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Iowa native and West Point graduate Robert M. Losey was directed to Norway as the Germans began to invade the country, to help evacuate American officials across the Swedish border. He reached Sweden with U.S. Minister Florence Jaffray Harriman. but lost contact with the second part of his party—and decided to return to Norway to search for them.

That staggering aforementioned 68 percent statistic hides another important fact: These men didn't all die in the war. As Harrison explains, the war was not even the most important reason for the low survival rate of these Soviets. "The babies of 1923 were born at an awful time and faced a dismal future," he wrote. "The country they were born in was poor and violent. Between 1914 and 1921 their families had endured seven years of war and civil war, immediately followed by a major famine

Though some accounts claim 80 percent of Soviet men born in 1923 died during the war, Mark Harrison, professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, crunched the numbers and came up with a lower, but still staggering, figure: "Around two thirds (more exactly, 68 percent) of the original 1923 male birth cohort did not survive World War II," he wrote on his blog.

The Battle of the Atlantic ran as long as WWII itself, from the moment the British declared war against Germany, in September 1939, through the German surrender in May 1945—almost six years. The whole time, German U-boats aimed to disrupt the supplies of goods going to Britain battled the Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and United States Navy, as well as Allied merchant ships. The Germans were devastatingly effective at times, practically starving the British during some periods of the battle—until eventually the tide turned. And to learn how the past affects the future, check out the 30 Best Pieces of Historical Advice That Are Relevant Today.

Maybe the Allies were just trying to rub it in, but the rather diminutive British Corporal Bob Roberts was charged with taking the surrender of one of the tallest soldiers in the German Army. Standing at 7' 6", Jakob Nacken towered over Roberts (5' 3") as he accepted his surrender

An acronym for Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, it was pronounced "sink us"—which proved particularly awkward after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. It was quickly changed to COMINCH in December 1941 (and its jurisdiction was expanded, as it was given command of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Asiatic Fleets in the process). And to really have the past blow your mind, check out these 30 Things in History Textbooks That Weren't There Just 10 Years Ago

The largest confrontation of World War II—the blood Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted from July 1942 to February 1943—began with Germany's attempt to capture the industrial city, included air attacks and degenerated into house-to-house fights, with reinforcements streaming into the city from both sides as tens of thousands were killed. Though the Axis powers suffered between 650,000 and 868,000 casualties, the Soviet Union lost more than 1.1 million people.

The sw****ka symbol has become synonymous with N***s, antisemitism, and hate. But it was not always so. The geometric symbol, which gets its name from the Sanskrit expression for "conducive to well being or auspicious," appeared in a number of cultures and spiritual practices, from Jainism to Hinduism to Native American iconography. Too bad Hi**er had to ruin it.

Japan paid 1 million yen to a team of scientists that promised they could create a "death ray" that would use wave electric power to kill humans standing miles away, drawing on the innovations of Nikola Tesla. The Japanese got as far as a prototype that could kill from as far away half a mile—but the target had to stand still for 10 minutes for it to work. And for more fascinating facts from the past, here are 50 Amazing Historical Facts You Never Knew.

As if the N***s weren't sinister enough, they came surprisingly close to developing plutonium—the stuff that makes nuclear weapons go kaboom. When the Germans invaded Norway, they took over a factory in the Telemark region that produced heavy water, which was used to create plutonium. But before they were able to produce anything, a band of 11 Norwegian commandos sabotaged the plant, setting off explosives in the base without suffering a single casualty on their side. And for more 20th-century lessons, here are The 40 Most Enduring Myths in American History.