Cold War | War History

In The Angolan Civil War, Angola Had An Unlikely Ally In Cuba

Mural of Castro and Angola's Agostinho Neto in Angola, 1987.

When Angola was plunged into a set of civil wars that lasted decades, the last country one might expect to join in might be Cuba.…

How The Bandung Conference Of 1955 Was The Beginning Of The End For Indonesia’s President

Asian–African Conference at Bandung April 1955

The Bandung Conference of 1955 was a meeting of Asian and African nations, many of which were newly emerging from colonial rule. It was an…

Kildin Island Incident: When a Russian Submarine Surfaced Right Under an American Spy Sub

Although the Cold War ‘ended’ with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the tensions built up over the previous 45 years did not…

Taking K-129: Howard Hughes, the CIA, and the Most Expensive Secret Plot of the Cold War

K-129

The Cold War was infamous as a time of bizarre weapons, vehicles, and projects. Because the US and the Soviet Union were not fighting a…

Rejected Prototype Aircraft That Were Given A Second Act

Grumman F4F Wildcat

Not every aircraft that sounds great on paper actually proves to be great in practice. There are far more proposed aircraft designs than there are…

Impressive Facts About The ‘Losers’ Of The Space Race

Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, 1961.

The Space Race was a battle between the U.S. and Soviet Union that was fought with brains, science, and technology in the cold expanse of…

A Look Back At The Army’s Portable Reactors — Is It Time To Try Again?

In 1954 the U.S. Army initiated the Army Nuclear Power Program, which sought to research and design relatively small portable nuclear reactors that would provide…

Cold War Fun: A 1950s Science Kit That Contained Real Uranium

Gilbert u-238 atomic energy lab

When the U.S. successfully harnessed the virtually limitless power of the atom with the Trinity atomic bomb test in 1945, it seemed that there wasn’t…

The XF-108 Rapier: The Air Force’s Best Plane That Never Flew

XF-108

In the 1950s, the Jet Age was in full swing, and manufacturers were looking to make the biggest advancements with this new technology. High-performance internal…

What Happened When The Soviets Left Afghanistan?

A destroyed Soviet-era tank lies in the Panjshir River on September 5, 2016 in Bazarak, Afghanistan.

On December 24th, 1979, the Soviet Red Army charged into Afghanistan, marking the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War. This war would draw many parallels with…

Ämari Pilots’ Cemetery: An Abandoned Graveyard That Uses Aircraft Parts As Gravestones

Aircraft tails sticking out of the forest ground at Ämari Pilots' Cemetery

Ämari Pilots’ Cemetery, the final resting place of Soviet-Estonian fighter pilots killed in air accidents, is a strange sight to behold. The spooky part of…

How Two Families Escaped East Germany In A Hot Air Balloon

East German police guarding the Berlin Wall

What price would you pay for freedom? What dangers would you put your family through for a chance at a new life? These were the…