Warfare, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 6, 2019

Here's How a Princeton Physicist Lost Classified H-Bomb Documents in 1953 … on a Night Train

Perhaps you've recently forgotten where you parked your car, or lost track of your house keys or your phone. You're still better off than the physicist who in 1953 misplaced secret government documents about the first hydrogen bomb. John Archibald Wheeler was a pioneer in physics, blazing trails in the...

Jan 20, 2020

Why Didn't the Allies Bomb Auschwitz?

In the spring of 1944, Allied forces received disturbing intelligence about horrific atrocities taking place at Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland, a place now known as one of the Nazis' most brutal extermination camps. Two escaped Jewish prisoners revealed first-hand knowledge of the horrors they experienced, and the Allies faced a...

Feb 18, 2020

Sophisticated Soviet spy radio discovered buried in former forest in Germany

Archaeologists digging for the remains of a Roman villa near the German city of Cologne have found a sophisticated Soviet spy radio that was buried there shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain. The spy radio was buried inside a large metal box that was hermetically sealed with a...

Feb 21, 2020

Wreckage of lost American WWII planes finally found, in a Pacific lagoon

Three WWII aircraft that were shot down during a decisive U.S. victory in the Pacific Ocean were missing for decades. Now, 76 years later, they have been found. A recovery operation discovered pieces of the long-lost planes at the bottom of Truk Lagoon in Chuuk State, part of the Federated...

Mar 24, 2020

UFO 'invasion' of NATO war games revealed in 'Project Blue Book' season finale

When a massive international war-games exercise known as Operation Mainbrace convened in the North Sea in 1952, it brought together 80,000 military personnel, 1,000 planes and 200 ships from nine countries. There were also some unexpected attendees: UFOs. Multiple sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) during Operation Mainbrace (also known...

May 7, 2020

Sword fighting with Bronze Age weapons is really hard, scientists learn

Hefty Bronze Age swords are an impressive sight, but scholars have long wondered if these swords were primarily ornamental or if they were used regularly in combat. Modern researchers took a closer look at these weapons — even hoisting them in mock battles — and they discovered that not only...

May 7, 2020

VE Day: The end of World War II in Europe

In the early hours of May 7, 1945, representatives from the Allied high command accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, marking the end of World War II in Europe. The following day, nations around the continent and the world celebrated the victory and the beginning of hard-won peace after...

Jul 1, 2020

Why the British were doomed from the get-go in the American Revolutionary War

Despite the common belief that arrogance and overconfidence played major roles in the loss of the 13 colonies in North America, Britain was actually well aware of how difficult the task of quelling the rebellion would be. There was no hope of conquering America — the territory was too big...

Sep 2, 2020

'Ghost Army' in WWII used inflatable tanks to fool the Nazis and win the war

Today (Sept. 2) marks the 75th anniversary of Word War II's end. During this historic global conflict, hundreds of bloody skirmishes were waged on land, sea and air. But one top-secret U.S. Army battalion fought not with bullets but with stagecraft, using inflatable life-size tanks, phony insignias, soundscapes and fake...

Oct 9, 2020

Why are Armenia and Azerbaijan fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region?

Since the end of September, hundreds of soldiers and civilians are thought to have been killed in a rapidly developing conflict between the rival Caucasus nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan. But why are they in conflict? It turns out that they're fighting over the landlocked, mountainous and kidney shaped Nagorno-Karabakh...

Dec 2, 2020

The Falklands War: Margaret Thatcher's great victory

In 1982, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Argentine President General Leopoldo Galtieri had much in common. Both were fervently anti-Communist, both presided over nations in economic turmoil, and both were ruthless leaders prepared assert their power by going to war. On April 2, 1982, Argentina sent a force of...

Dec 7, 2020

Nazi 'Enigma' machine found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

Divers trying to remove old fishing nets from the Baltic sea have accidentally stumbled on a Nazi code-making machine. The Enigma machine, as it's called, looks a bit like a typewriter. In fact, the diver who found the device on the ocean floor initially thought that's what the artifact was,...

Jan 27, 2021

Doomsday Clock stands at 100 seconds to midnight

Nuclear weapons, global pandemics, accelerating climate change: Is humanity running out of time? Despite 2020's general awfulness, humanity paused on the path forward to armageddon — at least, according to the Doomsday Clock, a hypothetical timepiece that annually assesses our nearness to utter annihilation. This year, the Doomsday Clock's hands...

Feb 19, 2021

The Battle of Iwo Jima: A gruesome victory for the Allied Forces

The Battle of Iwo Jima took place in 1945 during the final months of World War II. To this day, it is considered one of the most iconic clashes of the so-called Pacific campaign, or Pacific War — when American forces and their allies fought against Imperial Japan across the...

Feb 23, 2021

Raising the flag on Iwo Jima: Here's the story behind that iconic World War II photo

On Feb. 23, 1945, during the Battle of Iwo Jima (Feb. 19 to March 26), six Marines planted the U.S. flag at the summit of Mount Suribachi. The scene was photographed by journalist Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press and his image soon became famous around the world. What many...