Tag Archives: Britain

Ready, Set – Surrender!

THE STORY BEHIND HISTORY’S SHORTEST WAR

Holy Cow

warWars can drag on forever. History tells of the Hundred Years’ War, the Eighty Years’ War and the Thirty Years’ War. For us, the 2001-2014 Afghanistan War was America’s longest conflict. (Although it’s often hard to tell when a war is really a “war”; click here to learn about some of Uncle Sam’s undeclared wars.)

Yet sometimes wars wrap up with surprising swiftness. Take history’s shortest war. How long do you think it lasted? A year? A month? A week? Not even close. Continue reading →

The Pig War: How a Hungry Swine (Almost) Caused An Armed Conflict

PigOver the years, America has gone to war for a variety of reasons. The Revolution was about winning independence. In the War Between the States, it was ending slavery or defending state’s rights, depending on your point of view. World War I was “making the world safe for democracy,” and World War II was triumphing over some truly Bad Guys.

But never in our nation’s 239 year history have we ever gone to war over an animal.

Yet we came frighteningly close to a trans-Atlantic conflict over one in 1859. Continue reading →

When Hitler Invaded England … in 1974

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History is littered with possibilities, and the only thing historians love more than bickering among themselves is speculating about what might have happened if the past had played out differently.

What if JFK hadn’t been assassinated?
What if FDR had only served the traditional two terms as president?
And perhaps the most intriguing of all … what if the South had won the Civil War?
Tantalizing possibilities of what may have been gained, or lost, in a history that wasn’t.

Continue reading →