The siege of Mecca

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietna ...  Show more

During the 1940s, a playboy spy became one of wartime’s most successful double agents, as well as the reported inspiration behind James Bond. A gambler and womanizer who spoke several languages, Dusko Popov was approached by a friend working for the Abwehr, Germany’s military int ...  Show more

On November 20th, 1979, a group of Islamic militants seized Islam's holiest site — the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. They took thousands of hostages and held the holy site for two weeks, shocking the Islamic world. This week, how one man led an uprising that would have ...  Show more

Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, is effectively canceled this year, due to concerns around the spread of the coronavirus. But, for two weeks in 1979, visits to the holy site were also upended when a group of Islamic militants seized Mecca, taking thousands of visitors ...  Show more

All the Muslim's enemies band together in a final attempt to defeat them. In the year 5 AH, the two banished Jewish tribes ally with the Meccans to mobilizing the masses for the ultimate battle against the Muslims, in what would later be known as the Battle of the Azhab, aka ...  Show more

When the Islamic State group took over Mosul in Iraq in 2014 they flooded the internet with propaganda, claiming life under IS was fantastic. One historian living in the city decided to post a counter-narrative online, setting up a website called "Mosul Eye". Also in this edit ...