Violence has accompanied humanity throughout recorded history, leaving behind countless mysteries that still puzzle archaeologists today. Advances in forensic science, DNA analysis, and modern imaging techniques have solved some ancient crimes. Still, many remain stubbornly unsolved despite decades of research. From carefully arranged mass graves to murdered kings and frozen victims whose killers were never […]

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Nearly a century before the Vietnam War, the United States undertook one of its first military interventions in East Asia. It was not a full-scale campaign, and it lasted only a single day. Its opponent was not a modern army but the indigenous Paiwan people of southern Taiwan. Yet the expedition exposed a problem that would become familiar in later conflicts: the limits of military power against an elusive enemy fighting on its own terrain. Known as the Formosa Expedition of 1867, this little-remembered operation ended in an embarrassing defeat for the United States Navy.

United States Marines and sailors attacking the Paiwan natives of southern Taiwan. Credit: Wikimedia Commons