The Winter War

The Winter War (Finnish: Talvisota, Russian: Советско-финляндская война - official, Зимняя война- unofficial^[10], Swedish: Vinterkriget) began when the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, three months after the invasion of Poland by Germany that started World War II. Because the attack was judged as illegal, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations on December 14.^[11]

The Soviet forces had four times as many soldiers as the Finns, 30 times as many aircraft and 200 times as many tanks.^[4] However, the Red Army had recently been subjected to a drastic purge in 1937 that crippled it, reducing its morale and efficiency shortly before the outbreak of hostilities.^[12] With up to 50% of army officers executed, including the vast majority of those of the highest rank, the Red Army in 1939 had many inexperienced senior officers.^[13] Thus, the Finns were able to resist the invasion of their country with great success and for far longer than the Soviets had expected.

Finland held out until March 1940, when it signed the Moscow Peace Treaty, ceding about 9% of its pre-war territory and 20% of its industrial capacity to the Soviet Union. Soviet losses on the front were large, and the country's international standing suffered. Also, the fighting ability of the Red Army was questioned, a factor that contributed to Adolf Hitler's decision to launch Operation Barbarossa. Finally, the Soviet forces did not accomplish their primary objective of conquest of Finland but gained only a slice of territory along Lake Ladoga. The Finns retained their sovereignty and gained considerable international goodwill.

The March 12 peace treaty thwarted a half-hearted Franco-British plan to send troops to Finland through northern Scandinavia (the Allied campaign in Norway). One of the Allied operation's major goals was to take control of northern Sweden's iron ore and cut deliveries to Germany.

The Opium Wars

The Opium Wars (simplified Chinese: 鸦片战争; traditional Chinese: 鴉片戰爭; pinyin: Yāpiàn Zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese Wars, lasted from 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860,^[1] the climax of a trade dispute between China under the Qing Dynasty and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. British smuggling of opium from British India into China in defiance of China's drug laws erupted into open warfare between Britain and China. China's defeat in both wars left its government having to tolerate the opium trade. Britain forced the Chinese government into signing the Treaty of Nanjing and the Treaty of Tianjin, also known as the Unequal Treaties, which included provisions for the opening of additional ports to foreign trade, for fixed tariffs; for the recognition of both countries as equal in correspondence; and for the giving of Hong Kong to Britain. The British also gained extraterritorial rights. Several countries followed Britain and sought similar agreements with China. Many Chinese found these agreements humiliating and these sentiments are considered to have contributed to the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), and the downfall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912.

The American Civil War

The American Civil War (1861–1865), also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the U.S. and formed the Confederate States of America (the Confederacy). Led by Jefferson Davis, they fought against the U.S. federal government (the "Union"), which was supported by all the free states and the five border slave states.

In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republican victory in that election resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the Union even before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. Both the outgoing and incoming U.S. administrations rejected secession, regarding it as rebellion.

Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army from each state, leading to declarations of secession by four more Southern slave states. Both sides raised armies as the Union assumed control of the border states early in the war and established a naval blockade. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal, and dissuaded the British from intervening. Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won battles in the east, but in 1863 his northward advance was turned back at Gettysburg and, in the west, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River at the Battle of Vicksburg, thereby splitting the Confederacy. Long-term Union advantages in men and material were realized in 1864 when Ulysses S. Grant fought battles of attrition against Lee as Union general William Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, and marched to the sea. Confederate resistance collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

The war, the deadliest in American history, caused 620,000 soldier deaths and an undetermined number of civilian casualties, ended slavery in the United States, restored the Union, and strengthened the role of the federal government. The social, political, economic and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the reconstruction era that lasted to 1877, and continued into the 20th century.

WW2

World War II, or the Second World War,^[1] (often abbreviated WWII or WW2) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all of the great powers,^[2] organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The war involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their complete economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Over 70 million people, the majority of them civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.^[3]

The starting date of the war is generally held to be September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by the United Kingdom, France and the British Dominions.^[4][5] However, as a result of other events, many belligerents entered the war before or after this date, during a period which spanned from 1937 to 1941. Amongst these main events are the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the start of Operation Barbarossa and the attack on Pearl Harbor and British and Dutch colonies in South East Asia.

The Soviet Union and the United States emerged from the war as the world's leading superpowers. This set the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 45 years. The United Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The self determination spawned by the war accelerated decolonisation movements in Asia and Africa, while Western Europe itself began moving toward integration.

WW1

WWI or WW1; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars) was a global war which took place primarily in Europe from 1914 to 1918.^[2] Over 40 million casualties resulted, including approximately 20 million military and civilian deaths.^[3] Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilized from 1914 to 1918.^[4][5]

The act that is considered to have triggered the succession of events that led to war was the 28 June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb citizen of Austria-Hungary and member of the Young Bosnia. The retaliation by Austria-Hungary against the Kingdom of Serbia activated a series of alliances that set off a chain reaction of war declarations. Within a month, much of Europe was in a state of open warfare.

The underlying causes of the war dated back in part to the unification of Germany and the changing balances of power among the European Great Powers in the early part of the 20th century. These causes included continuing French resentment over the loss of territory to Germany in the 19th century; the growing economic and military competition between Britain and Germany; and the German desire for a "place in the sun" equal to that of the more established countries of Europe.

The war was fought between two major alliances. The Entente Powers initially consisted of France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and their associated empires and dependencies. Numerous other states joined these allies, most notably Japan in August 1914, the Italy in April 1915, and the United States in April 1917. The Central Powers, so named because of their central location on the European continent, initially consisted of Germany and Austria-Hungary and their associated empires. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October 1914, followed a year later by Bulgaria. By the conclusion of the war, only The Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, the Scandinavian nations and the small states of Andorra and Monaco remained officially neutral among the European countries, though several may have provided financial and materiel support to one side or the other.

The fighting of the war mostly took place along several fronts that broadly encircled the European continent. The Western Front was marked by a system of trenches, breastworks, and fortifications separated by an area known as no man's land.^[6] These fortifications stretched 475 miles (more than 600 kilometres)^[6] and precipitated a style of fighting known as trench warfare. On the Eastern Front, the vastness of the eastern plains and the limited railroad network prevented the stalemate of the Western Front, though the scale of the conflict was just as large. There was heavy fighting on the Balkan Front, the Middle Eastern Front and the Italian Front; there were also hostilities at sea and in the air.

The war was ended by several treaties, most notably the Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, though the Allied powers had an armistice with Germany in place since 11 November 1918. One of the most striking results of the war was a large redrawing of the map of Europe. All of the Central Powers lost territory, and several new nations were created.

After the war, the League of Nations was created as an international organization designed to avoid future wars by giving nations a means of solving their differences diplomatically. World War I ended the world order which had existed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and was an important factor in the outbreak of World War II

100 Year War

The Hundred Years' War was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, vacant with the extinction of the senior Captain line of French kings. The two primary contenders were the House of Valois, and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou. The Plantagenet Kings in England had their roots in the French regions of Anjou and Normandy. French soldiers fought on both sides, with Burgundy and Aquitaine providing notable support for the Plantagenet side.
The conflict lasted 116 years but was punctuated by several brief periods of peace, and two lengthy periods of peace, before it finally ended in the expulsion of the Plantagenets from France. Subtracting the two long periods of peace from 1360–69 and 1389–1415, the war was fought for about 81 years. The war was a tactical victory for the Plantagenets, who secured the succession of the French throne after the Treaty of Troyes and had Henry VI of England crowned King in Paris in 1431.

Battle of Marathon

The plain of Marathon today
Date September 490 BC Location Marathon, Greece Result Athenian victory Territorial changes Persians fail to conquer Attica
Belligerents
Athens, Plataea	Achaemenid Empire
Commanders
Miltiades the Younger, Callimachus †, Arimnestus	Datis †?, Artaphernes
Strength
7,000 to 10,000 Athenians, 1,000 Plataeans	20,000 to 60,000 a
Casualties and losses
192 Athenians, 11 Plataeans (Herodotus)	6,400, 7 ships captured (Herodotus)
a These are modern consensus estimates. Ancient sources give numbers ranging from 200,000 to 600,000; these are generally thought to be over-estimates.

Battle of Hastings

The Battle of Hastings was fought between: King Harold II/ Duke William I. Duke William of Normandy later became the king of England around 1080AD it was part of Norman Conquest. The used: Archers, Spearman, and Calvary.