The German battleship Tirpitz was the largest ever built by a European power but proved too costly to risk in an actual battle. The British blew it up anyway.

When an aristocratic Englishman came to New York to perform Shakespeare's Macbeth in 1849, anti-English and anti-elite rioters clashed with militia, leaving 22 dead.

Before World War II, Jimmy Doolittle was already a world-famous aviator, but it was his daring raid on Tokyo following the attack on Pearl Harbor that cemented his place in history.

How the great naval clash at 1942's Battle of Midway allowed the U.S. and the Allies to eventually beat the Japanese in World War II's Pacific Theater.

The Doolittle Raid, with 16 planes targeting six different Japanese cities, allowed the United States to rebound after its devastating losses at Pearl Harbor.

Virulently anti-Catholic and anti-Irish, William "Bill the Butcher" Poole led Manhattan's Bowery Boys street gang in the 1850s.

Despite his social and cultural advancements, Kublai Khan couldn't conquer like his grandfather had and his military failures would ultimately usher in the end to the Mongol Dynasty.

Under Hideki Tōjō's leadership during WWII, Japan conducted brutal humans experiments, enslaved thousands of "comfort women," and routinely cannibalized POWs. He would pay for these crimes with his life.