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(#16) Battle of Waterloo
- Military Conflict
Napoleon's dreams of European domination finally ended near a small town in Belgium, where his army encountered an Anglo-Prussian force led by the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blucher. A day's brutal fighting decided the contest, which Wellington later characterized as "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life."
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(#8) Battle of Agincourt
Immortalized in Shakespeare's Henry V, the Battle of Agincourt was a key engagement of the Hundred Years' War. The efficacy of the English longbow was shown as King Henry's archers proved more than a match for mounted French knights. The battle was named for a nearby castle which is no longer standing.
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(#26) Battle of Balaclava
An engagement of the Crimean War, the Battle of Balaclava - in which British, French and Ottoman forces faced off against Russians outside the besieged city of Sevastopol - is perhaps best remembered today in the English-speaking world as the site of the famous "Charge of the Light Brigade," immortalized in Tennyson's poem.
Due to a communication mixup, the Brigade was sent on a disastrous frontal assault against Russian artillery emplacements. The doomed charge notwithstanding, the battle was inconclusive.
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(#2) Battle of Iwo Jima
The end game of the Pacific War kicked into high gear with the American invasion of this tiny island 750 miles south of Tokyo. Japanese defenders, unable to evacuate or be reinforced, put up an incredibly tenacious fight, leading to heavy casualties on both sides.
Mount Suribachi, where the historically remembered photo of the Iwo Jima flag-raising was taken, is on the island's southwest corner.
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(#5) Battle of Cannae
The Carthaginian general Hannibal, universally regarded as one of the greatest military geniuses of all time, smashed a force of over 80,000 Roman soldiers at this battlefield in southern Italy. Hannibal's brilliant tactics - achieving a double envelopment which totally surrounded the Romans and allowed them to be essentially slaughtered like cattle - are studied to this day.
His brilliance wasn't enough in the end; Rome would prevail in the Second Punic War and destroy Carthage in the Third.
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(#24) Battle of Rorke's Drift
The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 included several battles, but the most famous is likely Rorke's Drift, where 150 British and colonial soldiers fought off a Zulu force some twenty times their size. The battle was dramatized in the 1964 film Zulu, featuring Michael Caine.
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About This Tool
War destroyed cities and homes, and it always takes longer for a place to recover from the war. The heartbroken thing is that human history is full of vicious wars, even if some of them have promoted the development of history and human civilization. War is not a natural disaster. In the deadliest battles in history, it is often innocent civilians who have been severely hit.
Poverty, politics, religion, territorial conflicts, and other variables have contributed to most wars in human history. The random tool shows modern photos of 30 brutal battles in history that we should never forget.
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