On September 19, 1944, the United States Army entered a dense, forbidding tract of woodland along the German–Belgian border known as the Hürtgen Forest. What began that morning as a push to clear the area for the advance into the Rhineland would spiral into…
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On September 11, 9 AD, the Empire of Rome saw its expanding borders stopped in its tracks. The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, also known as the Varian Disaster, was a pivotal event in Roman history that took place in 9 CE. It was…
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When the guns fell silent in Europe on May 8, 1945, the question of how to commemorate the Allied triumph over Nazi Germany loomed over the victorious powers. The Soviet Union, which had borne the brunt of the war on the Eastern Front and…
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On August 14, 1880, builders placed the final touches on the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, completing a project that took over 630 years to finish. With the final stone laid, the cathedral became the tallest building in the world, a title it held until…
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On August 8, 1945 the United States, England, France and the Soviet Union joined together and signed the London Agreement, a new treaty to impose justice against the Nazis for their crimes. For two months during the summer of 1945, Robert H. Jackson and…
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On August 4, 1914, the contours of what would become the First World War changed dramatically as three pivotal nations made their positions unmistakably clear. In response to Germany’s invasion of neutral Belgium, both Belgium and the British Empire formally declared war on the…
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On June 22, 1990, one of the most famous checkpoints in the world came down, opening a new path for unity and peace in Germany and showing a new era of world history was right around the corner. A major crossing through the Berlin…
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The Diet of Worms, convened in 1521, stands as a pivotal moment in the history of the Reformation and European religious politics. This imperial council, held in the German city of Worms, was summoned by Emperor Charles V to address the burgeoning theological controversy stirred by Martin Luther. Luther, a German…
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On May 7, 1915, during World War I, the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine, U-20, off the coast of Ireland. The attack resulted in the loss of over 1,100 lives, including civilians and neutral passengers, triggering…
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In the final months of World War II in Europe—when Nazi forces, though weakening, still held dangerous power—March 24, 1944, marked a bold act of resistance. On that night, seventy-six Allied prisoners escaped from Stalag Luft III, a German-run prisoner-of-war camp in Sagan, Lower…
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