The History Network

Modern historical scholarship has little lenience for hyperbole and any event that appears exaggerated is heavily scrutinized. The Spanish Conquest of Mexico provides ample folklores for historians to examine. One tale depicts renowned conquistador Pedro de Alvarado vaulting across a canal to escape certain doom. An episode since identified as the Salto de Alvarado (Alvarado's Leap). Historians are now in broad agreement that Alvar...

In late October 2024, under a Vienna sports field (Ostbahn-XI-Platz) on the Danube in the Simmering district, a site of ancient mass burial was discovered. 129 bodies were discovered (intermixed bones may mean there were up to 150 bodies buried), all male, mostly between 20 and 30 years old, all roughly 1.7 metres tall, and many with wounds consistent with ancient battle. Many skeletons had injuries to their skulls, torsos and pelv...

The French infantry passed by the farm at La Haye Saint and advanced up to the ridge where Picton's 5th Brigade were literally lying in wait. Dutch skirmishers retreated back to their parent regiments in Allied lines. The British troops of Picton's 5th Brigade were stationed 100 yards behind the Dutch who were now trading volleys with the ever-advancing wave of French troops. The Dutch could not sustain the defense and reformed wit...

Another poem, "Gwaith Argoed Llwyfain", refers to another campaign against the Angles of Bernicia. It also provides remarkable insights. Here, the leader of the Angles is named as Fflamddwyn – perhaps meaning "flamebearer" or "flamboyant one." It may refer to Theodoric of Bernicia (r. ca. 584-591) whose reign coincides with Urien's. The idea that it refers to Ida, the first king of Bernicia (r. 547-559), is probably too early to co...

The works of the sixth century AD Brittonic poet and bard, Taliesin, survive in a fourteenth century Welsh manuscript of the Llyuyr Taliessin, The Book of Taliesin. Taliesin is one of the most important figures in Welsh literature, one of the Five British Poets of Renown listed in the ninth century Historia Brittonum. Taliesin himself may have served at the courts of several kings and, although the book ascribed to him contains poe...

The battle of Abritus saw the death of two emperors in battle against a foreign enemy – Gaius Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius, usually known as Trajan Decius (r. 249-251) and his son and co-emperor Quintus Herennius Etruscus Messius Decius, known as Herennius Etruscus (r. 251). They lost their lives intercepting an invasion of Goths led by their king, Cniva, as it attempted to leave the empire weighed down with plunder after an imm...

For the battle of Chaeronea, we get none of the detailed deployment which we get for the subsequent battles of Alexander in sources such as Arrian, Plutarch, Curtius Rufus, and even in Diodorus himself. We can use those later deployments to our advantage, however, as Macedonian deployment remained remarkably similar - and, having learned so many lessons evident at Chaeronea, why would Alexander deviate from what had happened there ...

Australia's involvement and commitment to the Vietnam War continued until 1973 when the last remaining platoon who were acting as guards for the Australian Embassy in Saigon, were withdrawn in June 1973. As with American involvement, Australia's contribution also escalated over time. Following the arrival of the AATTV in 1962, in August 1964 the Royal Australian Airforce (RAAF) began to run supply missions to Vung Tau, the port sou...

Arthur Martin-Leake, serving as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1914 was the first man to be awarded a Bar to the Victoria Cross he received during the Second Boer War in 1902. In both circumstances Martin-Leake's conduct was to put the lives of his injured comrades first despite being exposed to constant enemy fire, and being wounded himself. Martin-Leake is the only recipient to gain his two Victoria Crosses in se...

On September 22nd, 1862, already almost two years into the US Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation stating that, as of January 1st, 1863, all slaves within any State would be "thenceforward, and forever free." This proclamation freed 3.5 million men and women of African-American descent and, included in the proclamation, was the sentence that "the executive government of the United States, inclu...

In the Spring of 334 BC, the 22-year-old Macedonian king, Alexander III (r. 336-323 BC - not yet 'the Great'), invaded the vast Achaemenid Persian Empire with an elite but small army of some 30-40,000 veteran infantry and only 5,000 cavalry. This invasion was the culmination of almost a century of pressure for some Greek commander or other to punish Persia for its own invasion of Greece during the fifth century BC. Persia had also ...