Curated category
Proxy wars
- Spanish Civil WarOn the 12th of April 1931, the Republicans won the elections and the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed two days later. King Alfonso XIII went into exile.
- Cuban RevolutionOn the 20th of May 1902, Cuba gained formal independence from the United States, yet political instability followed immediately.
- Iraq WarOn the 12th of September 2002, President George W. Bush stood before the United Nations General Assembly in New York City and declared Iraq a member of the…
- First Indochina WarIn September 1940, Japan launched its invasion of French Indochina while Germany had already conquered metropolitan France.
- Vietnam WarOn the 2nd of September 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This declaration came after years of struggle…
- Cambodian–Vietnamese WarOn the 21st of December 1978, a Vietnamese offensive consisting of two divisions crossed the border and moved towards the town of Kratie.
- Gulf WarOn the 2nd of August 1990, Iraqi tanks rolled across the border into Kuwait City. The invasion began with a bombing of the capital and lasted only two days…
- Bay of Pigs InvasionOn the 20th of May 1902, a new independent government proclaimed the foundation of the Republic of Cuba. U.S. military governor Leonard Wood handed over…
- Congo CrisisKing Leopold II of Belgium created the Congo Free State in 1885, establishing a personal colony that later became the Belgian Congo.
- United States invasion of GrenadaOn the 13th of March 1979, Maurice Bishop and his New Jewel Movement seized power in a nearly bloodless coup while Prime Minister Eric Gairy was temporarily…
- Chinese Civil WarIn 1923, Sun Yat-sen and Soviet representative Adolph Joffe met in Shanghai to sign the Sun, Joffe Manifesto. This declaration pledged Soviet assistance for…
- Korean WarOn the 10th of August 1945, Soviet forces entered northern Korea and secured most major cities by the 24th of August. US Colonels Dean Rusk and Charles H.
- Second French intervention in MexicoIn July 1861, Mexican president Benito Juárez placed a moratorium on foreign debt payments and expelled all Spanish diplomats from the country.
- Greek Civil WarIn April 1941, German forces advanced on Athens while King George II and his government fled to Egypt. They established a government-in-exile that lacked…
- Guatemalan Civil WarIn 1871, General Justo Rufino Barrios seized power in Guatemala and immediately began a campaign to transform the nation's economy.
- Nicaraguan RevolutionIn 1937, Anastasio Somoza García seized power in Nicaragua following a U.S. occupation that had lasted from 1912 to 1933.
- Soviet–Afghan WarIn 1893, British civil servant Mortimer Durand drew a line across the Pamir Mountains that would haunt Afghanistan for over a century.
- Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoslovakiaIn the late 1950s, Czechoslovakia began a slow process of de-Stalinization under Antonín Novotný. This change moved much slower than in other Eastern Bloc…
- Yugoslav WarsIn 1980, Josip Broz Tito died and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began to fracture. Relations between the six republics deteriorated rapidly…
- Sino-Vietnamese WarOn the 17th of February 1979, a People's Liberation Army force of about 200,000 troops entered northern Vietnam. This marked the PLA's first major combat…
- Syrian civil warIn March 2011, the city of Daraa erupted with protests that would ignite a fourteen-year war. Young students painted anti-government slogans on school walls…
- Lebanese Civil WarOn the morning of the 13th of April 1975, unidentified gunmen in a speeding car fired on a church in the Christian East Beirut suburb of Ain el-Rummaneh.