Curated playlist
Revolution-based civil wars
- Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalist rebels, and it ended with a dictatorship that ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975. A taxi driver attacked outside a monarchist…
- Cuban RevolutionThe Cuban Revolution began not with a gunshot but with a lawsuit. In the months following the 10th of March 1952 coup, Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer, filed legal arguments in the Cuban courts accusing Fulgencio Batista of corruption…
- Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War consumed the former Russian Empire from 1917 to 1922, leaving an estimated seven to twelve million people dead, the vast majority of them civilians. It began not as a clean conflict between two armies but as a…
- 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, and Cambodia that would consume millions of lives and reshape the world order. At…
- French RevolutionThe French Revolution lasted ten years, from the Estates General of 1789 to the Coup of 18 Brumaire on the 9th of November 1799. In May 1789, a representative body called the Estates General met for the first time since 1614. Within…
- Chinese Civil WarThe Chinese Civil War began on the 1st of August 1927 with a Communist uprising in the city of Nanchang and did not end until the 10th of December 1949, when the last organized Nationalist resistance on mainland China collapsed. By then,…
- 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. Within an hour, troops were striking all along that line. Within three hours, individual units had pushed…
- Greek Civil WarThe Greek Civil War began not with a declaration or a battle line, but with a demonstration. On the 3rd of December 1944, at least 200,000 people marched through Athens on Panepistimiou Street toward Syntagma Square. British tanks and…
- 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 the Escuela Politécnica national military academy staged a revolt against General…
- Nicaraguan RevolutionThe Nicaraguan Revolution lasted nearly three decades, from 1961 to 1990, and cost tens of thousands of lives before it was over. It began as a student movement in a university in Managua and ended with a democratic election that removed…
- German revolution of 1918–1919The German revolution of 1918-1919 brought down an empire in a matter of days, yet almost no one died in the doing of it. Sailors refused to sail. Workers walked off the job. Soldiers joined the protest marches rather than suppress them.…
- 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. By one accounting, somewhere between 1.4 million and 2 million people had been killed by…