History

The Vasa was built to project Swedish power, terrify rivals, and dominate the sea. Instead, this lavish 1628 warship barely made it off the dock before tipping over and turning into one of naval history’s most spectacular disasters.

A Japanese sword took LT George Cairns’ arm on a Burmese hilltop. He seized that same blade, kept fighting, and earned a place among Britain’s most savage Victoria Cross legends.

Outnumbered, nearly surrounded, and staring into the muzzle of a German MP40, 1SG Leonard Funk did the only sensible thing. He started laughing, swung his Thompson, and carved his name into Medal of Honor history.

Billy Idol survived fame, heroin, hotel carnage, and one of the strangest tranquilizer gun legends in rock history. This is where punk rock excess crashes headfirst into dart gun science.

Operation Hathor is the sort of story that sounds made up until you realize it is not. Two SAS troopers got snatched by the wrong people in Basra, and the British response involved armor, airborne surveillance, righteous fury, and all the subtlety of a bar fight with tanks.

Hezbollah grabbed Soviet diplomats in Lebanon in 1986 and expected leverage. The KGB answered with ruthless pressure that forced a fast release and sent a message the region still remembers.

From Bonnie and Clyde to Anwar al-Awlaki, this hard-edged piece asks a nasty modern question: when does deadly force stop being controversial and start feeling inevitable?

America burned through a quarter-billion dollars in aircraft to save one man and then turned around and salvaged a shot-up Chinook off a murderous Afghan mountainside. If that sounds gloriously unhinged, that is because it absolutely was.

A promising American chased a cause, crossed an ocean, put on a Russian uniform, and died in Ukraine. This is the stark, uncomfortable arc of Michael Gloss.