First World War History

September 1942 marked the high point of Axis conquest in World War II. In the Pacific, Japan's soldiers had seemed unstoppable. However, the tide was about to turn. On Sunday, 6 September 1942, Japanese land forces suffered their first conclusive defeat at the hands of the Allies. At Milne Bay in Papua New Guinea, a predominantly Australian force - including 75 Squadron (fresh from their action in 44 Days) - fought for two weeks to successfully defend a vital airstrip against a determined Japanese invasion.

On September 6, 1945, less than a month after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, George Weller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, became the first free Westerner to enter the devastated city. Going into the hospitals and consulting the doctors of the bomb's victims, Weller was the first to document its unprecedented long-range medical effects. He also became the first to enter the nearby Allied POW camps, which rivaled those of the Nazis for cruelty and bested them for death count.

With an executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, the United States Marine Corps - the last all-white branch of the U.S. military - was forced to begin recruiting and enlisting African Americans. The first black recruits received basic training at the segregated Camp Montford Point, adjacent to Camp Lejeune, near Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Worm: The First Digital World War tells the story of the Conficker worm, a potentially devastating piece of malware that has baffled experts and infected more than twelve million computers worldwide. When Conficker was unleashed in November 2008, cybersecurity experts did not know what to make of it. Exploiting security flaws in Microsoft Windows, it grew at an astonishingly rapid rate, infecting millions of computers around the world within weeks.

During the First World War, the British army's most consistent German opponent was Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Commanding more than a million men as a General, and then Field Marshal, in the Imperial German Army, he held off the attacks of the British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French and then Sir Douglas Haig for four long years. But Rupprecht was to lose not only the war, but his son and his throne. In Haig's Enemy, Jonathan Boff explores the tragic tale of Rupprecht's war - the story of a man caught under the wheels of modern industrial warfare.

The First World War was the defining event of the last century. It claimed the lives of more than 16 million people across the globe and had an enormous impact on all who experienced it. No nation in Europe was left untouched and even neutral states felt its devastating impact. Yet it was the ordinary men and women who were affected the most. This gripping, revealing and poignant collection of stories tells the First World War from the perspective of those who were there, using letters, diaries and memoirs from Imperial War Museum's unparalleled archives.

If the Wright brothers' 1903 flights in Kitty Hawk marked the birth of aviation, World War I can be called its violent adolescence - a brief but bloody era that completely changed the way planes were designed, fabricated, and flown. The war forged an industry that would redefine transportation and warfare for future generations.

Huge international companies and corporations are a normal part of our everyday lives today. For most, their unimaginable wealth and power, rivaling even some of the smaller countries of the world, is something we take for granted. And we see them as the living embodiment of the capitalist system, regardless if we take it as a good or a bad omen. However, this wasn’t always the case.

The thrilling history of the turning point of the Second World War, when Hitler's armies were halted on the Eastern Front. At the moment of crisis in 1941 on the Eastern Font, with the forces of Hitler massing on the outskirts of Moscow, the miraculous occurred: Moscow was saved. Yet this turning point was followed by a long retreat, in which Russian forces, inspired by old beliefs in the sacred motherland, pushed back German forces steeled by the vision of the ubermensch, the iron-willed fighter.

Vice Admiral John L. McCrea worked with the president of the United States on difficult and unusual assignments, associated with royalty and world-famous political and military leaders, and he commanded the USS Iowa and a task force in the Pacific. Over the years, many urged him to write a book, and before his passing he finally recorded his reminiscences. Captain McCrea's War captures his amazing tales from the World War II years.

The foremost expert on the subject describes how Native languages, which were essentially unknown outside tribal contexts and thus could be as effective as formal encrypted codes, came to be used for military communication during World War I.

1913. War drums throb across the world. Greed and malice stalk the island. Despite people’s sneers, one woman stands up for the downtrodden. From childhood, Pansy has been an outsider. Her oddness makes her the butt of ridicule. Even her own family struggle to accept her. So, wouldn’t it be prudent to keep her nose out of the affairs of the family next door? Especially in 1913, when the islanders are more tense than ever. The world is lurching towards war. Some businessmen will do anything—even kill—to get rich by exploiting a special indigenous plant. Political debate rages over ...

Edinburgh, October 1940... When Nazi troops march triumphantly along Princes Street, James Baird feels drawn to watch the parade. It’s his punishment, for at 20 years old, and a Philosophy student at Edinburgh University, he is ashamed he has done nothing in the defense of his country. Behind him, he cannot look at the high ramparts of Edinburgh Castle, for they are festooned with garish red swastika banners. Sickened by the music and swaggering Nazis, James soon takes refuge in the Edinburgh University bar, determined to drown his sorrows before returning home. As his new role in German-...

The year was 1922: World War I had just come to a close, the Ottoman Empire was in decline, and Asa Jennings, a YMCA worker from upstate New York, had just arrived in the quiet coastal city of Smyrna to teach sports to boys. Several hundred miles to the east in Turkey's interior, tensions between Greeks and Turks had boiled over into deadly violence. Mustapha Kemal, now known as Ataturk, and his Muslim army soon advanced into Smyrna, a Christian city, where a half a million terrified Greek and Armenian refugees had fled in a desperate attempt to escape his troops.

Una nueva visión de la guerra que asoló el mundo en los albores del S. XX basada en una combinación de historia bélica e historia humana. La mayoría de los libros que tratan el tema de la Primera Guerra Mundial, lo hacen incidiendo en los avatares bélicos de la llamada Gran Guerra, una contienda de la que se dijo que acabaría con todas las guerras.

With authoritative, exciting text, The World War I Book explores the historical background to the war, its causes, all of key events across the major theatres of conflict, and its aftermath. Using the original approach of the series, entries profile more than 90 of the key events during and surrounding the conflict - from tensions between Europe's major powers to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the German invasion of Belgium, the endless slaughter in the trenches, the American entry into the war, the Russian Revolution, the Armistice, and the creation of the League of Nations.

At 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, the advanced base of the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet, was ablaze. It had been smashed by aircraft launched by the carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. All eight battleships had been sunk or badly damaged, 350 aircraft had been knocked out, and over 2,000 Americans lay dead.

En Junio de 1914 el asesinato del archiduque Francisco Fernando de Austria provocó la primera "guerra total" de la historia: un conflicto que cambiará el destino del mundo. Normalmente no se presta a la Primera Guerra Mundial la debida atención, las estanterías, rebosantes de libros sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial, no tienen mucho sitio para su predecesora.

Una nueva visión de la guerra que asoló el mundo en los albores del S. XX basada en una combinación de historia bélica e historia humana. La mayoría de los libros que tratan el tema de la Primera Guerra Mundial, lo hacen incidiendo en los avatares bélicos de la llamada Gran Guerra, una contienda de la que se dijo que acabaría con todas las guerras. La novedad de este audio libro que nos trae Álvaro Lozano es que presenta la guerra desde una perspectiva total, remontándose a los factores previos a 1914 que facilitaron el enfrentamiento....

On September 7, 1940, the long-feared and anticipated attack by the German Luftwaffe plunged London into a cauldron of fire and devastation. This compelling book recreates that day in all its horror, using rich archival sources and first-hand accounts, many never before published. Eminent historian Peter Stansky weaves together the stories of people who recorded their experiences of the opening hours of the Blitz. Then, exploring more deeply, the author examines what that critical day meant to the nation at the time, and what it came to mean in following years.