world war II

It’s fair to say that the last truly ingenious period in warfare was the Big One. During World War II, good guys were good, bad guys were bad and we all wanted to twist science to our advantage. Both the Axis and the Allies had dozens of secret weapons projects percolating – one of ours, the atomic bomb, ended the war – and here are the ten most terrifying secret weapons of World War II. Vortex Cannon Hitler’s Reich was very supportive of scientific research, as long as it led to new ways to kill the Allies. During the war, he had multiple labs working on conceptualizing innovative weapons. The ...

One of the things that make covert infiltration, rescue and assassination missions — like those seen in movies like "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Argo" — so dangerous is that so many things can go wrong and ultimately result in unplanned casualties. What makes them impressive is that they seem to work flawlessly, even if the original plan fails almost immediately, often because the people carrying out these operations are well trained and quick on their feet. Here are 10 examples of audacious military missions that benefited not just from careful planning, but from expedient thinking as ...