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The Underappreciated Nikola Tesla, and Other Under-Recognized Historic Figures

Khalid Elhassan January 12, 2020 32 min

Nikola Tesla - A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers — Nikola Tesla. Pintrest

12. WWII’s Greatest General

Georgy Zhukov. Ohio State University Department of History

Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov (1896 – 1974) gets his props in Russia, but his remarkable WWII achievements are quite underappreciated in the US and the West. The USSR’s most important military commander during WWII, Zhukov was arguably the greatest military commander of the entire conflict. He played a greater role than any other single individual in ensuring the Soviets’ survival early in the war and had a similarly outsized role in securing final victory.

Zhukov was Stalin’s golden boy, and almost always came through. He played a prominent role in nearly all the Soviet Union’s greatest battles and campaigns: the defense of Leningrad; the defense of Moscow; Stalingrad; Kursk; liberation of the Ukraine; Operation Bagration; and the climactic capture of Berlin. He not only planned those operations, but often oversaw their execution. And when problems arose, Zhukov was often rushed in as a troubleshooter to take direct command and sort things out.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.