Here are overlooked or forgotten tales from the world's greatest conflict. These are stories of courage, daring, and stupidity, some of which would challenge the imaginations of Hollywood scriptwriters. Some of the many true tales that author Donald Aines recounts include: • He would never be cast as a dashing war hero, but a cast member of "The Addams Family" television show volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs the Army Air Force had to offer. • The US Navy's deadliest submarine claimed an unexpected victim with its last torpedo, and led to one of the war's most harrowing tales of survival. • Bob Hoover's escape from a German stalag would have made a great movie. • British commando "Mad Jack" Churchill earned his nickname, arming himself to fight a 20th century war with a 15th century attitude and weapons. • The Germans and Japanese wasted precious resources developing weapons more dangerous to the users than their enemies. • The GI who stole the voices of his victims, and other Allied and Axis serial killers. Within the pages of Strange and Obscure Stories of World War II,the reality of war trumps fiction.

Ernest Hemingway stalks U-Boats. A Belgian woman halts the Panzers. Adolf Hitler plays Santa Claus. If you think these are tall tales, guess again. More than 140 of the most bizarre, curious, and downright strange incidents from World War II are documented here based on personal interviews, archives and declassified documents.

Presents a series of historical anecdotes about little-known, miscellaneous events and personal experiences of the American Civil War.

Astonishing Events from the American Revolution That They Don’t Teach in School! We all know about Washington’s crossing of the Delaware and Betsy Ross’s stitching together the Stars and Stripes, but how about a little-known, valid reason for the war itself and why General George was able to survive a plague that wiped out many of his fellow countrymen? History buff Tim Rowland provides an entertaining look at happenings during and surrounding the Revolutionary War that you won’t find in history books. He digs into the war’s major events and reveals the unknown, bizarre, and often wildly amusing things the participants were doing while breaking away from Great Britain. For example, conventional wisdom says that “no taxation without representation” was an important reason for the revolution, but not in the way we’ve been told. Colonists paid the wages of common-court judges, who were reluctant to rule against the men who paid their salaries. Therefore, duties on molasses (the key ingredient in rum) were generally unenforced until the British cut the tariff in half. Strange but true, the spark that touched off the revolution was in fact a tax cut. During the French and Indian War and then again in the first year of the revolution, the British were accused of biological warfare, infecting blankets with smallpox and then concealing them in Indian camps. So feared was the disease that soldiers began to illegally inoculate themselves before widespread vaccination was finally ordered for the army. Washington himself was immune, thanks to a Caribbean trip taken as a young man when his brother Lawrence sought a cure for tuberculosis. Lawrence wasn’t cured, but George was infected with smallpox in Barbados. As a young man in a warm climate, he survived. As an older man in a northern winter, however, the story of the father of our country might have had a different ending. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

During World War II, many deeply mysterious events took place in the fog and chaos of conflict. These were classified, hushed up and kept from the public eye, and yet with the recent opening of secret archives, new light has been shed on these strange circumstances. This brilliant book fills you in on these unsolved cases, teasing fact from fiction. Topics include: • The lost treasure of the Amber Room - a masterpiece made from 5,900 kg of amber which was supposedly spirited away to a secret location and never uncovered since. • The Man Who Never Was - a corpse dressed in military uniform, fitted out with fake documents who was deliberately allowed to fall into Nazi hands. His real identity is still disputed. • The murder of socialite and possible spy, Jane Horney. Her body was never discovered, and many believed she swapped identities with her friend and lookalike before her disappearance. Within these pages the reader will also discover the secrets of the Nazi Ghost Trains; the 17 British soldiers at Auschwitz; and 'the curse of Timur's Tomb'. These intriguing and often chilling conspiracies and subterfuges will leave you stunned.

4,139 entries covering the battles, backgrounds and players in the Allied and Axis powers. A cornucopia of unusual information to intrigue any World War II buff and a unique approach to learning history. 672 pages.

Fictional war narratives often employ haunted battlefields, super-soldiers, time travel, the undead and other imaginative elements of science fiction and fantasy. This encyclopedia catalogs appearances of the strange and the supernatural found in the war stories of film, television, novels, short stories, pulp fiction, comic books and video and role-playing games. Categories explore themes of mythology, science fiction, alternative history, superheroes and "Weird War."

When was the last time someone around you brought up World War Two? It's a pretty popular war. Maybe you heard about it yesterday. Maybe last month. But it was probably recent. And when it came up, did you wish that you could be the one to casually drop a fact that would have everyone in the room going, "Wow, I never knew that!" With this book, you can be that person. You can read it in just a few minutes a day. Chapters are bite-sized and easy to read, meant for normal people instead of war historians! Each chapter ends with a bonus helping of trivia and some quick questions to test your knowledge. You'll zoom through this book and be hungry for more. Get ready to impress your friends with your knowledge - not just of the main events of World War Two, but of all the gritty details and weird true facts. By the time you finish this book, you'll have a fact for every occasion, from the first moment someone thought about having a second World War, to the most recent blockbuster movies about it. So get ready to meet characters from Adolf Hitler, rejected art student, to Jack Churchill, the broadsword-swinging male model. Find out why World War Two started in the first place, and why it's never a good idea to invade Russia in winter. Learn why the United States was going to stay out of the war, how Canadians stole airplanes for the British, and what an orange soft drink has to do with the Nazis. Some of the things you're going to learn are sad. Some are scary. Some are sexy. And some are downright strange! It's everything your history teacher never got around to telling you.

Strange and Obscure Stories of Washington, DC is a collection of wild but true tales about our nation’s capital. Starting in the early days of the republic and reaching into modern times, the book recounts odd and humorous events that didn’t make their way into the history books. Along the way the book introduces a host of memorable characters: • Land speculators James Greenleaf and Robert Morris, whose financial shenanigans almost took down the Federal City before it was even established • Civil War madam Mary Ann Hall, who ran the city’s most upstanding brothel and died with an estate valued at $2 million • The “Treasury Girls—the first wave of female workers, hired to cut individual bills from printed sheets of cash (with scissors), who prompted a government investigation into immoral behavior in the workplace • The NSA’s secret staff of African Americans who went to work in code rooms after Harry Truman desegregated the federal workforce • The 1960s activist who drew attention to a rat problem in poor neighborhoods by shuttling them in his station wagon to the toniest parts of Georgetown Readers will also find out how a hurricane saved the city in 1812, how a demonstration of the world’s largest naval gun nearly killed the president, and about the tree at Washington Cathedral whose origins trace back to the Holy Land at the time of Joseph of Arimathea. With Strange and Obscure Stories of Washington, DC in hand, the city will never seem the same again.

"From spy missions to code breaking, this richly illustrated account of the covert operations of World War II takes readers behind the battle lines and deep into the undercover war effort that changed the course of history. From the authors who created Eyewitness to World War II and numerous other best-selling illustrated reference books, this is the shocking story behind the covert activity that shaped the outcome of one of the world's greatest conflicts--and the destiny of millions of people. National Geographic's landmark book illuminates World War II as never before by taking you inside the secret lives of spies and spy masters; secret agents and secret armies; Enigma machines and code breakers; psychological warfare and black propaganda; secret weapons and secret battle strategies. Seven heavily illustrated narrative chapters reveal the truth behind the lies and deception that shaped the 'secret war'; eight essays showcase hundreds of rare photos and artifacts (many never before seen); more than 50 specially created sidebars tell the stories of spies and secret operations. Renowned historian and top-selling author Stephen Hyslop reveals this little-known side of the war in captivating detail, weaving in extraordinary eyewitness accounts and information only recently declassified. Rare photographs, artifacts, and illuminating graphics enrich this absorbing reference book"--