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Battle of Blanchetaque 1346 - 100 Years War A Feat of Arms A very notable feat of arms took place on the morning of August 24th, 1346, in the marshy estuary of the River Somme. The small and starving English army of Edward III was in desperate need to cross to the north side of the river as staying where they were on the south side kept them bottled up between the sea and the river. But that wasn’t the worst of it, for th...

In 1565, Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey and Emperor of the Ottoman Empire, launched a flotilla of 200 Turkish ships carrying 40,000 fighting men with the intention of further domination of the Mediterranean Sea. In May of that year they laid siege to the small, vitally strategic island of Malta. The Christians consisted knights, local peasant soldiers and a few thousand Maltese soldiers. Jean de Valette was in command of the defense,...

The Battle of Marathon was one of the earliest recorded battles. This Greek victory over invading Persians gave Greek city-states not only the confidence in their ability to defend themselves, but in the belief of their own existence. Two years earlier an invading army of Persians, after defeating Thrace and Macedonia, had their fleet destroyed by a storm. Now, a second army crossed in an expedition bent on conquering the Aegean Islands. In fall...