Curated playlist
Wars involving France
- War of the Third CoalitionMarshals Murat and Lannes took the Vienna bridge in 1805 by falsely claiming an armistice.
- Crimean WarFewer than half of 80,000 Russian soldiers in the Crimean War survived, mostly from disease.
- Saint-Domingue expeditionFrance lost more troops in Saint-Domingue than it later lost at Waterloo.
- War of the Fourth CoalitionAt Auerstedt, one badly outnumbered French corps beat the bulk of the Prussian army. Prussia's king then took command.
- First Indochina WarHo Chi Minh's government fled Hanoi for the mountains when fighting erupted on the 19th of December 1946.
- War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)The war in Afghanistan lasted from 2001 to 2021, and it became the longest war in United States military history. It ran six months longer than the Vietnam War. A United States-led coalition launched it under the name Operation Enduring…
- Gulf WarA rounding error in a Patriot missile's computer let a Scud kill 28 US soldiers in Saudi Arabia.
- Boxer RebellionThe Boxer Rebellion, an anti-foreign uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, rested on a belief that bullets could not kill its fighters. To convince new initiates, members fired guns loaded with blank rounds at one another. The…
- French invasion of RussiaNapoleon's army in Russia lost a third of its men before any major battle. Typhus and hunger struck in eight weeks.
- Thirty Years' WarThe Thirty Years' War, fought mainly in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, left some of its starkest evidence in a single Swedish parish record. Between 1621 and 1639, 230 men were conscripted from the village of Bygdeå. Of those men,…
- 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.
- Peninsular WarNapoleon called the Peninsular War a wound that would not close. He named it the "Spanish ulcer."
- Taiping RebellionA man who believed he was Jesus's younger brother led a Chinese rebellion. The Taiping Rebellion ran from 1850 to 1864.
- Syrian civil warSyria's civil war ended when the government simply vanished overnight. Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow in December 2024.
- World War IIHistorians still disagree about the day World War II began. Most choose 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.
- World War IWorld War I began with two pistol shots in a Sarajevo street. Gavrilo Princip's shots killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
- Yemeni civil war (2014–present)The Yemeni civil war has left the country with two rival governments, and each insists that it alone is the official one. On one side stands the Presidential Leadership Council, led by Rashad al-Alimi. On the other stands the Supreme…
- War on terrorThe war on terror aimed at a tactic, not a country. The U.S. began it after the September 11 attacks.
- Phoney WarDuring the Phoney War, the RAF helped bury German airmen at Clacton-on-Sea. Wreaths of sympathy lay on the coffins.