World War II was the biggest and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, the war dragged on for six bloody years until the Allies defeated the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy in 1945.
World War II
The war pitted the Allies and the Axis power in the deadliest war in history, and was responsible for the deaths of over 70 million people.
The American Civil War is the conflict with the largest number of American military fatalities in history. In fact, the Civil War's death toll is comparable to all other major wars combined, the deadliest of which were the World Wars, which have a combined death toll of more than 520,000 American fatalities.
The longest war in history is believed to be the Reconquista (Spanish for Reconquest), with a duration of 781 years.
According to historian Niall Ferguson, France is the most successful military power in history. It participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state.
The most lethal war in human history is almost certainly World War II. Other wars may have been more lethal but lack credible records. Sixty to eighty million people died between 1939 and 1945.
In antiquity, no one stands taller than Alexander the Great - the young military genius who never once lost a battle and established a vast empire that heralded a new historical era.
The Battle of Megiddo (fought 15th century BC) was fought between Egyptian forces under the command of Pharaoh Thutmose III and a large rebellious coalition of Canaanite vassal states led by the king of Kadesh. It is the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail.
Antietam, the deadliest one-day battle in American military history, showed that the Union could stand against the Confederate army in the Eastern theater. It also gave President Abraham Lincoln the confidence to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at a moment of strength rather than desperation.
The British issued an ultimatum to Khālid: either relinquish the throne by 9:00 am on August 27 or be at war with Great Britain. Khālid did not stand down, and the Anglo-Zanzibar War followed. Having lasted less than an hour before Khālid's forces surrendered, it is considered the shortest war in recorded history.
The First World War was the first time that the psychological trauma of warfare was formally recognised both by doctors and society at large. The condition became known as 'shell shock'.
Second World War: fatalities per country 1939-1945. Estimates for the total death count of the Second World War generally range somewhere between 70 and 85 million people. The Soviet Union suffered the highest number of fatalities of any single nation, with estimates mostly falling between 22 and 27 million deaths.
The War of 1812; The War Nobody Won; The War Nobody Lost and The War Nobody Remembers. Over two hundred years ago on June 18, 1812 the young republic of the United States of America declared war on Great Britain, then the World's greatest power.
Russo-Japanese War, (1904–05), military conflict in which a victorious Japan forced Russia to abandon its expansionist policy in East Asia, thereby becoming the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European power.
At the height of its empire, almost a quarter of the world succumbed to British rule. Yet this figure is dwarfed when time is disregarded and the British empire's incursion record is viewed as a whole. Over its history, a new study found, Britain has invaded almost 90 percent of the world's countries.
Upon further study of this disorder in World War II veterans, psychologists realized that their symptoms were long-lasting and went beyond an anxiety disorder. Thus, through the effects of World War II, post-traumatic stress disorder was eventually recognized as an official disorder in 1980.
Three pure types of war are distinguished, viz., absolute war, instrumental war, and agonistic fighting.
The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a military conflict fought between the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar Sultanate on 27 August 1896. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, marking it as the shortest recorded war in history.
The 58-year Arab-Israeli conflict is but the latest manifestation of what may be called the world's longest war – a 2,500-year struggle between the world of Europe and the world of Western Asia, the region now called the Middle East.
The longest continual war in history was the Iberian Religious War, between the Catholic Spanish Empire and the Moors living in what is today Morocco and Algeria. The conflict, known as the “Reconquista,” spanned 781 years — more than three times as long as the United States has existed.
Though they existed more than eight centuries ago, Genghis Khan and the Mongols are still regarded as the most-feared military of all time. This is due to their reign over an incredible empire that they conquered in a short period of time.
It was a Thursday in January
The deadliest earthquake in human history is at the heart of the deadliest day in human history. On January 23, 1556, more people died than on any day by a wide margin.