Curated category
Wars of succession involving the states and peoples of Europe
- Year of the Five EmperorsThe Year of the Five Emperors is the name given to AD 193. In that single year, five different men each claimed the same Roman throne.
- Year of the Four EmperorsThe Year of the Four Emperors began not with a coronation but with a whisper. In the winter of 67-68, a Roman official named Gaius Julius Vindex began…
- Carnatic warsThe Carnatic Wars reshaped the entire balance of power in India, and they began not with a battle on Indian soil but with a war being fought on the other…
- Civil wars of the TetrarchyThe civil wars of the Tetrarchy tore the Roman Empire apart across eighteen years, beginning in 306 AD with a throne seized at York and ending only when one…
- Hundred Years' WarThe Hundred Years' War lasted 116 years, from 1337 to 1453, which makes its tidy name a small lie. It was never one continuous fight.
- Second Schleswig WarThe Second Schleswig War opened with an ultimatum. On the 16th of January 1864, Prussia's minister-president Otto von Bismarck gave Denmark 48 hours to…
- Fourth CrusadeThe Fourth Crusade set out in 1202 with a clear mandate from Pope Innocent III: retake Jerusalem from Muslim control by first striking at the heart of…
- Trajan's Parthian campaignTrajan's Parthian campaign is described in one assessment as the climax of two centuries of political posturing and bitter rivalry between Rome and Parthia.
- Time of TroublesThe Time of Troubles was a fifteen-year catastrophe that came close to erasing Russia as a political entity. It began in January 1598 when Tsar Feodor I died…
- Polish–Russian War (1609–1618)The Polish-Russian War began in 1609, when a king who already ruled the largest country in Europe decided to reach further east.
- Decembrist revoltThe Decembrist revolt was a failed coup launched in Saint Petersburg on a single December morning in 1825, when roughly 3,000 soldiers refused to swear…