The Cold War was not just a time of heightened tensions and global competition, but a period of rapid technological growth and scientific advancement. In laboratories all over the world, scientists were working on other breakthroughs, including in a new and largely untouched section of science: discovering new elements. Thankfully the transfermium wars did not go nuclear, even though they were fought over nuclei.
In August of 1918, as the armies of Europe neared exhaustion, American troops of the 28th “Keystone” division were thrown into a nearly forgotten battle that fully represented the horrors of the War to End All Wars.
Of the vaunted ironclad warships of the US Civil War perhaps the mightiest and most terrifying was the confederate ram Tennessee. On August 5, 1864, she would be put to the test in the largest naval engagement of the war, an engagement that defined the divided loyalties of the War of the Rebellion.