The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, beginning when Nazi Germany and its Axis allies attacked and became locked in a protracted struggle with the Soviet Union for control over the Soviet city of Stalingrad in southern Russia. The battle was characterized by fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in aerial raids; the battle epitomized urban warfare, being the single largest and costliest urban battle in military history. It was the bloodiest and fiercest battle of the entirety of World War II—and arguably in all of human history—as both sides suffered tremendous casualties amidst ferocious fighting in and around the city. The battle is commonly regarded as the turning point in the European theatre of World War II, as Germany's Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was forced to withdraw a considerable amount of military forces from other regions to replace losses on the Eastern Front. By the time the hostilities ended, the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army had been destroyed and Army Group B was routed. The Soviets' victory at Stalingrad shifted the Eastern Front's balance of power in their favour, while also boosting the morale of the Red Army.
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, June 18th, 1815, near Waterloo, marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The French Imperial Army under the command of Napoleon I was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of field marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher; a fourth corps of this army fought at the Battle of Wavre on the same day. The battle was known contemporarily as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France and La Belle Alliance in Prussia.
The Battle of Agincourt was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. It took place on 25 October 1415 near Azincourt, in northern France. The unexpected English victory against the numerically superior French army boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France, and started a new period of English dominance in the war that would last for 14 years until England was defeated by France in 1429 during the Siege of Orléans.
The Battle of Gettysburg was a three-day battle in the American Civil War fought between Union and Confederate forces between July 1 and July 3, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle, which was won by the Union, is widely considered the Civil War's turning point, ending the Confederacy's aspirations to establish an independent nation. It was the Civil War's bloodiest battle, claiming over 50,000 combined casualties over three days.
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. The initial invasion of Okinawa on 1 April 1945 was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The Kerama Islands surrounding Okinawa were preemptively captured on 26 March by the 77th Infantry Division. The 82-day battle on Okinawa itself lasted from 1 April until 22 June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were planning to use Kadena Air Base on the island as a staging point for Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands, 340 mi (550 km) away.
The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement that took place on 21 October 1805 between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).
The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory.
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. The British officially recognise the battle's duration as being from 10 July until 31 October 1940, which overlaps the period of large-scale night attacks known as the Blitz, that lasted from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941. German historians do not follow this subdivision and regard the battle as a single campaign lasting from July 1940 to May 1941, including the Blitz.
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during the Second World War which took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg. The offensive was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to encircle and destroy each of the four Allied armies and force the western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favour.
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō north of Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare", while naval historian Craig Symonds called it "one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, and Tsushima Strait, as both tactically decisive and strategically influential."
The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme offensive, was a major battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in all of human history.
Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military officer and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of successful campaigns across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814, and briefly again in 1815.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf 23–26 October 1944, was the largest naval battle of World War II and by some criteria the largest naval battle in history, with over 200,000 naval personnel involved.
Killed in action (KIA) is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their own personnel at the hands of enemy or hostile forces at the moment of action. The United States Department of Defense, for example, says that those declared KIA did not need to have fired their weapons, but only to have been killed due to hostile attack. KIAs include those killed by friendly fire in the midst of combat, but not from incidents such as accidental vehicle crashes, murder or other non-hostile events or terrorism. KIA can be applied both to front-line combat troops and to naval, air and support troops.
The Battle of Stones River, also known as the Second Battle of Murfreesboro, was fought from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, in Middle Tennessee, as the culmination of the Stones River Campaign in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. Of the major battles of the war, Stones River had the highest percentage of casualties on both sides. The battle ended in Union victory after the Confederate army's withdrawal on January 3, largely due to a series of tactical miscalculations by Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, but the victory was costly for the Union army. Nevertheless, it was an important victory for the Union because it provided a much-needed boost in morale after the Union's recent defeat at Fredericksburg and also reinforced President Abraham Lincoln's foundation for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, which ultimately discouraged European powers from intervening on the Confederacy's behalf.
World War I or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East, as well as in parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific, and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare; the widespread use of artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons (gas); and the introductions of tanks and aircraft. World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, resulting in an estimated 10 million military dead and more than 20 million wounded, plus some 10 million civilian dead from causes including genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict involving most of the European great powers, fought primarily in Europe and the Americas. One of the opposing alliances was led by Great Britain and Prussia. The other alliance was led by France and Austria, backed by Spain, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia. The French and Indian War (1762–1763), the Anglo-Spanish War (1762–1763), and the Spanish–Portuguese War (1762–1763) were all parts of the Seven Years' War.
Fortnite is an online video game and game platform developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in seven distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: Fortnite Battle Royale, a free-to-play battle royale game in which up to 100 players fight to be the last person standing; Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative hybrid tower defense-shooter and survival game in which up to four players fight off zombie-like creatures and defend objects with traps and fortifications they can build; Fortnite Creative, in which players are given complete freedom to create worlds and battle arenas; Lego Fortnite, an open world game collection divided between survival game Lego Fortnite Odyssey and social game Lego Fortnite Brick Life; Rocket Racing, a racing game; Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game; and Fortnite Ballistic, a tactical first-person shooter currently in early access.
