The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of Duke William II of Normandy and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold II, during the Norman conquest of England.

The background to the battle was the death of the childless King Edward the Confessor in January 1066, which set up a succession struggle between several claimants to his throne.

We are all used to the expression, “a picture tells the story of a thousand words”, but sometimes unwrapping even the picture itself can tell the story even better.

Thom Atkinson did just that, laying out and photographing the historical gear carried by soldiers from different eras across a thousand years, in the process bringing to life a reality that can be difficult to otherwise grasp.

The 1244 Siege of Jerusalem took place after the Sixth Crusade, when the Khwarezm conquered the city on July 15, 1244.

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor led the Sixth Crusade to the Holy Land in 1228, and claimed the kingship of Jerusalem by right of his wife, Queen Yolande of Jerusalem, who had inherited the title of ‘Queen of Jerusalem’ from her mother.

Jerusalem did not remain for long in Christian hands, as there was not enough territory around it in Christian hands to make it defensible.

The Battle of Naseby was the decisive battle of the first English Civil War. On 14 June 1645, near the village of Naseby in Northamptonshire, the main army of King Charles I was destroyed by the Parliamentarian New Model Army commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.

The main Royalist military force had been shattered at Naseby. The King had lost his veteran infantry (including 500 officers), all his artillery, and many arms.

He lacked the resources to create an army of such quality again, and after Naseby it simply remained for the Parliamentarian armies to wipe out the last pockets of Royalist resistance.

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition.

Upon Napoleon’s return to power in March 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition and began to mobilize armies.

Waterloo was the decisive engagement of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon’s last. The defeat at Waterloo ended Napoleon’s rule as Emperor of the French, and marked the end of his Hundred Days return from exile.

The Battle of Arnhem was a famous Second World War battle in which the Germans defeated an Allied attack that stretched too far from its support.

[T]he Allies launched Operation Market Garden on 17 September. Paratroopers were dropped in the Netherlands to secure key bridges and towns along the Allied axis of advance.

Only a small force was able to reach the Arnhem road bridge while the main body of the division was halted on the outskirts of the city.

With no secure bridges over the Nederrijn, the Allies were unable to advance further and the front line stabilised south of Arnhem.

Photographer Thom Atkinson for the full set.
Quoted text via Wikipedia.