Curated category
Cold War conflicts
- Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War began on the 1st of November 1955 and did not end until the 30th of April 1975 - nearly two decades of armed conflict across Vietnam, Laos…
- Cambodian–Vietnamese WarThe Cambodian-Vietnamese War began on the 25th of December 1978, when 150,000 Vietnamese troops crossed into Cambodia and dismantled a government in just two…
- Gulf WarThe Gulf War pitted Iraq against a coalition of 42 countries led by the United States. On the 2nd of August 1990, Iraq invaded its small neighbor Kuwait and…
- Malayan EmergencyThe Malayan Emergency began on the 17th of June 1948, the day three European plantation managers were shot dead in the office of the Elphil Estate near…
- 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'étatThe 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état unfolded in a single week in late February, turning the last liberal democracy in Eastern Europe into a…
- 1954 Guatemalan coup d'étatThe 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état ended a decade of democratic government in ten days, with an invasion force of just 480 men.
- Congo CrisisThe Congo Crisis began on the 30th of June 1960, the very day the Republic of the Congo celebrated its independence from Belgium.
- United States invasion of GrenadaAt dawn on the 25th of October 1983, the United States invaded Grenada, a small Caribbean island nation, in an operation codenamed Urgent Fury.
- ContrasIn July 1979, the FSLN took control of the capital Managua after weeks of heavy fighting. The president at the time, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, fled the…
- Korean WarAt 4:40 in the morning on the 25th of June 1950, the Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel behind a wall of artillery fire.
- Nicaraguan RevolutionThe Nicaraguan Revolution lasted nearly three decades, from 1961 to 1990, and cost tens of thousands of lives before it was over.
- Soviet–Afghan WarThe Soviet-Afghan War began on the 25th of December 1979, when the Soviet 40th Army crossed into Afghanistan under the pretext of extending 'international…
- 1960 U-2 incidentOn the 1st of May 1960, a United States spy plane took off from Peshawar, Pakistan, bound for a mission the American government would spend days desperately…
- Guatemalan Civil WarThe Guatemalan Civil War began not with an ideological declaration but with a mutiny. On the 13th of November 1960, a group of junior military officers at…
- Cuban Missile CrisisThe Cuban Missile Crisis lasted exactly 13 days in October 1962, and during those 13 days, the world's two nuclear superpowers came closer to destroying each…
- 1953 Iranian coup d'étatOn the 19th of August 1953, a tank fired a single shell into the home of Mohammad Mosaddegh, the elected prime minister of Iran.
- Sino-Vietnamese WarThe Sino-Vietnamese War lasted roughly a month, yet its consequences shaped East Asia for the next decade. On the 17th of February 1979, roughly 200,000…
- Afghan conflictThe Afghan conflict is the name given to a series of wars that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s.