Biography
General-leitenant Pavel Zhigarev
Pavel Fedorovich Zhigarev was the forgotten man of Soviet wartime air power. He was brought in immediately before the German invasion and the arrest of all three of his predecessors and held the VVS together. He was sent to Siberia in April 1942 in a dispute over aircraft deliveries, being given command of an air army in the Far East.…
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DEMETRIUS I, KING OFÂ MACEDON
Marble bust of Demetrius I Poliorcetes. Roman copy from 1st century AD of a Greek original from 3rd century BC. The grail was his: Demetrius was king of Macedon. Immediately after the murder of Alexander V, the nobles present—members of Alexander’s court, now surrounded by Demetrius’s forces—agreed to his kingship,…
SOVIET FIGHTER ACES INÂ KOREA
Russian MiG-15 Aces in Korea, from left to right: Aleksandr P. Smorchkov (8 kills), Nikolai Ivanovich Ivanov (6), Semen Alexeievich Fedorets (8), Yevgeni G. Pepelyayev (19) and Sergei Makarovich Kramarenko (13). On Sunday, June 25, 1950, the North Korean Peoples Army suddenly launched its invasion of South Korea by crossing…
Fernando VI (1746–59), King of Spain
Portrait by Louis Michel Van Loo The Franco-Spanish fleet commanded by Don Juan JosĂ© Navarro drove off the British fleet under Thomas Mathews near Toulon in 1744. Fernando VI (1746–59) ascended to the throne at the age of thirty-three, mature and well trained in the business of government. As the…
Carlos III’s Reign
Portrait by Anton Raphael Mengs, c. 1761 Though Fernando VI’s reign saw the end of French tutelage, the latest intellectual currents from France and elsewhere circulated among the Spanish elite and characterized Spain’s version of the Enlightenment. Spain adopted the enlightened passion for scientific investigation, governmental reform, and social justice…
Polyxenidas
Polyxenidas a Rhodian general and admiral, who was exiled from his native country, and entered the service of Antiochus III the Great, king of Seleucid Empire. We first find him mentioned in 209 BC, when he commanded a body of Cretans mercenaries during the expedition of Antiochus into Hyrcania .…
Thutmose III
Widely considered a military genius by historians, Thutmose III made 16 raids in 20 years. He was an active expansionist ruler, sometimes called Egypt’s greatest conqueror or “the Napoleon of Egypt.” He is recorded to have captured 350 cities during his rule and conquered much of the Near East from…