How the AK Changed Warfare Getty ImagesA Vietnamese soldier with an AK.
Newly-minted assault rifle in tow, the Soviets began supplying their allies with AKs, including the guerrillas in North Vietnam and the Viet Cong in the South. Americans, then using the M-16 in their wars abroad, dismissed the AK, saying that it was cheap and “lacked range and stopping power.”
Future events in Vietnam would give the U.S. reason to rue such a dismissal: Where the M-16 experienced corrosion and jamming, the deadly simple, 600-plus-rounds-per-minute AK saw no problems, packed enough bullets such that its user could continue firing well after his opponents ran out of ammunition, and could endure just about any environment in which it landed. Read More...
Originating in 17th-century Europe, the legend of the dybbuk warns of a "soul-cleaving" spirit with the power to possess vulnerable people.Public DomainThe legend of the dybbuk might have originated as a way to explain cases of severe mental illness.
In European Jewish folklore, there is an evil parasitic spirit known as the dybbuk, a once-human entity that restlessly wanders the Earth, hunting for a living host upon which it can prey. Read More...
What happened on this day in history: Madam C.J. Walker is born in Louisiana, Vincent van Gogh cuts off his ear in France, and more history on December 23rd.1783: George Washington Resigns From The Continental Army Charles Willson Peale/Brooklyn MuseumA 1776 portrait of General George Washington.
George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which officially brought an end to the Revolutionary War. Read More...
