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Curated playlist

Wars involving the United States

  • Cold WarWhy was the Cold War called a war when the two superpowers never fought each other directly?
  • Spanish–American WarSpain went into the Spanish-American War expecting to lose. Losing a war seemed better than losing the throne.
  • 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.
  • French Revolutionary WarsFrance ordered the first mass conscription in history on the 23rd of August 1793.
  • 2003 invasion of IraqThe 2003 invasion of Iraq opened with an airstrike on the Presidential Palace in Baghdad on the 20th of March 2003. It was the first stage of the Iraq War, and it lasted just over a month. A coalition led by the United States carried it…
  • Vietnam WarOn March 8, 1965, 3,500 US Marines waded ashore near Da Nang, starting America's ground war in Vietnam.
  • 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…
  • Mexican–American WarOn the 25th of April 1846, a Mexican cavalry force of 2,000 men attacked a patrol of 70 American soldiers led by Captain Seth Thornton. The patrol was routed. Eleven Americans were killed and 52 were captured. The clash took place in…
  • Gulf WarA rounding error in a Patriot missile's computer let a Scud kill 28 US soldiers in Saudi Arabia.
  • War of 1812News of Britain's concession reached the United States too late to stop the War of 1812.
  • 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…
  • American Civil WarLincoln sent a supply ship with food but no ammunition to Fort Sumter.
  • United States invasion of GrenadaSoldiers invading Grenada in 1983 navigated with tourist maps. Military grid lines had been drawn on them by hand.
  • ContrasOn January 4, 1982, Reagan signed a secret order to arm the Contras. It gave the CIA $19 million in military aid.
  • 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.
  • 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.

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