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naval history



  • Could the US Win a Modern-Day Battle of Midway?

    by Brendan Simms and Steven McGregor

    With growing Chinese naval power in the Pacific, two historians consider how well the Navy could respond to a confrontation on the high seas. 


  • The Accident that Almost Decapitated the US Government

    by Stan Haynes

    John Tyler intended to show off the firepower of the USS Princeton to boost his abysmal popularity and scare foreign goverments into letting him annex Texas. He nearly got more than he bargained for in one of the biggest close calls of presidential history. 



  • How a WWII Japanese Sub Commander Helped Exonerate a U.S. Navy Captain

    Captain Charles McVay took the fall for the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the last days of the second world war, finally taking his own life. An appeal by the Mochitsura Hashimoto, commander of the sub to US Senator John Warner cleared the way for a legislative exoneration. 



  • The World’s Most Important Body of Water

    by Daniel Yergin

    The author of a book on the dispute over control of the South China sea examines four critical decisionmakers whose actions shaped the present conflict. 


  • The Battle of The Atlantic has Lessons for Fighting COVID-19

    by Marc Wortman

    Pleasure-seekers and shoreline business owners on the east coast of the United States rejected voluntary calls to dim their lights in 1942. German U-Boat crews devastated shipping and commerce until compulsory blackouts were enforced.