The 1947 Treaty of Paris ended the war between Italy and the Allied powers. Articles 64-66 placed severe limitations upon the Italian Air Force, which the Italians hoped to circumvent.For this purpose, the postwar Italia...

The U.S. Naval Institute posted on X that, in earlier days, ship flagbags sometimes contained a pennant that would express frustration and/or confusion at other vessels. I traced the origin story down to Vice Admiral Mil...

Last year, Valkyrie Historical Auctions, a seller of World War II memorabilia, offered a copy of this paper pamphlet attributed to the occupied Netherlands during World War II. The Dutch inscription says, "Where is the f...

George Washington was of English extraction and his family can be traced to northeastern England as far back to at least the 11th century. You can visit the manor house inhabited by the earlier Washingtons (then called W...

I've tried to source this claim by the always-interesting X account Traces of Texas. The histiography is a bit sketchy. But it's not unreasonable for North Street in Nacogdoches, Texas to claim the title of the oldest pu...

The Republic of Kiribati (pronounced "Kirr-ih-bass") is, by population, a very small nation with only 117,000 people. It consists of 33 islands, of which a third are inhabited, stretching across 2,400 miles of central Pa...

Faustin Wirkus was born in the Russian Empire and, as a child, immigrated to the United States. He lived in poverty, but was determined to better himself by enlisting in the US Marine Corps. The Marine Corps Times report...

Minnesota is known as the "Land of Lakes", but that sobriquet would better fit Canada. Canada has so many lakes that just naming them takes a lot of work. Manitoba's innovative and morally commendable response was to nam...

The development of submarine-launched ballistic nuclear missiles was a game-changer in Cold War strategy. The United States wanted to subtly express to the Soviet Union that it could place its nuclear-capable Regulus mis...

80 years ago, the brave men of the western Allied armies were saving Europe and having a rough go of it. Conditions in the field were spartan and beer was a usually unobtainable luxury.Pictured above is a RAF Supermarine...