Curated playlist
Proxy wars
- Spanish Civil WarSpain's 1936 military coup failed, and that failure started a three-year civil war.
- Cuban RevolutionThe Cuban Revolution began with a lawsuit, not a gunshot. Young lawyer Fidel Castro sued Batista for corruption.
- Iraq WarThe Iraq War's main reason, weapons of mass destruction, turned out to be false.
- First Indochina WarHo Chi Minh's government fled Hanoi for the mountains when fighting erupted on the 19th of December 1946.
- Vietnam WarOn March 8, 1965, 3,500 US Marines waded ashore near Da Nang, starting America's ground war in Vietnam.
- Cambodian–Vietnamese WarOn December 25, 1978, 150,000 Vietnamese troops crossed into Cambodia. They toppled its government in two weeks.
- Gulf WarA rounding error in a Patriot missile's computer let a Scud kill 28 US soldiers in Saudi Arabia.
- Bay of Pigs InvasionKennedy canceled the second air strikes the night before the Bay of Pigs landing.
- Congo CrisisThe Congo Crisis began on the very day the Congo won independence from Belgium. Within a week, the army had mutinied.
- United States invasion of GrenadaSoldiers invading Grenada in 1983 navigated with tourist maps. Military grid lines had been drawn on them by hand.
- Chinese Civil WarTwo generals kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 because he kept fighting Communists instead of Japan.
- Korean WarThe UN approved force in Korea because the Soviet Union was absent. It had boycotted the Council since January 1950.
- Second French intervention in MexicoOn June 19, 1867, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico faced a firing squad ordered by Mexico's republicans.
- Greek Civil WarShots rang out at a march of at least 200,000 people in Athens in 1944. It began the Greek Civil War.
- Guatemalan Civil WarGuatemala's civil war began with a mutiny over a secret deal. Officers revolted in 1960 over a U.S. training camp.
- Nicaraguan RevolutionNicaragua's revolution ended with an election that removed the government it had created.
- Soviet–Afghan WarEarly in the Soviet–Afghan War, troops in Afghan uniforms stormed a Kabul palace and killed the country's leader.
- Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoslovakiaSoviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968 and were met with stones, eggs and tomatoes.
- Yugoslav WarsThe Yugoslav Wars began in June 1991, one day after Slovenia declared its separation from the federation.
- Rhodesian Bush WarIn an interview published in the New York Times on the 28th of April 1980, Robert Mugabe made a startling admission about the Rhodesian Bush War. His words were: "We did not win a military victory... We reached a political settlement... A…
- Sino-Vietnamese WarOn the 17th of February 1979, roughly 200,000 Chinese troops crossed into northern Vietnam.
- Syrian civil warSyria's civil war ended when the government simply vanished overnight. Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow in December 2024.
- Iran–Israel proxy conflictThe Iran-Israel proxy conflict reached a strange moment in June 2025. The two states fought a 12-day war that drew in the United States. News outlets noticed something odd about it. The militias Iran had armed and funded for years stayed…
- Lebanese Civil WarThe Lebanese Civil War was many wars layered on top of each other. Christians fought Christians, and Shia fought Shia.