The world is full of strange “future weapons.” But is it ready for self-steering bullets, capable of hitting targets over a mile away? Future Weapons: A Bullet that Steers Itself? So, what kind of future weapons is the world ready for? Is it ready for self-steering bullets, capable of hitting targets over a mile away? The military…
Will soldiers of the future eschew bulletproof vests for bulletproof skin? Will Soldiers of the Future have Bulletproof Skin? By integrating spider silk into human skin cells, researchers have developed human tissue that can withstand a bullet (okay, a bullet fired at half-speed). Still, it’s a pretty impressive achievement. Here’s more on this new bulletproof…
On January 31, 1945, twelve soldiers raised their rifles, pointed them, and fired. Fifteen minutes later, private Eddie Slovik was dead. He remains the only U.S. soldier executed solely for desertion since the Civil War, when it was a disturbingly common punishment. Why did Slovik suffer this fate? Desertion during World War II? “The person…
On February 15, 1944, Private Dale H. Maple picked up two passengers in Colorado, and headed for Mexico. He was promptly arrested and charged with treason. Why? Because the two passengers weren’t Americans…they were Nazi prisoners of war. The 620th Engineer General Service Company: Nazi Sympathizers…in the U.S. Military? After enlisting in February 1942, Maple was…
On August 17, 1862, four Sioux Indians attacked and killed five white settlers while on a hunting expedition in Minnesota. A series of attacks known as the Dakota War followed until the U.S. Army quelled the unrest. In the aftermath, President Abraham Lincoln approved the largest mass execution in U.S. history, a record that still…
On March 2, 1864, William Littlepage was searching the pockets of a dead Union officer just outside of Richmond, VA. But instead of a pocketwatch or other baubles, Littlepage discovered two mysterious documents. These papers, now known as the Dahlgren Papers, cast light on a plot designed to bring an end to the Confederate States…
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union wielded enormous arsenals of nuclear weapons. Citizens of the world lived in fear that the conflict would someday heat up, resulting in a devastating nuclear war that would destroy the world. Into this confusion and terror stepped the RAND Corporation and a team of…
In 672 AD, Theophanes the Confessor reported that “Kallinikos, an artificer from Heliopolis…had devised a sea fire which ignited the Arab ships and burned them with all hands. Thus it was that the Romans returned with victory and discovered the sea fire.” What was this strange Greek fire? What was Greek Fire? Greek fire was an…