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(#11) Second Battle of Fort Wagner
This ill-fated assault by Union troops under Captain Robert Gould Shaw against a fortified Confederate battery in South Carolina was dramatized in the film Glory. Although the attack was repulsed with heavy casualties (including Shaw, who lost his life that day), it was a showcase for the tenacious fighting skills of the now-famous 54th Massachusetts, one of the first all-Black regiments to be mustered for the Union cause.
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(#9) Battle of the Hydaspes
Alexander the Great's thirst for conquest led him as far east as the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent (modern-day Pakistan). Here, by the banks of the Jhelum river, Alexander's Macedonian veterans battled the army of the Indian king Porus.
Though victorious, Alexander was impressed enough with his opponent that he made Porus a satrap (regional governor) to rule in his stead. Alexander would have pushed on further east, but his army threatened to mutiny and he reluctantly turned back for home.
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(#21) Battle of Austerlitz
Austerlitz was Napoleon's masterpiece, one of the greatest examples of generalship in military history. Contending against allied forces of Russia and the Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon deliberately weakened his right flank in order to entice the enemy into a trap - a risky gambit that paid off spectacularly.
The battle, fought in what is now the Czech Republic near the town of Slavkov u Brna, cemented Napoleon's control of continental Europe - for a time.
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(#22) Battle of Gaugamela
At Gaugamela, 25-year-old Macedonian king Alexander III (AKA "the Great") completed his conquest of Persia, defeating Darius III's force, which outnumbered Alexander by at least two to one. The mighty Persian empire, which had menaced Greece repeatedly in the previous two centuries, was now Alexander's to rule.
Eventually, the legendary leader's gaze would turn East and he would lead his army as far as India in pursuit of more conquests.
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(#20) Battle of Antietam
The deadliest single day of American military history occurred near Sharpsburg, Maryland, where Union forces under General George B. McClellan halted the first invasion of the North by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Although the outcome was a tactical draw, the battle broke Lee's string of victories and provided a window for Abraham Lincoln to enact his Emancipation Proclamation, changing the character of the war.
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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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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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