Midway is one of the most well known and discussed battles of the Pacific War. But far less known was that, at the same time, another Japanese carrier group was attacking another US held island some 1800 miles away.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.