20 Famous Battles
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- Little Bighorn
- In Montana from June 25, to June 26, 1876, five companies of the United States Cavalry, including one led by Colonel George A. Custer, were hugely outnumbered and subsequently wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians led by Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. It was one of the worst American military disasters in history.
- Iwo Jima
- The American and Japanese forces fought during February and March of 1945, the Pacific campaign of World War II. When the United States forces captured island of Iwo Jima and its airfields, it suffered 25,000 casaulties, with nearly 7,000 dead. In this single battle, the Marines earned over a quarter of the Medals of Honor awarded to Marines in World War II.
- Waterloo
- Fought on June 18, 1815, when the Duke of Wellington led the armies of the Grand Alliance and inflicted a final defeat on Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Bunker Hill
- On June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the American Revolutionary War, British forces, commanded by General Howe, drove Americans from their positions on Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill, but suffered major casualties with little overall benefit.
- Dunkirk
- Between May 25 and June 3, 1940, during World War II, "Operation Dynamo" successfully rescured 338,226 Allied troops (abord nearly 700 different vessels) who had become trapped against the coast of Franco-Belgian border by the advancing German army.
- Trafalgar
- The most important naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars. On October 21, 1805, the British Royal Navy led by Horatio Nelson destroyed a combined French and Spanish fleet, thereby ensuring British naval supremacy for the next 100 years.
- Edgehill
- This first major, through inconclusive, conflict of the British Civil War took place on October 23, 1642, at Edgehill in Warwickshire between Charles I and Robert Devereux, Third Earl of Essex.
- El Alamein
- This campaign was fought in the deserts of noerthern Egypt between July and November, 1942, and was a turning point in World War II. The Allied forces under the command of Bernard Montgomery ("Monty") breached the German lines and forced Erwin Rommel's retreat to Tunisia.
- Battle of the Boyne
- On July 1, 1690, deposed King James II lost the English, Scottish, and Irish thrones to his son-in-law, William III, outside the town of Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland.
- Agincourt
- Fought in Northern France on October 25, 1415 (St. Crispian's Day), as the heavily outnumbered army of King Henry V of England conquered that of Charles VI of France during the Hundred Years' War. Henry's speech to his army before the battle was made famous by Shakespeare in Henry V.
- Gettysburg
- A turning point of the American Civil War, Gettysburg was fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863, around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. General Robert E. Lee's 75,000-men army of Northern Virginia met General Goerge G. Meade's 97,000-strong Union army of the Potomac. There were 51,000 casaulties, and more men fought and died here than in any other battle on United States soil before or since.
- Cold Harbor
- Fought during the American Civil War from June 1 to June 3, 1864, near Cold Harbor, Virginia, it culminated in the slaughter of more than 13,000 Union soldiers attempting to advance to the Confederate entrenchment. The Confederates lost fewer than 2,000 men, and even they were shocked by the carnage caused by the folly of the Union commanders.
- The Battle of the Nile (aka Battle of Aboukir Bay)
- Fought on August 1 and 2, 1798, it was an important naval battle of the French Revolutionary War between victorious Admiral Horatio Nelson's British fleet and a French fleet under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Bruey's d'Aigalliers.
- Gallipoli
- A poorly planned and badly executed Allied campaign to capture the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli during 1915 in World War I. Intended to open up a sea lane to the Russians through the Black Sea, the attempt failed with more than 50 percent casualties on both sides.
- Hastings
- This decisive Norman victory (William, Duke of Normandy) in the Norman Conquest of England (King Harold) on October 14, 1066, is the subject of the Bayeux Tapestry. It was the last time Britain was successfully invaded by a foreign power.
- The Battle of Québec
- A failed attempt on December 31, 1775 by American Revolutionaries, led by Benedict Arnold, to capture the Canadian city of Québec and enlist Canadian support for the Revolutionary War.
- Ypres
- Three battles of World War (1914-1918) were fought in and around the town of Ypres, Belgium, a key part of an Allied battle line blocking a German advance to the English Channel. Both sides dug in after the First Battle (October to November 1914), beginning a long period of trench warfare. The Germans used poisonous chlorine gas during the Second Battle (April to May 1915), which ended after five weeks in a stalemate. The Third Battle (July to November 1917), also know as Passchendaele, took the total death toll for the three battles to more than 600,000.
- Somme
- A five-month offensive between July and November 1916 in the Somme river area in France. It began with a massive week-long British artillery barrage that proved futile, since the Germans just sheltered in their dug-outs until the shelling stopped, then machine-gunned waves of British troops who were crossing no-man's land. On the first day alone the British lost 60,000 men. The battle ended in a stalemate, after torrential rain turned the trenches into a quagmire. There were more than 650,000 casualties on both sides, and although British had relieved the French at Verdun, they had only advanced about five miles.
- Battle of Orléans
- Joan of Arc's first and greatest victory during the Hundred Years' War in 1429. She led the French army in freeing Orléans, which was under siege by the English.
- Stalingrad
- Fought during the winter of 1942, it was the first major Soviet victory of World War II and a turning point for the Allies. It claimed more lives than any other singles conflict in the War but prevented the Nazis from capturing Russia and was a crucial factor in their eventual defeat.