Many Star Wars fans are not particularly happy about the new movies, and some feel that Disney threw out the baby with the bathwater when it came to the expanded universe. See, before Disney took over, Star Wars had a huge amount of extra material (novels, comics, etc.), referred to as the expanded universe, or EU.

It used to be that all of the EU was considered canon unless directly contradicted by a movie. However, when Disney came along, they declared that the EU was all just “legends” told within the Star Wars universe. While they can still use elements of it of they so desire, they have chopped the whole thing to pieces, and there were a lot of good reasons why.

10 The ‘Big Three’ Were Far Beyond The Age Of Most EU Stories

One of the biggest reasons that Disney had to go ahead and just throw out the baby with the bathwater is that a huge wealth of the EU stories involved the “big three” (Han, Luke, and Leia), and the actors were advancing in years. Most of these books were written back when the three were still in their prime and were quite popular as depictions of the characters go, but it’s hard to imagine how you could change a lot of the stories enough to make up for such an age gap.

The truth is that what the fans wanted was something fairly shortly after Return of the Jedi—as close as could be plausibly done—and a story that had a young Han, Luke, and Leia simply could not work. For this reason, an incredible amount of EU story lines already had to be scrapped. People simply wouldn’t have been able to suspend their disbelief. Unfortunately, no one would have believed that Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, or Carrie Fisher were in their thirties.^[1]

9 Anakin Solo’s Entire Existence Was A Sore Point For George Lucas

In the Star Wars expanded universe, Han and Leia get married and have three kids.^[2] Two of them are twins named Jacen and Jaina, which some fans wished had been replicated at least in some form in the new movies. In fact, it is for this reason that many fans really like the idea of Rey and Ben secretly being brother and sister—it would fulfill the fan wish for Han and Leia to have had twins. However, the Solos also had another child, and George Lucas kind of wished they hadn’t.

In one of the crazier comics, Leia has her womb touched by the cloned Emperor Palpatine while she’s pregnant—another reason to ax the EU—and is worried about how it may affect her son and make him dark in the future. In order to honor her father, and somehow try to show that the name can be overcome, she names her third child Anakin, after her murderous cyborg father. George Lucas was never happy about this character, if nothing else, because he felt fans would confuse him with Anakin Skywalker. Lucas was reportedly pleased when the kid was finally killed off later on in the New Jedi Order series.

8 Many Of The Most Popular Characters Had Already Been Ruined Or Killed

As we mentioned above, in the EU, Anakin Solo was killed off in The New Jedi Order, but they killed a wealth of other characters in that series and since as well.^[3]The New Jedi Order killed off mostly side characters apart from Chewbacca and Anakin Solo, but after that, the purge really got going. Jacen Solo went to the dark side and was eventually killed by his twin sister. Meanwhile, Mara Jade, Luke Skywalker’s expanded universe wife, gets killed by Jacen Solo, her own nephew, when she tries to confront him and bring him back to the light. Han becomes a washed-up wreck, and Luke goes into exile; Luke’s son Ben gets killed as well.

In the end, nearly every main character that was remotely interesting either dies, loses all the people close to them and becomes a sad sack, or first experiences the second one and then the other—kind of like most Game of Thrones characters. By the time Disney got its hands on the franchise, you could practically count on one hand the amount of interesting characters left whose stories hadn’t already been driven into the ground with incredible force. In the end, Disney felt they needed to be able to go their own route with old characters and be able to feel more free to introduce new ones as well.

7 The Ssi-Ruuk Would Have Given Awkward Questions For Kids To Ask Their Parents

In Star Wars‘s early days, there were a few novels that just kind of left everyone wondering what kind of drugs the author was using. This was mainly because back then, the people in charge, Bantam Books, were basically just letting a lot of sci-fi authors try their hand at the universe and see what they came up with. Still, it is kind of hard to figure out how this one not only made it past the editors but even got a reprisal years later in the form of multiple appearances in The New Jedi Order—a 19-book series.

The Sii-Ruuk are a species that shows up in The Truce at Bakura, and they use a process called entechment to suck out your soul, slave it to a piece of machinery, and use your life energy to power it.^[4] You are stuck in a nightmarish state, powering their desk lamp or whatever until your energy finally fades, your soul passes on, and you die. This is a terrible, horrific thing that really belongs in the most disturbing sci-fi horror novel, but instead, it makes multiple appearances in the Star Wars EU. This is an example of killing it with fire not even being nearly enough.

6 The Yuuzhan Vong Made Such A Mess That A Hard Reset Was Almost Necessary

The Yuuzhan Vong were introduced largely in The New Jedi Order.^[5] This series focused on the invasion of the Star Wars galaxy by a group of extragalactic invaders called the Yuuzhan Vong. This species was largely humanoid but was a black hole in the Force. You could not feel them in the Force or use Force powers on them, but they could not use the Force at all themselves. They came in great numbers and swarmed through the galaxy, almost taking over and destroying everything. Using great organic machines, they reshaped entire worlds to their will.

What made the entire thing so bizarre, and almost ruined the universe from that point forth, is what they left behind. These invaders eschewed all conventional technology and pleasure and thought it evil. They worshiped pain and were extremely sadistic and masochistic. All of their weapons and technology were actually living, which was extremely bizarre and otherworldly. Their shapers, a group of their species responsible for massive genetic engineering, changed entire worlds and left their ridiculous organic matter and other invasive organisms littered all over the universe. The entire thing was simply too crazy for the Star Wars universe and ruined it forever—a hard reset was almost necessary after the horrible disaster of the New Jedi Order series, which never should have been and whose creators should still be ashamed by the existence of.

5 The EU Is So Complicated That One Man’s Entire Job Is Keeping It All Together

One thing many people who are only casual fans (not that there’s anything wrong with that) are unaware of is just how mind-bogglingly huge the entirety of the Star Wars continuity is. There are so many stories throughout so many comics, role-playing game write-ups, novels, short stories, video games, movies, cartoons, and so much media that some may consider it impossible to keep track of. However, there is actually one man whose job it is to do just that.

His name is Leland Chee, and his official title is “Keeper of the Holocron.”^[6] He has been at it for decades now, and even with the EU no longer official canon, they still want someone to keep track of the old continuity as well as the new timeline, so he still has a job. It is an incredibly staggering task, but he has managed to keep a comprehensive timeline updated over the years, with levels of “canon” for every single story for decades. However, this was all just one more reason that Disney felt they needed to tell people to just enjoy the old stories and stop worrying so much about actual continuity in a fictional universe. While Disney still has its own new continuity now, it is a much less crowded galaxy to work in with the old EU now being legends.

4 The Next 30-Odd Years After Return Of The Jedi Have Basically No Breathing Room

Another big problem facing Disney wasn’t just the big three but that even if they did want to cast them in a story, they had already been written into a corner. The period in the 30 years or so after Return of the Jedi has been by far the most popular era to write stories for in Star Wars, so that period is incredibly congested.^[7] Nearly every single moment is filled thick with story, and there really isn’t much of anything you can do to fit anything significantly new in anymore.

The fans wanted new movies in the period after Return of the Jedi, but that period is glutted with stories, and many of them are, quite frankly, terrible. A clean slate allows the writers a chance to simply write a good story and allows for new, young fans to get into Star Wars without needing to go read several dozen to a couple hundred books to get up to speed with everything that is going on in the universe.

3 Changing Anything From One Medium To Another Often Just Disappoints Fans

When Harry Potter was transferred to the big screen, some fans really liked it, and some were incredibly disappointed. Some of the later movies, especially, have been criticized as feeling rushed, and many feel in hindsight that it wasn’t just movie seven that should have had two parts to properly tell the story. However, while it is understandable that Harry Potter and its prodigious length made it especially difficult, it is always hard to translate a book into film. Books are told in an entirely different way, where everything is told to people. On the other hand, movies are a medium where everything is shown to people.

This is why the powers that be are likely reluctant to use book stories from the Star Wars expanded universe for new Star Wars movies. One medium often doesn’t translate well to the other, so it really makes more sense, if you can, to just write an original story rather than trying to translate a preexisting one from a book to a movie. It also creates an air of expectation that can be hard to live up to. If you say you are taking heavy inspiration from a particular book, certain fans will get upset the more you deviate from the source material,^[8] and that disappointment can lead to long-term lost revenue streams.

2 It’s Hard To Have Suspense When People Know The Story Already

Probably the biggest reason of all, though, one which many fans do not tend to think as much about, that Disney decided to go ahead and throw out the EU is because they want to be able to surprise people. The truth is that if you go with story lines that most people already know and don’t deviate from them much, there really isn’t going to be that much surprise, just you bringing a previously told story to the big screen.^[9] While there are plenty of people who will enjoy it, it just won’t spread through word of mouth as much or fuel as much excitement for the next movie.

If you already pretty much know what is going to happen, there really isn’t anything at all to speculate about or talk about, so there is little discussion surrounding the film. This means little to no hype and hardly anyone but the really big fans going to see the movie. The writers know that if you really want a large, general audience, you need a new story that will give people something to talk about for sometimes years to come while they wait for the next installment. For this reason, using preexisting EU stories simply weren’t practical, so Disney decided to go in a different direction.

1 They Can Still Use Characters Or Elements From The EU As They See Fit

The final reason Disney got rid of the EU is because while they did need it gone, it is never really gone if they do need any of it. The EU still has a wealth of existing planets, characters, aliens, organizations, technologies, and all sorts of other things to draw on. While all previous story lines may be axed, they can borrow if they want and bring out fan favorites all the same. For example, due to the way they were written, without even knowing how the prequel trilogy would go down, the first Star Wars expanded universe trilogy by Timothy Zahn will never be adapted into film.

However, the character Grand Admiral Thrawn, a blue alien who uses his knowledge of art to analyze his opponents, is a fan favorite, and Disney has already brought him into the official canon in all new stories.^[10] The truth is that the EU wasn’t truly destroyed; it was just marginalized so that Disney could make sense of the entire mess. All of the old content is still there and can and will be drawn on as needed, but there is simply no benefit to continuing the old continuity system—sometimes you need to start fresh.

We have finally arrived at the end of the Skywalker saga. All nine movies were wrapped up with a neat little bow when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was released in cinemas around the world in December 2019.

Now that the saga is over (or at least the numbered films), let’s look back at some of the fun and cool ideas that didn’t quite make it into The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, or The Rise of Skywalker. Here are the top 10 unused Star Wars sequel trilogy ideas.

10 Ideas George Lucas Wanted To See In The New ‘Star Wars’ Movies

10 Han Solo The Drunk

While Han Solo is undoubtedly the most lovable scoundrel in the galaxy, his introduction in The Force Awakens would have been drastically different in this story line. Rather than going back to the life of a smuggler after separating with Leia (due to their son’s fall to the dark side of the Force), Han would have turned to the bottle instead.

A piece of concept art shared on Lucasfilm artist Christian Alzmann’s Instagram page shows Solo drinking his problems away in some seedy establishment by outlasting every exotic patron around.^[1]

Although this could have been a fun idea and a nice bit of character development for Han, it would have been a little too heavy and “real” for what is essentially a fun and upbeat movie.

9 A Bald Kylo Ren

The Last Jedi was a real roller coaster of a movie. Although it divided the Star Wars fan base, it can’t be denied that director Rian Johnson made some bold decisions as to the direction of the film and its characters.

Speaking of bold . . . early concept art for the highly volatile Kylo Ren depicts him as being completely bald. Johnson wanted Kylo to have a duality to his character—part good, part bad. The harsh, bald look would have contrasted with his sleeker and smoother outfit.

In the end, it was decided that the dreamiest bad guy in all of Star Wars did need that luscious head of hair. The egghead look would have been too much of a departure from the character we knew in The Force Awakens.^[2]

8 The Alternate Opening Shot Of The Last Jedi

Star Wars movies (at least the numbered ones) traditionally start off with the crawl that pans down—and, on one occasion, up—to reveal a planet. While The Last Jedi follows suit, the film was originally meant to begin in a somewhat different way.

The crawl would happen and fade away into the depths of space. Then the camera would pan down to reveal a planet . . . but wait . . . it’s not a planet. The audience’s expectations are subverted, and it is revealed that this “planet” is the domed top of the medical capsule where Finn is recovering after he sustained injuries in the previous movie.

This interesting idea was filmed and even included in the deleted scenes on the home release. But it didn’t make the final cut. Instead, The Last Jedi gets off to a more action-packed start with the Resistance’s evacuation of their base and the First Order attack.^[3]

7 Rey Was Going To Be Called Keera

When J.J. Abrams first got the ball rolling on what would become The Force Awakens, he only knew that he wanted a female lead. But according to Daisy Ridley, who played this Star Wars heroine, the undefined character did have a name attached to her: Keera (or Kira, depending on whom you ask).

The name seemed to be an almost sure thing. However, when filming for Episode VII began in the Abu Dhabi desert in 2014, Abrams changed the character’s name at the last minute to Rey.^[4]

The name Keera wasn’t completely abandoned, though. It was repurposed and changed to the slightly more exotic-looking Qi’ra for Emilia Clarke’s character in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

6 The Underwater Millennium Falcon

Everyone recognizes the Millennium Falcon as the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. But did you know that there was early concept art in which the Falcon journeyed under the sea?

The official Star Wars Twitter account tweeted out an image of the submerged spacecraft approaching the spire that housed Emperor Palpatine’s throne room from Return of the Jedi.

Clearly, the notion of an underwater exploration was scrapped early during the production of the trilogy. But the idea of the Millennium Falcon being watertight as well as airtight is awesome!^[5]

Top 10 ‘Star Wars’ Background Characters You Never Even Noticed

5 The Warhammer

Bad guys get all the cool things—cool armor, cool masks, and even cool superweapons!

In The Force Awakens, the newly formed Resistance needed something to tackle the First Order’s new system-destroying Starkiller Base (pictured above). Enter The Warhammer. This Resistance superweapon was going to drive a wedge between the New Republic and General Leia Organa, but she took great pride in this secret weapon.

Unfortunately, The Warhammer would have been destroyed during the attack on Starkiller Base, rendering The Warhammer useless to the overall plot of the movie. Still, it’s cool to know that the good guys almost had a superweapon, too.^[6]

4 Force Ghost Anakin . . . And Darth Vader

The Skywalker saga is inarguably the story of Anakin Skywalker. The prequel trilogy explains his rise, the original trilogy depicts his fall, and the sequel trilogy shows his legacy. Despite his large presence in the first two trilogies, Anakin remains largely absent from the sequels. However, this was not originally going to be the case.

A Force ghost Anakin was going to show himself to either Rey or Kylo Ren. However, this ghost character was going to slip back and forth between the good—Anakin Skywalker—and the bad—Darth Vader. Speaking about the idea in the book The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, artist Iain McCaig said:

When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow. That inspired me to propose, for the first time, that Anakin’s ghost could come back. [ . . . ] If we see Anakin Skywalker, because he does flow back and forth between Darth Vader and Anakin, let’s see him as a character with a dark and light side.

Although the idea never made it very far, it’s an extremely cool concept to highlight that this is still the story of Anakin Skywalker. Luckily, he did finally make his comeback (albeit only in voice form) in The Rise Of Skywalker.^[7]

3 The Floating Hand

We’ve talked about the alternate opening shot of The Last Jedi, but there was also an alternate opening for The Force Awakens: The camera pans down from the iconic opening crawl to see not a planet but a hand!

It’s Luke Skywalker’s severed hand from The Empire Strikes Back—the one that Darth Vader chopped off during their climactic battle on Cloud City. The hand—still clinging to the lightsaber—floats through space and ends up falling toward the planet Jakku. The lightsaber (without the hand, which burns up as it enters the atmosphere) lands on Jakku and is eventually picked up by Rey or another heroic character.

Although the opening of the movie was changed to something more traditional, actor Mark Hamill confirmed that the alternate macabre opening was in a rough cut of the film.^[8]

2 The Eye Of Web­bish Bog

The Rise Of Skywalker opens with Supreme Leader Kylo Ren rampaging through the desolate forests of Mustafar in search of a mysterious wayfinder. However, Ren’s encounter with a creature called the Eye of Webbish Bog didn’t make it into the final cut of the movie.

The creature was conceived as a pasty-skinned being that merged with a spidery tentacle parasite that lived in a rancid lake near the ruins of Darth Vader’s castle (as seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). The abomination would have pointed Ren in the right direction to find the coveted wayfinder that would lead him safely through the unknown regions of the galaxy.

Although the Eye of Webbish Bog never made it to the screen (presumably because it would have made Ren’s quest extra confusing), it is one of the few things on this list that has found life in the novelization of the movie.^[9]

1 The Whills Of The Force

Until relatively recently, this renegade idea had never made it any further than the mind of the original creator of Star Wars, George Lucas himself. His idea for the entire sequel trilogy (had he kept the rights to Star Wars and made the movies himself) was to focus on the midichlorians (or midi-chlorians), the microscopic life-forms that live within Force-sensitive people.

Lucas wanted to ground the Force in the biological world. Although it would have taken away the mysticism of the Force, this idea would have provided a fascinating new angle from which to view the saga. Lucas explained it this way:

Back in the day, I used to say . . . we were just cars, vehicles for the Whills to travel around in. [ . . . ] We’re vessels for them. And the conduit is the midichlorians. The midichlorians are the ones that communicate with the Whills. The Whills, in a general sense, they are the Force.^[10]

Unfortunately, Lucas decided to sell his company Lucasfilm (which included the rights to the Star Wars movie franchise) to Disney in 2012 for $4.05 billion. He also provided Disney with an outline for a sequel trilogy. But Disney largely ignored Lucas’s ideas and took the Star Wars franchise in a much different direction.

10 Reasons Disney Axed The ‘Star Wars’ Expanded Universe

Even on a small scale, conflict can leave complicated stories and scenes behind. A global war scatters ruins, artifacts, and mysteries over countless landscapes. Archaeologists and historians have studied both world wars to a great extent, but there’s no shortage of new glimpses into these terrifying times. This list shares some of those recently uncovered secrets and personal moments as well as astonishing research that raises the possibility of a previously unknown world war.

10 British Happy Hour

A British camp once stood near the town of Ramle in Israel. Under the command of General Edmund Allenby, the unit occupied the barracks during a time when combat against the Turks in Palestine was put on hold. Arriving in 1917 during World War I, the British stayed for nine months.

In 2017, excavations revealed an unwritten slice of what had gone on there. Inside the camp’s rubbish dump, archaeologists found the usual broken kitchenware and then they saw the bottles. Around 70 percent of the items thrown away by the barracks’ occupants consisted of liquor bottles. Hundreds of whiskey and gin bottles—including some marked Gordon’s Gin and Dewar’s Whisky—turned up.

It would appear that the men used the long months of respite to get drunk often.^[1] The sheer number of empty containers found at the site suggests that becoming inebriated wasn’t against camp rules. This was a unique find for Israeli archaeologists, and it allowed the first look into how these particular soldiers spent their leisure time.

9 Thousands Of Dog Tags

In 2014, an amateur historian visited a field outside London to hunt for relics. Dan Mackay dedicates much of his time to the history of war, which made his discovery even more special. Right next to a World War II anti-artillery gun, he unearthed over 14,000 dog tags.

Issued by the British Army, these may have been among the first to be forged from stainless steel. Dog tags for soldiers were invented before both world conflicts, and vulcanized asbestos fiber was used to make them until 1960.

The Mackay tags are individually engraved with the names of British soldiers, but these men never received the tags. Most likely, the plans for the newer ID system were abandoned shortly after commissioning the steel tags. In their void state, the tags were then buried in the field.^[2]

They were made for individuals belonging to nearly every British regiment from before World War II to afterward. This made it extremely difficult to track down the soldiers’ families, but Mackay’s diligent research into the history of the servicemen is slowly returning some of the tags home.

8 The Missing Apprentice

During World War II, a teenager named Frank Le Villio got into trouble with the Nazis. In 1944, the Germans occupied Jersey and confiscated all the vehicles. Le Villio, a mechanic’s apprentice, noticed a motorbike belonging to a German soldier and took it for a joyride. The 19-year-old was arrested and passed between several concentration camps.

Historians wanted to know if he had stayed at the notorious Bergen-Belsen and whether he survived. If so, he’d be one of only two British nationals to walk out of there alive. About 50,000 people died there, including Anne Frank.

Once it was discovered that Le Villio had traveled to Nottingham after the war, researchers advertised in a local newspaper requesting any information about him. A priest responded and confirmed that the young man had been buried in a mass paupers’ grave in Wilford Cemetery after tuberculosis killed him at age 21.^[3]

The only proven British survivor of Bergen-Belsen recalled meeting Le Villio but at another location. Further research also provided records for Le Villio’s stay at Neuengamme and Sandbostel (“Belsen in miniature”) but none for Bergen-Belsen.

7 A Secret Weather Station

Near the North Pole, the remains of a wartime German base called Schatzgraber (“Treasure Hunter”) sit on the island of Alexandra Land. Meteorologists stationed there kept the military informed about weather conditions over northern Europe and oceans to the north.

Although the World War II base was supposedly secret, its existence was noted in several documents. Schatzgraber was abandoned in 1944, but the icebound island made it impossible to study the entire complex.

When the warm winter of 2016 thawed Schatzgraber completely, Russian researchers confirmed what the documents described. For the first time, each building (and its contents) was cataloged. They revealed an ill-fated crew.

Starving in winter 1944, the men contracted an agonizing roundworm infestation after undercooking a polar bear. The evacuation plane broke a wheel upon landing and had to wait for a spare to be air-dropped.

When the sick men were finally loaded, their leader had to be incapacitated because he’d gone mad.^[4] An extensive search revealed the emergency airfield and over 600 artifacts, including tinned food, uniforms, manuals, ammunition, and weapons.

6 The Forest Zones

World War II is among the best-researched conflicts, yet one type of battlefield remained largely ignored. The conflict zones in the forests of Europe came to the attention of geoarchaeologist David Passmore when he couldn’t find any reference to them.

In recent years, Passmore took a team and walked through wooded terrain in France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. They focused on areas where battles were waged from 1944 to 1945. The locations were identified after gleaning information from academic studies, guidebooks, and the Internet.

The team found trenches, bomb craters, and even the ruins of supply depots and foxholes.^[5] Of particular interest were the German logistics depots. Incredibly, they revealed the precise locations of the German army’s support network and how it was implemented before Normandy was conquered by the Allies.

Furthermore, examining the depots clarified how this network evolved during the Normandy invasion and how it fell to the other side. Passmore’s study of the depots gathered detailed knowledge about where and how soldiers fought in European forests.

5 Training Tunnels

In 2017, the British Army decided to add buildings at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain. Since the site holds historic significance, archaeologists were allowed to first sweep the area. Unexpectedly, they found subterranean tunnels used for training during World War I.

The century-old network spanned miles and contained hand grenades (some live), cans of food, and graffiti. The passages were a surprise but not their nature. The area still serves as a military training base and, during World War I, was used to train soldiers for the Western Front.

Significantly, during that time, miners and combat engineers received instruction on how to tunnel under enemy trenches and plant explosives. Carved into the chalk walls were over 100 individual graffiti marks.^[6]

The most insightful were the names of the soldiers who trained there before embarking for the trenches. One was an Australian, Private Lawrence Weathers. He was later awarded the prestigious Victoria Cross after he stormed a German machine gun post and took 180 prisoners in 1918.

The archaeological dig at Larkhill is ongoing and remains the biggest investigation into any World War I training tunnel system.

4 The Secret Deal

A German historian blew the lid off a top secret deal when he revealed that The Associated Press (AP) had links with the Third Reich. The subsequent investigation revealed an agreement to exchange war photographs during World War II. Thousands of photos had appeared in the US press with misleading sources such as “supplied by a German agency” and provided by the AP.

At first, the agency denied any collusion. But the story of the wartime AP soon unfolded. In 1941, they were kicked out of Germany along with all other foreign news groups. Since both sides remained eager for insider images, a deal was brokered.^[7]

The AP received censored photographs filled with clever German propaganda. The photos received by the Nazis were also altered by them to cast the US unfavorably in German newspapers.

This didn’t sit well with US counterintelligence, which wanted to convict the AP executives involved under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The suggestion was dropped a week later when it came out that the US government had given the AP the thumbs up to start swapping.

3 A Pilot Still In His Plane

Inspired by his son’s homework about World War II, Klaus Kristiansen investigated a field on his farm in Denmark. Klaus’s late grandfather had claimed that a warplane crashed there in 1944. However, there was no indication of it during the 40 years that Klaus had farmed the land.

Then in 2017, Klaus and his 14-year-old son, Daniel, listened excitedly as their metal detector began buzzing. At 4–6 meters (13–20 ft) down, they found the plane, a World War II German Messerschmitt. The aircraft was torn into thousands of pieces. Among the fragments were the engine, ammunition, and human bones. Bits of the airman’s clothes surfaced, and his wallet still contained money.

Investigators identified the pilot after examining additional items. The man’s initials were etched on his watch, and they matched the name found on a service document and calendar book pulled from the wreckage.

The pilot was 19-year-old Hans Wunderlich. His military records showed that he was Bavarian born, unmarried, and childless. The plane is set to remain in Denmark, but Wunderlich will be reburied in Germany.^[8]

2 The Burning Brigade’s Tunnel

Near the end of World War II, the Nazis knew they had lost. In Lithuania’s Ponar forest, they wanted to erase a camp where around 100,000 people had died. Eighty Jewish prisoners were brought from other locations to exhume and burn the bodies. The men handed this gruesome duty were called the Burning Brigade.

After months, the breaking point came when the workers started finding family members inside the mass graves. For 76 nerve-racking days, the brigade dug a secret escape tunnel with spoons and whatever else they could find.

On the moonless night of April 15, 1944, the prisoners dashed for freedom. Although they were overheard inside the tunnel, they struggled on through two barbed-wire fences and a minefield. The prisoners also ran from dogs and dodged bullets and mortars as they fled.^[9]

Twelve men escaped, and the testimonies of 11 allowed the entrance of the collapsed tunnel to be located years ago. In 2016, archaeologists found the rest with scanning technology. The spooned-out tunnel was nearly 34 meters (112 ft) long and showed the men’s monumental determination to survive despite the horrors they had endured.

1 World War Zero

A Bronze Age mystery surrounds eight major Mediterranean civilizations. All suddenly collapsed 3,200 years ago from war, famine, and domestic conflict. Geoarchaeologist Eberhard Zangger believes that “World War Zero” may have been responsible.

According to his hypothesis, World War Zero caused Egypt’s disintegration. It also destroyed the Hittites, Minoans, Canaanites, Cypriots, Assyrians, Mycenaeans, and Babylonians. Their common enemy was an alliance among groups from western Asia Minor who spoke dialects of the Luwian language.

After watching the Hittites and the Egyptian pharaohs fall, the Mycenaean Greeks launched successful attacks on the Luwians’ port cities. However, the Greeks’ homecoming was disastrous. The deputies they had left behind refused to abdicate, and the resulting civil war introduced the Greek Dark Ages.^[10]

Many scholars don’t accept that the Luwians were capable invaders or that World War Zero was possible. They believe that another unknown factor caused the eight cultures to collapse around the same time.

However, Zangger believes that historical documents are supportive of his theory, including that the Luwians were likely the mysterious and destructive “Sea Peoples” mentioned in Egyptian writings. In Turkey, he has also identified sites that were possibly built by Luwians. Some of these sites are so large that they are visible from space.

US President Donald Trump recently ordered a Tomahawk missile strike against the Assad regime in Syria without first seeking Congressional authorization. This has generated controversy regarding the legal powers of the presidency.

According to the US Constitution, the president can only use military force offensively once Congress has declared war on an adversary. The 1973 War Powers Act provided a more flexible alternative, stating that the president could order the military to engage in offensive action for a period of 60 days. After that, the president would have to ask Congress for an Authorization for Use of Military Force.

However, history is full of examples where the president, for various reasons, was able to go to war without any approval from Congress at all.

10 Operation Uphold Democracy
Haiti, 1994–95

The democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was exiled following a 1991 military coup. President William Clinton eventually decided to invade Haiti to restore Aristide to power.

Operation Uphold Democracy involved dropping a massive force, including the entire 82nd Airborne Division, into Haiti. Realizing that they did not stand a chance, the coup government immediately surrendered. Aristide triumphantly reentered the country under US protection.

Both the US public and a bipartisan Congressional majority were initially opposed to the intervention. President Clinton nevertheless argued that a UN Security Council resolution, authorizing the removal of the coup government, gave him the right to act without consent from Congress.

Although the operation seemed like a resounding success at the time, democracy was not upheld for long. Aristide proved to be a flawed leader and was accused of using electoral fraud to stay in power. Ultimately, he was overthrown again in a 2004 coup, which he ironically blamed on the United States.^[1]

9 American Expeditionary Force Siberia
1918–1920

Near the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson ordered nearly 8,000 US troops to Siberia as part of a larger Allied intervention. Russia had begun the war on the side of the Allies. However the October Revolution of 1917 resulted in a Bolshevik government, which immediately sued for peace with Germany. The Allies hoped that by helping White Russian counterrevolutionaries remove the Bolsheviks from power, Russia would reenter the war against Germany.

Although the intervention was originally seen as part of World War I, the US troops remained in Siberia even after Germany surrendered in November 1918. In what quickly turned into a quagmire,^[2] the US troops fought not only the Bolsheviks but also some of the White Russians they had been sent to help, all while enduring temperatures as low as -46 degrees Celsius (-50 °F). Wilson still wanted to overthrow the Bolshevik government, but public opposition steadily mounted.

The American forces were ultimately withdrawn in 1920, and the Red Army eventually gained control of Siberia. The Allied intervention resulted in lasting hostility between the United States and the Soviet government, which the US did not recognize until 1933.

8 Operation Desert Fox
Iraq, 1998

US President William Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, code name for an intense three-day bombing of Iraq, to degrade Saddam Hussein’s ability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction (WMD). While the bombing substantially damaged Iraq’s military capabilities and infrastructure, it remains unclear if the strikes had any impact on Iraqi WMD development.

Clinton did not seek Congressional authorization before launching the strikes. He argued that the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act provided sufficient legal justification for the campaign. The act stated, “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”^[3]

Although the Republican-controlled Congress was inclined to take a hard line against Saddam, the president’s critics noted that the timing of the strikes seemed odd. Desert Fox coincided with the ongoing impeachment debate over Clinton’s perjury during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Despite the bombings, Saddam remained in power until Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Meanwhile, the House voted to impeach President Clinton on December 19, 1998, the last day of bombing for Operation Desert Fox.

7 Undeclared War In The Atlantic
1941

Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, most Americans were against entering World War II. Nevertheless, from summer 1940 through 1941, Great Britain was fighting for its survival against Nazi Germany. President Franklin Roosevelt knew that war was inevitable and wanted to secretly help Britain as much as possible.

In May 1940, the British invaded Iceland because they were worried that the Germans would try to use it as a base of operations for their aircraft and U-boats. Soon afterward, Roosevelt sent US troops to occupy the island. This kept it safe from Germany, while freeing the British garrison to fight elsewhere. Roosevelt also gave 50 American destroyers to Britain in exchange for long-term leases on British naval bases in Newfoundland and the Caribbean.

The undeclared war intensified in September 1941 when a German submarine torpedoed an American destroyer near Iceland. In retaliation, President Roosevelt ordered US naval vessels and planes to attack any German submarines spotted in “waters we deem necessary for our defense.”^[4] This ambiguous statement amounted to a de facto opening of hostilities a full three months before Germany declared war on the US in December 1941.

6 Operation Just Cause
Panama, 1989–1990

Tensions between Manuel Noriega, the military leader of Panama, and the United States deteriorated throughout the 1980s. The US government accused Noriega of helping drug smugglers in exchange for kickbacks. The final straw came in December 1989 when Noriega’s paramilitary forces guarding a checkpoint fired upon a group of US naval officers stationed in the Panama Canal Zone, killing one.

In retaliation, President George H.W. Bush ordered an invasion of Panama, which quickly neutralized Noriega’s military. Cut off from all avenues of escape, Noriega fled to the Vatican Embassy in Panama City. US troops responded by blasting heavy rock into the embassy, and Noriega surrendered two weeks later.

The intervention was extremely popular both within Congress and among the general public. Since Operation Just Cause was concluded in only 42 days, President Bush beat out the 60-day clock established by the War Powers Act and never had to seek formal Congressional authorization.^[5]

5 NATO Intervention In Libya
2011

The Libyan Civil War started in February 2011 after dictator Muammar Gadhafi’s security forces began executing Arab Spring protesters who called for his resignation. Although the rebels quickly seized the city of Benghazi, Gadhafi’s troops soon appeared poised to retake the city and unleash a retaliatory bloodbath.

Citing a UN Security Council resolution to protect civilians and impose a no-fly zone, NATO forces began a concerted air campaign against Gadhafi. This quickly turned the tide of war in favor of the rebels.

President Barack Obama did not seek Congressional authorization before launching air strikes. He argued that the War Powers Act did not apply because the US military was intervening in support of NATO rather than fighting alone. Congress did not accept this explanation but had no way of forcing Obama to withdraw.

Ultimately, the air campaign ended in October 2011 after Gadhafi was caught hiding in a drainpipe and was killed under mysterious circumstances. The Libyan intervention is extremely controversial today, partly because of the 2012 assassination of the US ambassador in Benghazi.^[6]

4 Kosovo War
1999

The Kosovo War began as an insurgency by Kosovo Liberation Army paramilitaries who sought independence from the Serbian-dominated Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In retaliation, the Yugoslav Army responded with a heavy-handed attempt to stamp out the insurgency, massacring civilians and creating a refugee crisis. NATO began a bombing campaign to evict the Yugoslav Army from Kosovo after international attempts to broker a political settlement failed.

Interestingly, President Clinton requested an authorization for the use of military force in Kosovo, which was passed by the Senate. However, the same authorization failed to pass the House after a rare 213–213 tie.^[7]

Clinton continued bombing the Yugoslav Army anyway. He argued that Congress had appropriated funding for the intervention, which was basically the same as authorizing it. The Yugoslav Army was forced to withdraw from Kosovo, which eventually gained its independence.

3 Punitive Expedition Against Pancho Villa
Mexico, 1916–17

In 1916, the Mexican warlord Pancho Villa launched a raid against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. It was in retaliation for US support for Venustiano Carranza, Villa’s rival in the ongoing Mexican Revolution.

Although Villa’s forces were repulsed from Columbus with heavy losses, the US public was outraged. President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing and a division of US troops to pursue Villa into Mexico to kill or capture him.^[8]

The expedition was justified from a legal standpoint as a defensive action due to Villa’s raid on Columbus. Thus, no declaration of war was required. However, as the term “punitive expedition” would suggest, the intervention was aimed not only at securing US borders but also at retaliation.

The expedition marched over 800 kilometers (500 mi) into Mexico and inflicted severe losses on Villa’s forces. However, US forces were ultimately forced to withdraw due to Carranza’s objections that Mexican sovereignty was being violated. This allowed Villa to escape.

2 Operation Urgent Fury
Grenada, 1983

President Ronald Reagan initiated Operation Urgent Fury in October 1983 as a result of ongoing instability in the Marxist-controlled island of Grenada. The prime minister of Grenada had recently been executed in a violent coup, and the new government imposed a strict 24-hour curfew enforced by summary execution. Fearing that US medical students on the island would be harmed, Reagan ordered an invasion.

An air assault quickly captured the only two airports on the island despite heavy resistance from the Grenadians and their Cuban military advisers.^[9] Major combat operations concluded within three days, the Grenadian government was replaced, and all US students were rescued safely.

When asked why he did not seek Congressional authorization, President Reagan argued that he had to act decisively to save the lives of the medical students. In any event, the speed of the invasion meant that Congress was presented with a fait accompli. The intervention was condemned internationally as a violation of Grenada’s sovereignty but was extremely popular at home. It even inspired a Clint Eastwood movie.

1 The Korean War

In June 1950, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung ordered a massive invasion of South Korea. This caught both the South Koreans and the United States completely by surprise. President Harry Truman was initially reluctant to send US troops to Korea, fearing that this would lead the Soviets and Chinese to also intervene.

Then, in one of the greatest diplomatic blunders in history, the Soviets boycotted a UN Security Council meeting to protest that Mao’s Communist government had not been given China’s Security Council seat despite winning the Chinese Civil War. The Security Council passed a resolution asking UN member states to assist South Korea. The Soviets were unable to veto it due to their absence.^[10]

President Truman used the UN resolution as a justification for US intervention and drove back the North Koreans. Although the Korean War dragged on for three more years in a lengthy stalemate, Truman never requested a declaration of war from Congress. He argued that the war was legally covered by the UN resolution.

Henry is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University. He currently lives and works in Washington, DC.

The effect of war on the world is devastating. It destroys families, cities, and countries. It also causes PTSD among many other ailments and has long-lasting effects on economies.

If war continues unabated around the world, tragedies like the ones detailed below will never end and this quote might very well ring true in time:

“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” –John F. Kennedy

10 16 Days To Die

When a banging noise emerged from the wreckage of the USS West Virginia the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, those who survived didn’t think much of it—until they realized that the banging came from desperate men trapped underneath the sunken ship. There was no way of getting them out. The Marines on land could do nothing but cover their ears and grieve for those who would surely die a horrible death.

When the battleship was finally raised from the water six months later, the remains of three young men were found in a storeroom. Alongside them was a calendar on which they had marked off the last 16 days they had lived.^[1]

The terrible news was kept from the families. When some siblings of the deceased eventually heard the truth, they kept it a secret from their parents to spare them the horror and heartbreak of the young men’s suffering. The men—Ronald Endicott, Clifford Olds, and Louis Costin—all have December 7, 1941, engraved on their gravestones as their date of death.

9 Six Of Seven Sons

Frederick and Maggie Smith, an Australian couple, watched their seven sons go off to join World War I. Their two youngest boys were so eager to contribute and fight in what was called the “war to end all wars” that they signed up for duty under false names because they were under 21 years old at the time.

Tragically, only the oldest brother survived. Francis Hume Smith is the only one who returned to his parents’ home after his six siblings were killed in action. However, tragedy struck again when Francis somehow landed under a tram in 1923 and was killed as well.^[2]

8 Youngest Soldier Of World War I

As the poisonous fumes of chlorine gas cleared over the trenches along the Western Front, 1,000 men lay dead. It was the first time that the German soldiers had used the gas in warfare, and it resulted in the one of the most horrific onslaughts during World War I in 1915.

Later on, while the deceased men were being laid to rest, a terrible truth came to light. One of the brave soldiers found in one of the trenches was only 14 years old.^[3]

When he had joined the military two years earlier, John Condon had lied about his age, telling superiors he was 18 when he was only 12. Other than the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Condon’s grave is the most visited by tourists. The boy has been recorded in history as the youngest soldier to be killed in action.

7 Huddersfield Nurse

More than 3,400 Huddersfield men died during World War I. All of them had families and lives they had left behind to fight for their country. Among all this tragedy was another sad tale of a nurse, Ada Stanley, who trained at the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and was taken to the Dardenelles on a hospital ship to care for wounded soldiers.

The 44-year-old nurse contracted dysentery during the return trip. But she disregarded her own health to ensure that all of the soldiers who needed help were taken care of when they got off the ship. Ada Stanley collapsed in December 1915 and died shortly afterward. She was the only Huddersfield woman who died while in service during the war.^[4]

6 12 Hours

Three of the Melville couple’s five children set off to assist in various ways during World War I. Their daughter went to Greece to work as a nurse, one of their sons traveled to France to work as a doctor, and another son signed up to fight as a soldier at Gallipoli.

Jack Melville was only at Anzac Cove for 12 hours, advancing to Courtney’s Post when he was killed during the fighting that ensued. His body remained behind enemy lines for an undetermined time, leading to several conflicting reports on what had actually happened to him.

Confirmation of his death never came, only a report that he was missing and believed to have been killed. As a result, until their own deaths, his parents continued to hope that their son might somehow still be alive.^[5]

5 The Forgotten Tragedy Of World War II

Infamous maritime disasters, such as the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania, remain engraved in the annals of history and in people’s minds. However, Britain’s worst maritime disaster during World War II has been forgotten to a large extent.

In June 1940, the ocean liner Lancastria was bringing British soldiers home when it was bombed by the Germans near Saint-Nazaire. It took only 20 minutes for the massive ship to sink, causing the deaths of 4,000 people, including women and children. Later reports detailed how soldiers sang songs to keep the calm and helped other passengers while the ship sank.

The families of those aboard the Lancastria are still fighting for the recognition and remembrance of their loved ones more than 75 years after the disaster.^[6]

4 Message In A Bottle

In June 1916, 19-year-old Will Williams was aboard a ship in the Southern Ocean, en route to join other brave soldiers fighting in World War I. Williams, aware of how anxious his parents were about his departure, wrote a short note to them before placing the piece of paper in a bottle and tossing it in the ocean.

The bottle washed up in Yorke Peninsula in January the following year, and those who found it ensured that the message got to Williams’s parents. They were overjoyed at the note that stated their boy was well and they shouldn’t worry.

Sadly, their joy was short-lived as a message from the front weeks later informed them that their beloved son had been killed by a German sniper after becoming stuck in a collapsed trench.^[7]

3 The Last Letter

After completing hundreds of war missions in Iraq, running the Northern Iraq Intelligence Center, and being a senior analyst for several countries, Daniel Somers ended up with PTSD and a severe brain injury among other ailments at age 30. Struggling to come to terms with how his life had changed and how his family would be impacted by it, Daniel decided to write a suicide note in the form of a last letter to his family.

In the letter, Daniel described how much he loved his family and that he could not take them down the dark spiral into which he was descending. He detailed his physical pain and said that eternal sleep would be the only thing that would bring him relief and peace.

He asked that his beloved family not blame themselves for what he was about to do and said that his death would be quick and painless. Lastly, he hoped that, in time, his family would be happy that he was finally free. Daniel Somers shot himself in the head on June 10, 2013, several blocks away from his home while his wife was at work.^[8]

2 Boy In The Ambulance

At five years old, children are supposed to be playing with toys, eating ice cream, and playing outside. However, in war-torn countries, the children have very different experiences. In 2016, people around the world were shocked when a picture of a five-year-old boy rescued from the rubble after an airstrike in Aleppo was circulated on social media.

Omran Daqneesh was rescued with the rest of his family from the remains of their apartment building after the deadly airstrike. A picture was taken of him sitting inside an ambulance covered in blood and dirt. Fortunately, Omran suffered no serious injuries and was discharged later on. However, five other children from the building were not so lucky.^[9]

1 Alan Kurdi

In an attempt to flee from the fighting in Syria in 2015, a Kobani family joined a group of refugees who were headed to Kos, an island in Greece.

Two small boats carrying 23 of the refugees—including three-year-old Alan Kurdi, his five-year-old brother, and their parents—capsized after they set off from the Bodrum peninsula. Alan and his brother were among the five children who drowned during the accident.

The little body of Alan Kurdi washed up on a beach in Turkey. The subsequent picture taken of him lying facedown on the beach sent shock waves around the globe. Alan’s father later told news agencies that he had tried to hold on to both his kids and his wife when their boat capsized, but his boys slipped away as the boat deflated.^[10]

Estelle lives in Gauteng, South Africa.

You’d think that as the world got more modern, we’d find ways to solve our differences that didn’t involve blowing each other’s brains out. And, luckily, that’s true! But there was still plenty of horrific violence, including the deadliest wars in human history, in the 20th century, when mankind entered a period of shocking technological advancement and increasing levels of interconnectedness. Let’s take a look at some of the wars that defined the 1900s. 

10. World War I 

Often referred to as the Great War, World War I (1914-1918) was triggered by the chain reaction activation of a complex web of political alliances, militarism, and imperial rivalries, all kicked off by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. 

Nationalistic pride and 19th century tactics, however, soon clashed with the reality of modern warfare. The carnage was so severe that it forced men on all sides to dig down into the mud in order to survive. Trench warfare has thus come to symbolize the conflict as a whole. Machine guns, advanced artillery, poison gas, tanks, and aircraft all made their battlefield debuts and contributed to staggering casualties and a seemingly endless succession of failed offensives on all sides. The Eastern Front witnessed fluid and dynamic battles, while the conflict in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia added global dimensions. The war ended with an Allied victory in 1918, the signing of an Armistice, and the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. To this day, the war is often looked at as even more wholly unnecessary and tragic than other wars.  

9. Russian Civil War 

The Russian Civil War unfolded between 1918 and 1922, and was kicked off by the Russian Revolution of 1917. It marked a struggle for power and ideology among various factions, primarily the Bolshevik Red Army, anti-Bolshevik White Army, regional nationalist forces, and foreign interventionist troops.

The conflict began with the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, trying to consolidate national power after the October Revolution in 1917, during World War I. Opposition to the Bolsheviks coalesced into the White Army, composed of diverse elements ranging from monarchists to liberal democrats, seeking to resist a communist takeover. 

The frontlines of the Russian Civil War stretched across vast expanses, from the Western borders to Siberia. The Red Army, despite facing internal and external challenges and numerous setbacks, ultimately secured victory. The Russian empire therefore fell. The Soviet Union took its place, and would last until the end of the Cold War in 1991. 

8. Spanish Civil War

In the same way that the Mexican American War served as a proving ground for many of the tactics and commanders who’d later define the American Civil War, the Spanish Civil War – fought from 1936-1939 – gave the great powers of Europe a chance to test their mettle before being thrown into the furnace of World War II. 

The war erupted when General Francisco Franco, leading a coalition of conservative, monarchist, and fascist forces, sought to overthrow the democratically elected Second Spanish Republic. The conflict was characterized by a deep ideological divide, with the Republicans, a coalition of left-wing and anti-fascist forces, opposing Franco’s Nationalists. The International Brigades, composed of volunteers from various countries, including anti-fascist activists and intellectuals, joined the Republicans. Meanwhile, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supported Franco’s Nationalists. 

Like all wars in the first half of the 20th century, this one was particularly savage. It was defined by roughly equal numbers and frontline stalemate until close to the end of the conflict, when the nationalists surged forward and destroyed the remaining Republicans. It was one of the first times the world saw the brutality of fascism firsthand. 

7. World War II 

The largest, most widespread, and deadliest war in history, World War II (1939-1945) was defined by the violent expansion of the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and their allies) followed by counterattacks by the Allies (Britain & Commonwealth forces, France, the Soviet Union, China, the United States, and their allies), and Allied victory. The vast majority of the world was involved. As many as 85 million people, a large majority of them Allied civilians, were killed. Attacks against civilians were carried out by both sides. The Allies did this mainly via aerial bombing, including firebombing and nuclear bombing, as a way of breaking the enemy’s will to resist. The Axis mainly used ground forces to carry out bloody genocides, including the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their partners. 

The war raged from the Pacific Ocean to the jungles of southeast Asia, the Russian steppe, Sahara, and the beaches of France. It saw massive technological leaps forward, brought an end to centuries of European geopolitical dominance, and saw the rise of the United States and the Soviet Union as rival superpowers, making it arguably the single most significant event in human history. 

6. Chinese Civil War

The Chinese Civil War raged between 1927 and 1949, between the Nationalist Party and the Communists. The initial phase of the Chinese Civil War began in 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalists, turned against the Communists, leading to a violent purge known as the Shanghai Massacre. The conflict then entered a period of intermittent truces and alliances, with both sides nominally cooperating against the Japanese invasion during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).

After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the resumption of the civil war in 1946 saw the Nationalists and Communists vie for control of China. The Communists, led by Mao Zedong, garnered widespread support among peasants, while the Nationalists struggled with corruption and inefficiency. The decisive turning point came in 1949 when the Communists emerged victorious, leading to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists retreated to Taiwan, where they continued to rule, while the mainland underwent significant political, economic, and social transformation under Communist rule. The Chinese Civil War had profound implications for the course of Chinese history and the global balance of power during the Cold War era and beyond. 

5. Korean War

The Korean War unfolded from 1950 to 1953 on the Korean Peninsula. The war began when Communist North Korean forces, backed by the Soviet Union and China, invaded South Korea, which was supported by the United Nations and the United States.

The conflict was triggered by the political division of Korea after Japanese occupation during World War II, with the Soviets occupying the north and the United States occupying the south along the 38th parallel. The North, led by Kim Il-sung, sought to reunify the peninsula under communist rule, while the South, led by Syngman Rhee, aimed to maintain independence.

The war saw significant involvement from international forces, with the United Nations sending a multinational coalition, primarily composed of U.S. troops, to support South Korea. In response, China intervened on the side of North Korea, escalating the conflict. The war’s frontlines fluctuated along the 38th parallel, with intense fighting and trench warfare reminiscent of World War I. The armistice agreement signed in 1953 established a demilitarized zone near the original border, solidifying the division between North and South Korea. However, a formal peace treaty was never signed, and the Korean Peninsula remains divided to this day. 

4. Six-Day War

The Six-Day War, a brief but transformative conflict in the Middle East, took place from June 5 to June 10, 1967, involving Israel and its neighboring Arab states. The tensions leading to the war had been escalating due to territorial disputes, political tensions, and military buildups in the region.

The immediate catalyst for the war was the closure of the Straits of Tiran by Egypt, effectively cutting off Israel’s access to the Red Sea. Additionally, Arab rhetoric and troop movements had heightened the sense of an impending conflict. In a pre-emptive strike, Israel launched Operation Focus, targeting Egyptian airfields, which resulted in the destruction of a significant portion of the Egyptian air force.

In the ensuing six days, Israel swiftly secured victories on multiple fronts. Israeli forces seized the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. The war reshaped the political and territorial landscape of the region, marking a turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The aftermath of the Six-Day War had lasting implications. Israel’s victory significantly expanded its territorial control, leading to occupation and settlement activities in the captured territories. However, the war also intensified regional hostilities. 

3. Iran-Iraq War 

The Iran-Iraq War, one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century, took place between 1980 and 1988, involving the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The war had deep-seated roots in territorial disputes, historical grievances, and ideological differences.

The conflict began when Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, invaded Iran in September 1980, seeking to exploit what it perceived as Iran’s weakened position after the Iranian Revolution and the subsequent political turmoil. The war quickly escalated, with both sides engaging in WWI-style trench warfare. The conflict saw the extensive use of chemical weapons, causing significant human suffering and long-term health consequences.

The war’s dynamics were complex, with shifting alliances and international involvement. Various countries supported either Iran or Iraq, with the United States and the Soviet Union supplying arms to Iraq (weirdly enough) at different points in the conflict. The war finally concluded in 1988 with a UN-brokered ceasefire.

The Iran-Iraq War had profound consequences for both nations. It resulted in immense human and economic losses, with estimates of casualties ranging from hundreds of thousands to over a million. 

2. Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, spanning from 1955 to 1975, was a protracted conflict involving Ho Chi Minh’s Communist North Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union and China, and Ngo Dinh Diem’s South Vietnam, backed by the United States and its allies. The war was rooted in the struggle for control of Vietnam, complicated by Cold War geopolitics and ideological differences.

The war witnessed guerrilla warfare tactics by the communist forces, including the Viet Cong, and intensive bombing campaigns by the United States. The use of chemical defoliants, most notably Agent Orange, had severe environmental and health consequences. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring countries, with the US conducting arguably illegal bombings in Laos and Cambodia.

As public opposition to the war grew in the United States, a gradual withdrawal of American troops began in the early 1970s. The Paris Peace Accords in 1973 aimed to end US involvement, leading to a ceasefire. However, the war continued between North and South Vietnam, culminating in the fall of Saigon in 1975, leading to reunification under communist rule.

1. Cold War 

Although (thankfully) not a war in the traditional sense, the Cold War was a geopolitical, ideological, and military standoff between the United States and its allies, representing the democratic and capitalist Western bloc, and the Soviet Union and its allies, representing the communist Eastern bloc, that persisted from the end of World War II in 1945 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This ideological confrontation was characterized by intense political and military rivalry, violent proxy wars around the globe, a nuclear arms race that had the world on edge for decades, a space race, and ideological competition between capitalism and communism.

The origins of the Cold War can be traced to the differing post-war visions of the Allies. While they had been wartime allies against Nazi Germany, the ideological differences and spheres of influence soon emerged. The division of Germany, the establishment of the Iron Curtain in Europe, and the containment policy formulated by the United States, deepened tensions.

The Cold War concluded with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The United States emerged as the sole superpower and the beginning of a new era of international relations.

Some historical generals were untalented political appointments. Some were forgettable, or only good under the right conditions. Others were forces to be reckoned with. But some elite commanders will never be forgotten. You can debate who would get their faced chiseled into the stone of a Mount Rushmore of military geniuses. Maybe Hannibal. Maybe Alexander the Great. Maybe Julius Caesar. But there’s no debate that Napoleon Bonaparte would get a slot. This Corsican-born French emperor wasn’t just one of the most significant legal modernizers and reformers in history, but one of the greatest military masterminds of all time. It’s no wonder it took several decades, and almost as many coalitions of European rivals, to take him down. Let’s take a look at ten of the most important battles of the Napoleonic wars. 

10. The Italian Campaign 

After making a name for himself at the Siege of Toulon, a young artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte was promoted to Brigadier General and placed in charge of the French army in northern Italy, during the War of the First Coalition. It was an honor on paper, but this force was widely considered to be France’s weakest.

But with hard discipline, innovative tactics, and magnetic leadership, the young general quickly whipped his army into shape. His forces faced off against Austrian and Sardinian armies in a series of battles and campaigns. To everyone’s shock – the French Directory included – Napoleon dominated his foes and secured French dominance in northern Italy.

The humiliated Austrians signed the treaty of Campo Formio in October 1797, marking the end of the campaign. The political map of Europe was overhauled, and Napoleon’s successes in Italy propelled him to political prominence in France. After more victories in Egypt and a triumphant return home, he would soon find himself First Consul of France. Not long after, in 1804, he appointed himself Emperor of the French. 

9. Battle of Austerlitz 

Fought on December 2, 1805, Napoleon’s first major battle as Emperor of the French might just be his greatest. At Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, Napoleon’s Grande Armée fought against Russian and Austrian forces commanded by Tsar Alexander I and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II. 

Napoleon lured the Allies into a trap by letting them seize high ground and deliberately weakening his right flank. Overconfident, the Allies marched forward to engage the French right. It was exactly what Napoleon wanted – he attacked their center and drove them off before swinging around and nearly encircling the troops engaged on his right. 

It was a crushing victory for Napoleon that extended French influence deep into central Europe, shattered the British-financed Third Coalition, led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, which had lasted 1,000 years, and solidified his reputation as the preeminent military mind of his age. 

8. Battle of Trafalgar

Fought off the southwestern Spanish coast on October 21, 1805, the Battle of Trafalgar was one of the Napoleonic War’s only major naval clashes. That was where Napoleon’s Franco-Spanish armada under Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve was assembling for a planned invasion of Britain itself. But a British fleet, commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson, made sure they never got there.

The French and Spanish arrayed themselves into a traditional line. Nelson, on the other hand, divided his fleet into two columns, charged at the enemy line perpendicularly, and broke through at multiple points. Although outnumbered, the British chopped the Franco-Spanish fleet into three parts and engaged them in detail. 

Although Nelson himself was mortally wounded during the battle, the British fleet decisively defeated the enemy, capturing over 20 enemy ships and destroying several more for minimal losses. After Austerlitz, Napoleon was the undisputed master of continental Europe. But after Trafalgar, the British were unbeatable at sea. It was a dominating victory that established British naval dominance for nearly a century, until the First World War. 

7. Battle of Jena-Auerstedt

Trafalgar aside, the War of the Third Coalition was a decisive French victory that saw Napoleon emerge as the military master of Europe. But British money was meant that a Fourth Coalition soon arose to stop the French. On October 14, 1806, Napoleon clashed with the Prussians at the battle of Jena-Auerstedt, in the Duchies of Saxony and Saxe-Weimar. 

Despite being outnumbered, the French forces, numbering around 50,000, outflanked 80,000 Prussians on both sides. The Battle of Jena, fought primarily by the French under Napoleon, saw the Prussian forces overwhelmed and forced into a retreat. Meanwhile, at Auerstedt, Marshal Louis Davout led a smaller French corps against the main Prussian army. Despite being outnumbered, Davout’s disciplined troops fought managed to defeat the Prussians under Duke Charles William Ferdinand of Brunswick. 

The defeat shattered the Prussian military and political structure, and Napoleon’s triumph opened the way for the French to occupy Berlin. The subsequent Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 resulted in a peace agreement between France and Russia. Napoleon remained dominant – but Britain wasn’t finished with him yet. 

6. Battle of Wagram

Fought on July 5-6, 1809, near Vienna, Austria, was a pivotal engagement in the War of the Fifth Coalition that saw Napoleon’s French troops engaging an Austrian force under Archduke Charles. Notably, the battle took place on the same ground where the Battle of Austerlitz had occurred four years before. 

The Battle of Wagram was one of the largest and bloodiest engagements of the Napoleonic Wars, involving hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides. Napoleon’s skillful use of artillery and coordinated infantry attacks, managed to break the Austrian lines after several setbacks and much bloodshed. 

The consequences of the Battle of Wagram were far-reaching. The victory solidified Napoleon’s dominance in Europe and led to the Treaty of Schönbrunn in October 1809, in which Austria ceded significant territories to France. The defeat at Wagram also marked a turning point for Archduke Charles, who faced criticism for his leadership and later sought a ceasefire.

However, Napoleon struggled more here than he had in previous battles. It was an ominous sign for France: they had won numerous victories, but their enemies were learning. And they never stayed down for long. 

5. The War in Spain

Napoleon’s Continental system demanded that the nations of Europe cut off all trade with his eternal enemy, Britain. But not everyone obeyed this directive. Soon, Napoleon’s armies were marching into Spain to force them into compliance. The French dominated every open battle and overthrew the Spanish government. Napoleon soon appointed his own brother, Josef, as king of Spain. But the Peninsular War was far from over. 

Although the French found victory wherever they went, they couldn’t be everywhere at once, and were never able to pacify the Spanish countryside. French troops were regularly ambushed by irregular partisans who would soon be known by a brand new name – Guerilla (“little war”) fighters. In response, the French committed numerous atrocities and seized more ground. But they could never take it all. Eventually, the British landed an army under the Duke of Wellington to help the Spanish. Although they were eventually forced to retreat, they fought brilliantly, temporarily took back large parts of Spain, and gave Napoleon more trouble than he’d ever faced before. The French never fully subdued Spain, and the unending, unwinnable quagmire there is widely seen as the beginning of his downfall. 

4. The Invasion of Russia

In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia to punish them for ignoring his financial blockade of Britain. The Grande Armée at this time was titanic – numbering between 650,000 and 700,000 men. But those figures would dwindle rapidly. Knowing they couldn’t beat him in open battle, the Russians retreated across the endless steppe and employed scorched earth tactics to deny natural resources to the French. 

By the time they did get their long-sought after open battle, the French numbered fewer than 150,000 men. They won the Battle of Borodino at great cost and captured Moscow shortly afterwards, but found the city empty and burning. Napoleon spent weeks awaiting a Russian surrender that never materialized. With winter rapidly approaching, he realized he had no choice but to run back the way he came. French casualties during this retreat skyrocketed due to freezing temperatures, starvation, disease, and endless Cossack raids. By the time the Grande Armée limped back into the Duchy of Warsaw, well under 100,000 men – half of them stragglers with no fight left in them – lived to tell the tale. The disaster shattered the myth of Napoleon’s invincibility. 

3. Battle of Leipzig

Quagmire in Spain and a spectacular failure in Russia resulted in Napoleon’s grip on Europe weakening by 1813. Soon, with British financial backing, a Sixth Coalition arose to put France down for good. Napoleon had done expert damage control in Paris after the debacle in Russia, but was still only able to muster up 150,000 soldiers, many of which were inexperienced recruits. The Coalition, meanwhile, consisting of Austrian, Prussian, Russian, and Swedish troops, could call upon some 320,000 men. 

After Napoleon failed to seize Berlin, he retreated across the Elbe to the west and was soon met with the allied force at Leipzig. The resulting Battle of the Nations was the largest ever fought in Europe before World War I. Napoleon’s men fought desperately, but with overwhelming enemy forces closing in from north, west, and south, he was forced to retreat through Leipzig itself. It was a catastrophic blow to Napoleon that forced him to realize he was no longer up against the buffoons he’d bested at Austerlitz 8 years earlier. His enemies had studied and implemented his tactics in the years since and were now able to go toe to toe with the greatest general in history – and win. But the French emperor wasn’t finished just yet. 

2. Battle of Brienne

After Leipzig, armies of the Sixth Coalition descended on France itself. Napoleon had only 60,000 men to defend the whole country against this titanic force. But he was about to prove why he’s considered by many to be the greatest military mind in history. Since he was frequently up against alliances of enemies, one of Napoleon’s signature strategies was attacking his enemies one at a time, before they could unite against him. 

On January 29, 1814, he did exactly that, one final time, at the battle of Brienne. Here, Napoleon’s forces faced a Russian army commanded by Prince Karl Schwarzenberg. Against huge odds, heavily outnumbered French forces prevailed. But it wasn’t enough – French defeats at the battles of La Rothière and Champaubert, among others, allowed coalition forces to continue their advance. Soon, Paris was besieged and Napoleon was forced to abdicate. Still, his ability to perform even as well as he did, while heavily outnumbered and commanding largely green troops, is nothing short of remarkable. It’s no wonder it took all of Europe multiple tries to bring him down. 

1. Battle of Waterloo

Napoleon was exiled in 1814. But he returned in 1815 and, after convincing the soldiers sent to arrest him tondefect to their beloved former emperor, soon retook control of the country. A Seventh Coalition was formed to stop him. For the first time, it would be not just financed, but led, by the British. Specifically, Napoleon’s nemesis from the Peninsular War in Spain, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. 

Napoleon sought to seize Brussels and planned to prevent Wellington’s international, British-led force from linking up with General Blucher’s Prussians. He was able to win some impressive but indecisive victories before clashing with Wellington near Waterloo, in modern day Belgium. In one of history’s most famous battles, the French tried multiple times to route British troops on the high ground before the Prussians could arrive. But after the failure of French cavalry to overcome infantry squares, and the defeat of the elite French Imperial guard, Blucher finally arrived on Napoleon’s right flank. Exhausted and outnumbered, the French fled the field. It was Napoleon’s last battle. He was forced to abdicate a second time and exiled permanently, 1,000 miles off the coast of Africa. The Napoleonic Wars were over. Pax Britannica – a near-century of British global hegemony, had begun.

Some wars seem important and inevitable. Like World War II or the American Civil War. Others, not so much. Turns out, humans just love to fight. And we’ll use almost anything as an excuse to do it. From wooden buckets to stray dogs, and even one centuries long war that everyone forgot they were supposed to be fighting, these are just a few of the silliest, most face-palmingly dumb wars ever fought. May we immediately forget. 

10. Emu War (1932)

The term “war” often conjures up images of intense battles, strategic planning, and significant outcomes. But when it comes to the Emu War, the stakes were… a bit different. Taking place in Australia in 1932, this conflict pitted humans against, of all things, flightless birds.

After World War I, many Australian veterans were given land by the government to take up farming. By 1932, these farmers had a problem on their hands: around 20,000 emus, large native birds of Australia, began migrating inland from coastal areas, trampling fences and ravaging the newly cultivated lands in the process. To combat this feathery menace, the government dispatched soldiers equipped with two Lewis machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. What could go wrong?

Well, as it turned out, a lot. The emus confounded the soldiers by running in erratic patterns, making them tough to hit. In one “battle,” only a dozen birds were killed out of a thousand, and the machine guns jammed. After several attempts, the soldiers admitted defeat in the Emu War. It’s yet more proof that people only live in Australia because the wildlife permits it. 

9. War of the Oaken Bucket (1325-1328)

Wars have been fought for a multitude of reasons – land, power, honor, or sometimes, just a simple wooden bucket. Enter the War of the Oaken Bucket, which was not an SNL skit but exactly what it sounds like: a war fought over a bucket between the rival Italian city-states of Modena and Bologna.

Let us explain. The tensions between the two cities had been simmering for years due to political and territorial disputes. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back was an audacious act by Modenese soldiers. During a raid on Bologna, instead of going for something valuable or strategic, they brazenly stole an oaken bucket from a city well. This seemingly trivial theft was taken as a grave insult by the Bolognese, who demanded the bucket’s return. When Modena refused, the situation escalated to a full-scale battle, known as the Battle of Zappolino. The Modenese emerged victorious and, adding insult to injury, kept the bucket as a war trophy. To this day, the infamous oaken bucket is displayed in Modena, a reminder of one of history’s stupidest conflicts. And that’s saying a lot. 

8. War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-1748)

Now, while the name might sound like a quirky tale from a children’s book, the War of Jenkins’ Ear was a deadly serious conflict between Britain and Spain during the 18th century. The strange name derives from the incident that became the catalyst for tensions that had been building between the two naval powers.

In 1731, Captain Robert Jenkins, a British merchant seaman, claimed that while his ship was boarded by Spanish coastguards, they had severed one of his ears, warning that the same would happen to King George II. This story might have remained a sailor’s tale, but it gained political traction in 1738 when Jenkins reportedly displayed his preserved, severed ear to the British Parliament, fueling the fires of anti-Spanish sentiments. Although there were deeper issues at play, such as trading rights in the Caribbean and territorial ambitions, this ear-centric incident played a significant role in rallying public and parliamentary opinion against Spain. By 1739, the nations were at war. 

7. Pastry War (1838-1839)

No, it wasn’t a food fight. This was an actual war fought between France and Mexico, and it all started with a disgruntled French pastry chef named Remontel.

In the early 1830s, Remontel’s shop in Tacubaya (now part of Mexico City) was looted by Mexican officers. Outraged by the damages which amounted to 60,000 pesos and unable to get compensation from the Mexican government, Remontel took his grievances all the way to King Louis-Philippe of France. The pastry chef’s complaints coincided with broader concerns the French had over Mexican debts and unpaid reparations following the Mexican War of Independence.

Seizing on the pastry incident as the last straw, France decided to take action. In 1838, French forces blockaded Mexico’s eastern seaboard, aiming to force a resolution. This military pressure led to skirmishes, including a significant naval battle at Veracruz.

The conflict came to a close in early 1839 when British diplomat Sir Charles Elliot mediated between the two nations. Mexico agreed to repay the 600,000 pesos debt, including Remontel’s pastry-related damages. The Pastry War serves as a deliciously odd reminder of how seemingly trivial incidents can escalate in the context of larger international tensions.

6. Toledo War (1835-1836)

If two states are going to fight over who gets possession of a city, you’d think it’d be something like Chicago or New York. Not freaking Toledo, Ohio. And yet, there was the Toledo War. The “war” was “fought” from 1835-1836 between Ohio and Michigan, over which state got to control the 468-square-mile Toledo Strip. Both states claimed the area as their own, citing conflicting surveys and interpretations of old territorial laws, and hoping to capitalize on its potential as a rising trade hub due to the Erie Canal.

Both sides mustered militias and rattled sabers. Thankfully, though, nobody was killed. This border spat escalated to the federal level and was eventually settled without a battle. In 1836, as a condition for its statehood, Michigan was “persuaded” to cede the Toledo Strip to Ohio. In return, Michigan was granted the western portion of the Upper Peninsula, an area rich in timber and minerals. At the time, many Michiganders felt shortchanged, but in the long run, the vast resources of the Upper Peninsula proved to be a boon for the state. 

5. The Soccer War (1969)

Everyone knows Latin America takes soccer very seriously. But Honduras and El Salvador went a little overboard in 1969. To be fair, while the Soccer War is nicknamed after the sport, attributing the war solely to soccer is an oversimplification. The matches were more the spark than the sole cause. Still, they played an embarrassingly large role. 

Both countries had longstanding tensions over land and immigration issues. By the 1960s, many Salvadorans had migrated to Honduras in search of better opportunities. However, these migrants often faced discrimination and hostility. Matters came to a head in June 1969 during a three-game soccer series between the two countries as part of the World Cup qualifiers. Each game was accompanied by violent incidents and media-fueled nationalistic fervor.

After the final game, diplomatic relations were severed, and by July 14, military conflict had erupted. Over the next four days, the Salvadoran air force launched attacks on targets in Honduras, while the Honduran air force retaliated. Both nations suffered, with thousands killed and even more displaced. Fortunately, a ceasefire went into effect before things got nastier. 

4. The Pig War (1859)

As its name suggests, the Pig War of 1859, which nearly triggered a third conflict between the United States and Great Britain, was all over a single hungry pig. 

Both sides laid claim to San Juan Island, located between the mainland United States and Vancouver Island. Simmering tensions boiled over when an American settler named Lyman Cutlar shot and killed a pig, which belonged to the British Hudson’s Bay Company, for repeatedly raiding his garden.

This incident escalated rapidly. The British threatened to arrest Cutlar. The Americans called in the military. Before anyone could catch their breath, the island was garrisoned with US and British soldiers. 

For months, the two sides engaged in a tense standoff, with warships anchored menacingly nearby. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. Negotiations ensued, and a deal was struck to maintain a joint military occupation of the island until a final agreement could be reached. That agreement came 12 years later in 1871, when the Treaty of Washington awarded San Juan Island to the US. Remarkably, the only casualty in the whole affair was the pig itself.

3. War of the Stray Dog (1925)

Borders have always been a source of tension, but rarely have they been as explosively touchy as the Greco-Bulgarian border in 1925. The bizarre conflict that ensued was known as the War of the Stray Dog. 

It all began when a Greek border guard soldier reportedly crossed into Bulgaria while chasing after his runaway dog. Bulgarian border guards, perhaps mistaking his intentions, shot and killed him. This incident, set against a backdrop of existing tensions between the two countries, quickly escalated.

Greece, angered by the death of their soldier, demanded an apology from Bulgaria and also sought compensation for the incident. When Bulgaria didn’t immediately comply, Greece took a more aggressive stance and invaded, capturing the town of Petrich and its surrounding areas. In a matter of days, skirmishes broke out, leading to the deaths of several dozen people.

Before the situation could further deteriorate, the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations) stepped in. The League mandated a ceasefire, called for Greece to withdraw from the occupied areas, and ordered Greece to pay compensation to Bulgaria for the damages. Both nations agreed to these terms, and the potential for a full-scale war was averted.

2. Three Hundred and Thirty-Five Years’ War (1651-1986)

When you think of “war,” you imagine battles, strategy, and casualties. Yet, the Three Hundred and Thirty-Five Years’ War stands out for a completely different reason—there was not a single shot fired, and no casualties reported whatsoever. 

Here’s the backstory: The war allegedly began in 1651 during the English Civil War. The Isles of Scilly, located off the southwest coast of England, were occupied by the Royalist navy. The Dutch, having been previously attacked by this navy and being at the time allied with the Parliamentarians, declared war on the Isles.

Sounds like the precursor to a fierce conflict, right? Wrong. After the initial declaration, there’s no record of any military action, and the whole issue was seemingly forgotten by both sides. Fast forward to 1985, and historians in Scilly and the Netherlands realized that a state of war technically still existed between them, as no peace treaty had been signed.

In a move filled with goodwill and a sense of humor, the Dutch ambassador visited the Isles of Scilly in 1986 to finally sign a peace treaty and declare an end to the 335-year “war.” 

1. The War of 1812

Spanning from 1812 to 1814, The War of 1812 is one of the most senseless conflicts in history. It was characterized by laughably poor military leadership, unclear objectives. Contrary to the simplistic narratives often presented in seventh grade, the war wasn’t about “good guys” versus “bad guys.” It was far too stupid for that. 

In the early 1800s, American Republicans were fuming at Britain for trade disputes and impressing American sailors into the British Navy. But they were looking for a fight anyway, and used these issues as an excuse to try to take over British-ruled Canada. It didn’t go well. U.S. Federalists believed the real threat was Napoleonic France, not Britain. Furthermore, many Americans who had migrated to Canada, lured by the promise of free land, still held affection for their homeland and might have preferred an American victory in the war. Native populations were dragged into the war, facing internal divisions and ultimately gaining nothing but betrayal and loss at the hands of the Americans. Attempts to commemorate this war today risk distorting its messy reality, possibly turning it into a tool of nationalistic propaganda. There’s just not a lot to praise, and few figures to root for.

Humanity has all kinds of noble qualities. We’ve created art and music, we’ve unraveled mathematical mysteries, we invented tacos. There’s a lot to be proud of. By the same token, we fumble the ball in a lot of ways, too, none more egregious than with our more violent, xenophobic and territorial tendencies. On a mass scale, these lead to war and great suffering. But on a smaller scale they can lead to much more focused and bizarre conflicts in the form of turf wars.

10. South Africa’s Taxi Turf Wars Have Claimed Hundreds of Lives

Cab drivers have a less than stellar reputation pretty much everywhere on earth even though it’s probably just a minority who stand out as rude or deceptive or downright dangerous with their customers. But things get uglier when a place gets big enough to have competition between cabbies.

In South Africa, like anywhere, cab companies have a finite customer base. They want to hold those customers, and their money, as tight as they can. But if another cab company shows up, all those customers and their money might be seduced away. That’s how a turf war starts except that the South African one has been going for decades and people have died because of it.

In 2018, a minibus full of cab drivers was returning from the funeral of a colleague when a gunman opened fire, killing all 11 passengers. By July 2021, 83 people had been killed in Cape Town, including passengers. These were just some victims in a war that has killed hundreds. Between 2000 and 2017, 43% of assassinations in South Africa were related to the taxi industry. That was far more than politically motivated hits or organized crime related murders which both accounted for 22%.

The South African cab business is huge. Annual revenue is around $1.2 billion and 15 million people per day use cabs. Long commuter trips between cities are common and this, along with permit disputes, are what the turf wars focus on and have focused on since the 1990s.

9. Glasgow Had A Deadly Ice Cream Truck War

Like taxis, ice cream trucks are vehicles that offer a service to customers for money. Unlike taxis, these cater mostly to children or families and are, arguably, wholesome and fun. That’s the theory, anyway. In Glasgow, things worked differently in the 1980s.

Despite the name, the ice cream trucks in Glasgow were like mobile markets. They sold groceries and other essential items in neighborhoods that were too far from grocery stores for many residents to reach easily. You might call them food deserts, today. Notably they went to a neighborhood called Ruchazie which was built in the ’50s but had fallen into a state of poverty and unemployment.

There were huge profits to be made if your truck got there first to sell to residents. That made drivers territorial. While some vendors might have been on the up and up, organized crime had run trucks as well.

In an attempt to intimidate a rival driver, some unknown assailants shot at him in his truck. He escaped unharmed and later they set his house on fire. The house was full of people including an 18-month-old baby. Six people, including the child, died.

Arrests were made but appeals went on for years based on very shady police work including at least one cop signing off on a confession he got when it was later revealed he was driving somewhere in his car at the time the confession was given. Twenty years passed with legal challenges and evidence showing cops conspired to frame suspects, leaving the case unsolvable after so much time.

8. Manuka Honey Is at the Center of a Honey Turf War in New Zealand

Honey is one of those things that, like olive oil or vinegar, can get very expensive if it’s artisanal or from some rare and fancy source. Manuka honey, in particular, fits the bill here. It’s originally made in New Zealand with nectar from the manuka tree. Back in 2016, 250 grams of it would cost about $30 USD and the price has only gone up since. 

Since manuka took off as a so-called superfood, it’s been highly in demand and this has led to honey turf wars. As the market exploded and prices rose, producers of the honey endured hive thefts and vandalism. Bees were poisoned and in one case 300 hives comprising tens of thousands of bees were killed in New Zealand.

A big part of the issue is between New Zealand producers and Australian ones. They fight over the name and who has the right to use it because, in the marketplace, the value is all in the name manuka. Like Champagne, if one person owns the rights, the copycats have to come up with a new term. But even within New Zealand, as more and more apiaries open to compete over limited resources, the vandalism and even physical beatings continue to try to get as big a piece of the pie as possible.

7. Kennedy Fried Chicken Restaurants Are Constantly at War By Independent Owners

Have you ever enjoyed some KFC? Not Kentucky Fried Chicken, everyone knows that place. Kennedy Fried Chicken. It’s a New York chicken franchise (sort of) in which none of the different Kennedy Fried Chicken restaurants actually have anything to do with one another beyond ripping each other off.

Kennedy, along with others like Crown Fried Chicken and Royal Fried Chicken all have nearly identical menus and the restaurants mostly look the same. Nearly all are independently owned. Abdul Haye owns the trademark to Kennedy, but he didn’t even create it. He worked at one once then opened his own and tried to stake his claim. 

Despite not creating the restaurant himself, Haye threatened to sue everyone else running a Kennedy of which there are over 300 and not one of them is related to another. All seem to be run by Afghani immigrants, which is true of Haye and also the man he once worked for who started the first Kennedy.

Starting your own Kennedy is something of a tradition for many Afghan immigrants so they were defiant in the face of a potential lawsuit. This may be because they already sort of triumphed over the true KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken pursued legal action against the restaurants back in the day but none paid attention and when KFC went straight to the initials, they lost their footing to dispute with Kennedy. 

6. New York Has Soft Serve Ice Cream Wars

We already saw that Glasgow had ice cream wars but so did New York and these ones were literally over ice cream. Soft serve trucks from Mister Softee and the New York Ice Cream Company regularly square off in the summer months in a feud that dates back to 2013 when New York Ice Cream Company was founded by a former Mister Softee employee.

Mister Softee has gone all out to spy on their rival, even hiring private investigators to make sure they’re not stealing Softee’s jingle or swirly mascot. And while that seems like maybe a little paranoid overkill, it’s not. NYICC has been pulling out all the stops, and even pulling out baseball bats on their rivals.

NYICC was started specifically to compete with Mister Softee and their trucks used the same colors to start and used the name Master Softee, which got them sued. Master Softee got banned. A year later they came back as New York Ice Cream Company and started getting intimidating and even violent with the competition. NYICC lost another suit, was banned from parts of midtown and had to stop using the jingle. But the ban ended in 2017 and the rivalry sparked up once more.

5. London Has Gang-Run Hot Dog Wars

London, England is not so different from New York when it comes to food rivals. Hot dog carts in the capital are sometimes operated by gangs and they don’t take kindly to competition. Back in the 90s this peaked with incidents involving Albanian hot dog vendors pulling out machetes but it’s still an ongoing issue.

Many vendors work for a shady boss who takes a massive cut in exchange for the cart and supplies. Sellers are also tightly restricted geographically, with city licensing workers patrolling the streets all night just waiting for a vendor to cross to an illegal corner so their cart can be seized. 

When rival sellers get too close, they can break down into violent attacks, wielding iron bars or sticks. In most cases it’s immigrants, like the Albanians, working for established criminal organizations. Because many are not legally able to work in England, they take up shady hot dog business. Even legit sellers might have to pay protection money to gangs.

4. Chicago Newspapers Went Through Bloody Circulation Wars in the 1900s

Turf wars are not modern, Chicago was in the middle of a newspaper war started by William Randolph Hearst back in the early 1900s. He published a paper called the Chicago American and had designs on crushing the Tribune and the Record-Herald.

Heart employed honest to goodness thugs – “prizefighters, bouncers, muggers and other street athletes,” and armed them with weapons like guns and brass knuckles. Their job was to find the people who distributed the rival papers and “convince” them to make room for Hearst’s paper. This led to more than one fist fight and even shootout at Chicago newsstands. 

The rival papers responded with the exact same tactics and soon newspaper trucks were being driven into rivers. The feud went on for years.

3. Vegas Wedding Chapels Have Had Violent Confrontations Over Customers

The Las Vegas wedding chapel is an iconic Vegas experience, second only to the casinos themselves. The idea of a quickie in-and-out wedding has a lot of appeal for those seeking the full, seedy Vegas experience. But, as with all things Vegas, there’s money to be made and lost and that leads to rivalry.

In the early 2000s, Lily of the Valley ministries had to request an order of protection from the Garden of Love chapel because of threats and harassment directed at employees and customers. The Garden of Love is one of the most famous chapels in Vegas. 

Two years earlier, there were death threats and vandalism running rampant. Owners of one chapel might curse out couples who chose another chapel and people’s cars were being pelted with paintballs. At the center of those accusations was, once again, the Garden of Love. 

2. Chinatown Bus Rivalries Led to Drive Bys and Stabbings

The last thing anyone wants to experience on a bus ride is a drive-by, but that’s how bad things got in the early 2000s when competition between Chinatown bus companies offering curbside service up and down the East Coast got ugly.

The first company started offering $25 trips to Boston but competition horned in and prices dropped in an effort to entice customers. Some offered fares as low as $10 which led to fist fights between rival employees.

In 2003, one driver left his employer to form his own company and was later gunned down in the street. Later this escalated to arsons, a stabbing and more shootings. 

1. Canada Has a Massive Tow Truck Turf War Problem

Despite their reputation as being polite, Canadians are far from immune to angry turf wars as well. Canada’s disputes exist in the world of tow trucks, complete with ties to organized crime and murder. In 2020, Toronto police laid 200 charges in response to a long-standing war between rival companies. Not that anything stopped because of it.

The wars date back to the early 2000s and have decayed to not just unauthorized tows but extreme violence including arson, drugs, weapons and multiple killings. And cops are partially to blame.

With little regulation in the business, police often call a tow truck on a first come first serve basis for accidents. That means rivals can literally race to get a call and tow a wreck. Because they use police scanners, trucks can sometimes even beat police to the scene of an accident and tow it before cops arrive.

Police have been charged with extortion and bribery as well, getting involved and what is a lucrative industry that involves kickbacks from auto repair shops and others, all at the expense of drivers.

There are instances when conflict arises not between states, but within a particular country. There are different reasons why civil wars happen. It can be political, religious or even political divide that drives a country to implode. These are instances when bloody civil wars of modern era could actually take its toll on the population. This could lead to human rights abuses, not to mention hamper progress.

It is common to see both economic and social drawbacks to countries that have engaged in these types of wars. Unfortunately, these wars could go for years or even decades at a time. Here are 12 bloody civil wars of modern era.

List of most brutal civil wars of modern era.

What was the most brutal modern civil war? What was the most recent civil war? Listed below are top 12 bloody civil wars of modern history.

12. Bosnian War

There are countries that are just waiting to erupt. This is exactly the case with Bosnia during the early 1990s. During the early 1990s, we’ve seen the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bosnia being a multi-cultural country has resulted to a civil war. In fact, it has been viewed by many human rights advocates as ethnic cleansing.

Bosnia along with Herzegovina and other former republics under Yugoslavia declared war. Bosnian Serbs attacked mainly the Muslim population in 1992. This civil war lasted for more than three years. Estimated total number of casualties is from 90,000 to 300,000.

The nationalist Croats and Serbs attacked the countryside which can be considered ethnic cleansing. The problem was only resolved by the UN after air strikes and sanctions. In the end, both parties agreed to enter a peace treaty.

11. Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

There are constant attacks to different groups in Pakistan. The usual targets are Sunni, Shia, Ahmad, Hindu and Christian groups. From 1987 to 2007, there were 4,000 deaths between Shia and Sunni sectarian conflicts alone. The groups blamed for the sectarian attacks are TTP, Sunni Militant Groups and even ISIS.

10. Islamic Resistance and Communism in the Philippines

Another one that made it in our list of bloody civil wars of modern era is The Philippine armed conflicts with communist guerrillas and Muslims. The Philippines is familiar with armed conflict. There are many insurgents that the Philippine government is dealing with.

To give you a background of the insurgencies happening in the Philippines, it can all be traced during the Martial Law years in 60s and 70s. Moro National Liberation Front was formed almost at the same timeline as the Communist Party of the Philippines. Both factions were fighting to free the country from a dictator, while the Muslim insurgents are also looking to secede from the country. Most of the gun fights happened in the countryside. Until today, these insurgencies are still present in the country.

The country has tried to enter different treaties in the past in order to potentially stop the gun fight in the countryside. However, it has resulted to more Muslim insurgents, Islamic extremists and a thriving communist guerrilla group.

9. Chinese Civil War

The Chinese Civil War officially started during the the 1920s. However, during the Second World War, both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Ze Dong’s communist party decided to unite in order to defeat the Japanese invaders.

Chang Kai-shek did not believe in democracy. Instead, he believes in ruling China under one ruler which is backed by a military. With right wing tactics, Chiang Kai-shek rooted out opposition in China including communists. What Mao Ze Dong believed in is to utilize the poor people from the countryside and unite them to with the war against Chiang Kai-shek’s forces. By the end of the Chinese Civil War, Taiwan was formed.

What made the Chinese Civil War on our list of bloody civil wars in modern era is the protracted nature of its revolution that incurred 8 million casualties.

8. Sri Lankan Civil War

In 2011, UN released a report saying that the Sri Lankan Civil War has lost over 100,000 lives in a span of 26 years. The war was fought between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the local government of Sri Lanka.

A war that started in 1983, it only ended in 2009 when the Tigers considered to surrender. Unfortunately, civilian casualty is at 40,000 especially in the last five months of the conflict. With casualty of this magnitude, Sri Lankan Civil War made it in our list of bloody civil wars of modern.

Though peacetime was welcomed by Sri Lankans, there were a number of problems that still emerged after the civil war. For instance, restoration of rule of law has been quite difficult. Also, investigations regarding violations of human rights are still yet to be completed.

7. Angolan Civil War

Angola fought for its independence from Portugal. With the help of the Cubans and Soviet Union, Angola gained its freedom and established a socialist government. Soon after, civil war broke out. Union for Total Independence of Angola or UNITA, backed by the CIA fought against the Movement for the Liberation of Angola. For nearly 27 years, the battle was fought by both sides. It is considered by many as one of the most prolonged civil wars in modern history.

The Angolan Civil War ended in 2002 when Jonas Savimbi was killed. Right after, both parties agreed on having a ceasefire and had an election. Unfortunately, the Angolan Civil War left the economy in ruins, and left 500,000 deaths.

6. The Laos Secret War

The Laotian Civil War, otherwise known as the Secret War was fought between communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government. It was called the Secret War because of CIA’s involvement in the crisis. After the French left the Indochina region, the Royal Lao Government received the power but excluded the anti-colonial armed nationalist movement. The number of people lost during this war is at 450,000 for Laos and 600,000 in Cambodia. Refugees have also exceeded a million. Other than the numbers, another reason why it is considered as part of our list of bloody civil wars of modern era is because of the use of chemical warfare. >> 10 Deadliest Wars In Human History.

5. Somali Civil War

Since 1991, the Somali Civil war is still going on until the present. Home to a number of people, Siad Barre during the late 80s was their unpopular leader. In response, he attacked opposing forces which even accelerated his removal from power. In 1990s, he was reinstated in power using a revolution. After this, Northern part of the country declared independence. However, it is still unrecognized.

Until today, Somalia is among the top countries receiving help from the UN. UN constantly sends peacekeeping forces in order to facilitate aids distributed into the populace.

4. Iraq Civil War

Right after 9-11 when America decided to attack Iraq in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction, it has left the country in ruins. In effect, it has created a civil war that has been responsible for the creation of ISIS. It is part of our list of bloody civil wars because of number of other countries directly or indirectly affected by Iraq’s conflict.

It started when Fallujah and Mosul were conquered by ISIS. This forced the resignation of PM Nouri Al-Maliki. Also, this problem resulted to massive number of refugees and civilian casualties.

3. Boko Haram Insurgency

Boko Haram is a jihadist group that decided to take arms in 2009 against the government of Nigeria. By 2012, there were different factions that have been formed from Boko Haram. The most dominant and violent faction is led by Abubakar Shekau. In 2015, there were other Boko Haram groups that have joined Al Qaeda.

By 2013, 1,000 people already died as a result of this conflict. By 2014, it escalated even more and casualties reached to over 10,000 deaths. Today, the conflict has been seen in other African countries.

2. War in North West Pakistan

Another one making it in our list of bloody civil wars of modern era is the War in North West Pakistan. The War in North West Pakistan is a conflict which is also known as War in Waziristan. The state of Pakistan is involved in an armed conflict with groups such as Terik-i-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP) and ISIS. It started in 2004 when the government was searching for possible Al Qaeda members in Waziristan. Eventually, it has escalated into fully armed resistance. Cumulative number of casualties is at almost 60,000 today and it is still ongoing. >> Political Experiments On Pakistan In 70 Years.

1. Spanish Civil War

During 1936 to 1939, The Spanish Civil War can be considered as one of the bloodiest civil wars in modern history. It is included in our list of bloody civil wars of modern era simply because of the actions of the fascist Nationalist group.

The conflict is supporters of Nationalists led by General Franco and democratically elect president. The thing that makes Spanish Civil War significant in history is its prelude to the Second World War. Nazi Germany supported Franco who eventually ruled the country as a dictator, while Soviet Union supported the opposing side.

There are many conflicts within countries. From rebel groups trying to gain power to religious groups trying to get rid of each other, these are just some of the reasons why some conflicts are present in some countries. However, there are also instances when it is initiated by other factors such as presence of foreign influence such as CIA supporting groups that can protect US interest.

Bloody Civil Wars of Modern Era

1. Spanish Civil War
2. War in North West Pakistan
3. Boko Haram Insurgency
4. Iraq Civil War
5. Somali Civil War
6. The Laos Secret War
7. Angolan Civil War
8. Sri Lankan Civil War
9. Chinese Civil War
10. Islamic Resistance and Communism in the Philippines
11. Sectarian Violence in Pakistan
12. Bosnian War

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