Curated playlist
Wars of independence
- Second Chechen WarThe Second Chechen War began on the 7th of August 1999, when Shamil Basayev and the Arab warlord Ibn al-Khattab led up to 2,000 fighters across the border from Chechnya into the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan. Within weeks,…
- First Indochina WarThe First Indochina War began on the 19th of December 1946, when fighting erupted across Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh's government fled the capital for the forested mountains. What followed was nearly eight years of conflict that drew in France,…
- Wars of national liberationThe term wars of national liberation describes conflicts fought by nations to gain independence from foreign powers. These struggles establish separate sovereign states for the rebelling nationality. From another perspective, such wars are…
- Actions in Inner Mongolia (1933–1936)In February 1933, the Kwantung Army left a small detachment to watch the eastern Rehe border while moving its main forces south. This shift occurred after Japan secured Manchuria in 1931 and created the puppet state of Manchukuo. The…
- Bosnian WarThe Bosnian War began on the 6th of April 1992 with a single act of international recognition. On that same morning, shells fell on Sarajevo. Over the next three and a half years, more than 100,000 people would be killed, over 2.2 million…
- Malayan EmergencyThe Malayan Emergency began on the 17th of June 1948, the day three European plantation managers were shot dead in the office of the Elphil Estate near Sungai Siput by three young Chinese men. What followed was a twelve-year guerrilla war…
- American Civil WarThe American Civil War began at 4:30 in the morning on the 12th of April 1861, when Confederate artillery fired the first of 4,000 shells at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. By the time the last battle was fought…
- Anglo-Iraqi WarThe Anglo-Iraqi War began in earnest at 05:00 on the 2nd of May 1941, when 33 aircraft lifted off from RAF Habbaniya into the pre-dawn dark. Below them, surrounding the base on a plateau to the south, sat roughly 9,000 Iraqi troops with 50…
- January UprisingThe January Uprising began on the night of the 22nd of January 1863 with a single piece of bureaucratic spite. Aleksander Wielopolski, head of civil administration in the Congress Kingdom of Poland, moved up the conscription schedule by…
- Yugoslav WarsThe Yugoslav Wars began on the 26th of June 1991, when the Yugoslav People's Army moved against Slovenia just one day after that republic declared its separation from the federation. What followed was not a single war but a cascade of…
- Indian Rebellion of 1857The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began not with a grand proclamation but with a parade-ground refusal. On the 10th of May 1857, sepoys of the British East India Company's garrison at Meerut, a cantonment town 40 miles northeast of Delhi, broke…
- American Revolutionary WarOn the morning of the 19th of April 1775, a British column marched toward the town of Concord, Massachusetts, with orders to seize militia weapons stored there and arrest two men: John Hancock and Samuel Adams. What followed was a skirmish…