman who became the poster boy of the RAF during World War II has been revealed – 65 year after the conflict ended.Squadron Leader Ian Blair, now 91, was 22 years old when the famous snap was taken in 1940 after his daring flying in north Africa earned him a medal.But he didn’t realise his fame until two years later when, on a break in Bournemouth, he saw his face on a propaganda notice warning 'Careless Talk May Cost His Life'.     Flying ace: Squadron Leader Ian Blair with the classic World War II poster...

For 68 years, John E. Love has been haunted by the memory of carrying fallen comrades to a mass grave hollowed out of a Filipino rice field. Now, at last, a bit of history is being rewritten because of those memories. After six months of research, The Associated Press is correcting the caption on one of the most famous photos in its library, 65 years after the image first moved on the newswire. The image shows defeated Allied soldiers after their surrender to Japanese forces on the Philippines’ Bataan Peninsula in April 1942. Over the years, the photo has become...

These are pretty amazing considering they were taken up to 145 years ago: A compendium of photos from the Civil War era. Truly fortunate that so many of these have survived. Probably a million wet plate photos were made during the civil war on glass plate. Popular during the war, they lost their appeal afterwards and so many were sold for the glass.

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Hundreds of U.S. Marines landed on the remote island of Iwo Jima on Tuesday to prepare for the 65th anniversary of one of World War II's bloodiest and most iconic battles. The Marines flew in trucks, water and food from Washington to support Wednesday's commemorations of the 1945 battle that was a turning point in the Pacific theater. It claimed 6,821 American and 21,570 Japanese lives in 36 days of intense fighting. A drill team also arrived on the island. The commemoration was to be attended by about 1,000 people, including Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Conway, members of Japan's...

                                      It’s politically incorrect to mention it, but even in an age of terrorism and insurgency, killing the enemy remains a key to victoryVictory has usually been defined throughout the ages as forcing the enemy to accept certain political objectives. “Forcing” usually meant killing, capturing, or wounding men at arms. In today’s polite and politically correct society we seem to have forgotten that nasty but eternal truth in the confusing struggle to defeat radical Islamic terrorism. What stopped the imperial German army from absorbing France in World War I and eventually made the Kaiser abdicate was the destruction of a...

Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the loss of the U.S. Navy airship USS Macon, NOAA today announced that the wreck site on the seafloor within Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The Macon, a 785-foot dirigible was one of the largest airships in the world – comparable in size to the RMS Titanic. It was intended to serve as a scout ship for the Pacific Fleet and had the ability to launch and recover Sparrowhawk biplanes. In service less than two years, the Macon, based at Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, Calif.,...

The F-4 Phantom II lives. But the life it leads today is an odd one. It still flies in other countries; in northern Iraq, for example, the Turks use it in combat with the Kurds. But in the United States, it leads a twilight existence. It’s a warplane, but it no longer fights. Its mission is weapons testing, but no pilot flies it. Mostly, you’ll find these F-4s either sitting in the desert or lying at the bottom of the sea. The F-4 entered service in 1960, flying for the U.S. Navy. After studying its potential for close air support,...

The Battle of Trenton (Dec. 26, 1776) was a crucial early victory for the American forces in the American Revolution. On Christmas night 1776, Gen. George Washington and about 2,500 Continental soldiers crossed the ice-clogged Delaware River from Pennsylvania; early the next morning they surprised Hessian mercenaries in the British service encamped at Trenton, N.J.It was a critical time for George Washington. He had just been soundly defeated in New York and morale was very low. His writings to the Continental Congress tell us so. Although there was not much to be gained through a victory here in a territorial...

Thanks to strong community support, the Annual Christmas Day Crossing will take place (the dress rehearsal for the Crossing will be on December 13). Parties interested in assisting the community efforts should contact the Bucks County Conference and Visitors Bureau.

With political and public attention once again focused on the sacrifices made by our military in Afghanistan, it's more important than ever to remember American heroes who set an example for us all. In this first cradle-to-grave biography of Colonel John W. Ripley, author Norman Fulkerson tells the extraordinary life story of a Marine Corps hero of legendary stature; the selfless leader of combat troops and embodiment of "Semper Fi." "If a young officer or Marine ever asks what is the meaning of Semper Fidelis," Col. Ripley once told a friend, "tell them my story." This is his story!

Until now, however, one plan has remained unknown: an 18th-century plot to invade with an American army during that country’s War of Independence. Drawn up by a French general, the scheme was to bring over an American force of 10,000 that would find a Britain so distracted by the war on the other side of the Atlantic, that victory would seem certain. Just to make sure, however, the general suggested that the force include a corps of Native Americans, or “sauvages”, as he termed them, who would strike such fear in British troops that any resistance would collapse immediately. The...