
Historical Battles ⚔️🎖️
Historical Battles Timeline ⚔️ Famous Battles in History 🎖️
This chronological list of historical battles covers all the important military engagements in recorded history.
- ADDucation’s Historical Battles list was originally compiled by Robert Junker and last updated 04 Jun 2022.
ADDucation Tips: Click column headings with arrows to sort historical battles. Reload page for original sort order. Resize your browser to full screen and/or zoom out to display as many columns as possible. Click the ➕ icon to reveal any hidden columns. Start typing in the Filter table box to find historical battles inside the table.
Historical Battles | Where | When | Attackers | Victors | Defenders |
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Battle of Marathon | 🇬🇷 Greece | 490 BC | Athenians and Plataeans. | Attackers | Persian invaders. |
Battle of Issus | 🇹🇷 Turkey | 333 BC | Macedonians under Alexander the Great. | Attackers | Persian minions under the command of Darius III. |
Battle of Cannae | 🇮🇹 Italy, Apulia | 216 BC | 40,000 Carthaginians (†8000) under Hannibal. | Attackers | 80,000 Romans († 70,000) under Lucius Paullus. |
Battle of Teutoburg Forest | 🇩🇪 Germany, Lower Saxony | 9 AD | Germans under Arminius. | Attackers | 3 Roman legions under Varus (Varus Battle). |
2nd Battle of Lechfeld | 🇩🇪 Germany, Bavaria | 955 | Hungarian troops attacked under Bulcsú. | Defenders | Saxony / Franconia / Bavaria under Otto I. / Red Konrad. |
Battle of Hastings | 🏴 England, East Sussex | 1066 | 9000 Normans under Duke William II attacked. | Attackers | 10,000 Anglo-Saxons under King Harold II. |
Battle of Kosovo | 🇽🇰 Kosovo Polje | 1389 | An estimated 20,000 Christian Serbs and Bosnians, led by Prince Lazar and Vuk Brankovic, attacked the Turks. | Defenders | 35,000 Turks (Ottoman Empire) under Sultan Murad I, Sultan Bayezid I and Yakub. |
Battle of Grunwald | 🇵🇱 Poland, Masuria | 1410 | 27,000 German troops, under Grand Master Jungingen, attacked. | Defenders | 39,000 Poles and Lithuanians under Władysław II Jagiello. |
Siege of Orléans | 🇫🇷 France | 1428/29 | The French, under Joan of Arc, attacked the Burgundians and English. | Attackers | English and Burgundians under the Earl of Salisbury. |
Battle of Constantinople (Istanbul) | 🇹🇷 Turkey | 1453 | The Byzantines, under Emperor Constantine XI, attacked the Turks. | Defenders | 50,000 Turks under Sultan Mehmed II. |
Battle of Towton | 🏴 England, Yorkshire | 1461 | The 40,000 strong House of York army, under Edward IV, attacked the House of Lancaster during the War of the Roses. | Attackers | 60,000 of the House of Lancaster under Henry Beaufort. |
Battle of Hohenlinden | 🇩🇪 Germany, near Munich | 1800 | 100,000 French, under Moreau and Ney, attacked the Austrians and Bavarians. | Attackers | 120,000 Austrians under John of Austria. |
Battle of Austerlitz | 🇨🇿 Czechia | 1805 | 73,000 French (139 guns), under Emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte, attacked the Russian and Austrians (278 guns). | Attackers | 85,000 Russians and Austrians under Tsar Alexander I and Emperor Francis II. |
Battle of Trafalgar | Atlantic Ocean | 1805 | 27 British ships, under Nelson, attacked French and Spanish ships. | Attackers | 33 Spanish and French ships under Villeneuve. |
Battle of Leipzig | 🇩🇪 Germany, Saxony | 1813 | 210,000 Frenchmen, with 700 guns, under Emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte, attacked the Prussians, Austrians and Russians. | Defenders | 310,000 Prussians, Austrians and Russians under Prince Schwarzenberg and Alexander I. |
Battle of Hanau | 🇩🇪 Germany, Frankfurt | 1813 | 60,000 French troops, under Napoleon I, attacked the Bavarian and Austrian troops. | Attackers | 45,000 Bavarians / Austrians under Carl von Wrede. |
Battle of Waterloo | 🇧🇪 Belgium | 1815 | 72,000 Frenchmen with 246 guns under Emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte attacked. | Defenders | 68,000 English / Dutch (156 guns) and 31,000 Prussians under Wellington and Blücher. |
Battle of Fredericksburg | 🇺🇸 USA, Virginia | 1862 | 72,000 Confederate soldiers, under General Lee, attacked Union troops. | Attackers | 100,000 Union army soldiers under General Burnside. |
Battle of Gettysburg | 🇺🇸 USA, Pennsylvania | 1863 | 75,000 Confederates, under General Lee, attacked 88,000 Union soldiers. | Defenders | Union Army (88,000) under General Meade. |
Battle of Königgrätz / Sadowa | 🇨🇿 Czechia | 1866 | 278,000 Prussians, under Chief of Staff Moltke, attacked Austrian forces. | Attackers | 271,000 Austrians under Benedek. |
Battle of Sedan | 🇫🇷 France | 1870 | 120,000 Frenchmen, with 564 guns, attacked German forces. | Defenders | 200,000 Germans with 744 guns under Moltke. |
Battle of Little Big Horn River | 🇺🇸 USA | 1876 | Cheyenne, Dakota, and Arapaho, under chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, attacked. | Attackers | Cavalry Regiment under General Custer. |
Battle of Tannenberg | 🇵🇱 Poland | 1914 | 300,000 Germans, under General Hindenburg, attacked Russian army. | Attackers | 2nd Russian Army (300,000) under Samsonov. |
Battle of Verdun | 🇫🇷 France | 1916 | 75 French divisions (†167,000) under Joffre, Pétain and Nivelle attacked. | Undecisive | 50 German divisions (†150,000) under Falkenhayn. |
Battle of Jutland | North Sea, Skagerrak strait | 1916 | The Battle of Jutland was the last naval battle primarily fought by battleships.
|
Undecisive |
|
Battle of Britain | 🏴 England | 1940 |
Of all the historical battles this is the only one fought primarily by aircraft. |
Defenders |
|
Pearl Harbor | 🇺🇸 USA, Hawaii | 1941 | 4,000 American soldiers, on 10 ships and 261 aircraft were killed. | Attackers | Surprise attack by 360 Japanese aircraft under Admiral Chūichi Nagumo. Perspectives from both Japanese and American perspectives. |
Battle of Midway | Pacific Ocean | 1942 |
The most recent of all naval historical battles. |
Attackers |
|
Battle of Stalingrad | 🇷🇺 Russia | 1942 | 850,000 German, Italian and Romanian soldiers, under Generalfeldmarschall (Grand Admiral) Paulus, attacked a much larger Soviet army. | Defenders | 1,700,000 Soviet soldiers under Zhukov, Timoshenko and Vasilevsky. |
Battle of Ardennes | 🇧🇪 Belgium | 1944 | 250,000 German soldiers, under Rundstedt, attacked US army forces. | Defenders | 1st and 3rd US Army (400,000) under Eisenhower. |
Battle of Huế | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | 1968 | 10,000 († 668) US Americans and South Vietnamese attacked. | Attackers | 10,000 († 2400[US] OR 5133[VN] North Vietnamese. |
Gulf War | 🇰🇼 Kuwait, 🇮🇶 Iraq | 1991 | 490,000 [1] Coalition forces under US General Schwarzkopf, attacked Iraqi forces. | Attackers | 550,000 Iraqi soldiers during the Gulf War. |
Battle of Baghdad | 🇮🇶 Iraq | 2003 | 45,000 Iraqis under Saddam Hussein attacked American-led forces. | Defenders | 300,000 Americans under Commander Franks. |
Historical battles notes: †: Died. [1] Coalition forces from Kuwait, USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France, Iraqi Kurdistan plus 30 other countries. [US] MACV US Military Assistance Command figures. [VN] PAVN Vietnam People’s Army of Vietnam figures.

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War does not determine who is right – only who is left– Bertrand Russell
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- Help us improve ADDucation’s list of historical battles by adding your comments below…
Facinating to see the difference between imperial and Canada and Australia. I was aware of the most of US differences, but not cup sizes.missing from list are the beer barrel sizes, keg, pin, etc. you could add champagne bottle sizes. And note that 640 acres is 1 square mile.