What was the most important battle in world history?

Whilst not technically a war, probably the Cuban Missile Crisis. That one could have ended civilization had it gone the other way...

1066 -- The Battle of Hastings

jesusisahippy said:

perhaps you could elaborate on how the crusades stopped the advancement of islam into europe?
i was under the impression that the muslim and christian worlds were at peace at the time of the beginning of the first crusade

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You were under the wrong impression. Probably gained from anti-christian revisionist historians. Islam has engaged in a continuous war of expansion against Christianity since 630AD. In fact islam is not allowed to be at permanent peace with "INFIDELS". There can be a tactical truce but no more. Jihad is a permanent thing.

The crusades were launched following appeals from the Eastern Empire following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, in which muslim armies invaded the core of Anatolia, driving out the Christians and raiding and slaughtering to the very walls of Constantinople. The muslims had also been attacking pilgrims tto the Holy Land and had systematically destroyed the Christian shrines there a few years earlier.

Cajun Huguenot said:

1066 -- The Battle of Hastings

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good suggestion.

The battle of Hastings totally changed the nature of English society from a fairly easy-going germanic culture without strong social divisions, to a very divided society on the base of class and rank. It made Britain the most class-divided society in Europe, and alligned England with continental forces based in france.

Without the "Norman yoke" imposed by the Battle, England might have been a seafaring nation earlier and not got involved in European wars. This would have had a big effect on things like the discovery of America, and how the British Empire developed.

Not enlightened on the Franco-Prussian War, but which ever battle won it for the Germans. From what I perceive of it, after the war, Germany was finally unified as a state which helped pave the way to the two world wars.

Setting free the Jewish from the nazzi's
just look at the large amount of Deads.
So I will have to say WWII
the Jewish were the most affected( Anne Frank is one of them)

Too species-centric as well.

I'd say the battle between European germs and Native American germs in the wake of the Columbian exchange.

The Battle of Tours (732ad). Europe would be Islam if the Franks had lost. The U.S. (if any) would have been quite different, and Columbus would not have discovered America.

Can't name a single one, so here's a list:

Marathon
Thermopolae
Salamis
Hastings
Saratoga
Tours
Yorktown
Trafalgar
Midway
Kursk
Battle of Britain
D-Day:Normandy

I'd say, Civil war or the American revolution, without those battles america would have never been in the world wars to help out. I know none are battles but they are really important.

Some of these will most likely overlap many of yours. But there may yet be a few nuggets you didn't readily think of.

1--THERMOPYLAE, c. 475 BCE. Three hundred Spartan hoplites fended off the quarter-million soldiers of the Persian army for three days, giving the rest of Greece the chance to regroup. Without this stand, there is no Greece, no Aristotle or Socrates, no democracy, and most likely no Alexander or Rome--in short, no Western Civilization.

2--TOURS, 732. Kept the Moors from invading the remainder of Europe. Jept Islam from crushing Christianity.

3--D-DAY, 1944. Since some of us can even remember it, you don't need me to explain why.

4--ARBELA, c. 332 BCE. Alexander defeats the Persians and more or less turns Macedonia into a superpower.

5--GAUL, 55 BCE. As a general, Julius Caesar defeated the pesky Celts and their fearless leader Vercingetorix. Using a double-wall, they effectively beseiged the Celts, kept reinforcements and supplies cut off, and protected themselves from other Germanics. Caesar sealed his place as a first-rate general. Without this victory, Caesar could never have returned to Rome in triumph and have the audacity to set himself in position to make himself emperor.

6--TALAS RIVER, 751. The Chinese equivalent to the Battle of Tours, this battle kept Islam from invading China. The rough borders between China and Islam became fused at this place for all time.

7--SPANISH ARMADA, 1588. Turned Britain into a superpower, capable of engaging in colonialism in the New World. Was also an important defense of all things Protestant--never forget the Pope's disgust with Elizabeth for beheading the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots.

8--MOSCOW, 1812. Napoleon burned his way across Europe and Russia, and was within sight of the gates of Moscow. Laying seige to the city, Napoleon underestimated the will of the Russian people (not only to endure, but to burn everything Napoleon might have made use of) as well as the brutality of the Russian winter. Hitler would make the exact same mistake 130 years later at Stalingrad.

9--WOUNDED KNEE, 1890. Marked the end of Native American resistence to the US Army. Signalled victory in the American genocidal campaign against the Indian populations.

10--YORKTOWN, 1783. Without it, the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the parchment it is written on.

Axion said:

You were under the wrong impression. Probably gained from anti-christian revisionist historians. Islam has engaged in a continuous war of expansion against Christianity since 630AD. In fact islam is not allowed to be at permanent peace with "INFIDELS". There can be a tactical truce but no more. Jihad is a permanent thing.

The crusades were launched following appeals from the Eastern Empire following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, in which muslim armies invaded the core of Anatolia, driving out the Christians and raiding and slaughtering to the very walls of Constantinople. The muslims had also been attacking pilgrims tto the Holy Land and had systematically destroyed the Christian shrines there a few years earlier.

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Incorrect on several levels. The Crusades as a European endeavor began when Pope Urban II received a letter from Alexius II, emperor of Constantinople, seeking aid against the invading Seljuk Turks. That was in 1096. Urban took Alexius's want for military backup as an excuse to invade the Holy Land on the whole.

Part of the problem with this post of yours is that you make no distinction between Arab and Turk. As far as you are concerned, they are all Muslim. That is equivalent to saying there is no difference between a Frenchman and a German, and therefore the Holocaust was a Christian war against the Jews. Completely errant on your part.

I am not saying the Muslim people weren't always out there in the periphery, off-and-on on the verge of invading Europe. There are many historical cases where that is true. But in this case, the Crusades were not a war of defense against the Muslims at all.

If anything, Alexius was more or less sorry he ever asked the Pope for help. Once the European ragtag armies strolled across Europe, raping and pillaging everything in sight (what they did to the Jews in the Rhineland in 1096 was nothing short of a slaughter, to which my professor politely called "practice"), they came to Constantinople and basically turned the city and the coast of southern Turkey into what Woodstock must have looked like after all the hippies left.

As much as you want to start an anti-Muslim rant, I have to tell you that you are wrong.

Russebby said:

Some of these will most likely overlap many of yours. But there may yet be a few nuggets you didn't readily think of.

1--THERMOPYLAE, c. 475 BCE. Three hundred Spartan hoplites fended off the quarter-million soldiers of the Persian army for three days, giving the rest of Greece the chance to regroup. Without this stand, there is no Greece, no Aristotle or Socrates, no democracy, and most likely no Alexander or Rome--in short, no Western Civilization.

2--TOURS, 732. Kept the Moors from invading the remainder of Europe. Jept Islam from crushing Christianity.

3--D-DAY, 1944. Since some of us can even remember it, you don't need me to explain why.

4--ARBELA, c. 332 BCE. Alexander defeats the Persians and more or less turns Macedonia into a superpower.

5--GAUL, 55 BCE. As a general, Julius Caesar defeated the pesky Celts and their fearless leader Vercingetorix. Using a double-wall, they effectively beseiged the Celts, kept reinforcements and supplies cut off, and protected themselves from other Germanics. Caesar sealed his place as a first-rate general. Without this victory, Caesar could never have returned to Rome in triumph and have the audacity to set himself in position to make himself emperor.

6--TALAS RIVER, 751. The Chinese equivalent to the Battle of Tours, this battle kept Islam from invading China. The rough borders between China and Islam became fused at this place for all time.

7--SPANISH ARMADA, 1588. Turned Britain into a superpower, capable of engaging in colonialism in the New World. Was also an important defense of all things Protestant--never forget the Pope's disgust with Elizabeth for beheading the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots.

8--MOSCOW, 1812. Napoleon burned his way across Europe and Russia, and was within sight of the gates of Moscow. Laying seige to the city, Napoleon underestimated the will of the Russian people (not only to endure, but to burn everything Napoleon might have made use of) as well as the brutality of the Russian winter. Hitler would make the exact same mistake 130 years later at Stalingrad.

9--WOUNDED KNEE, 1890. Marked the end of Native American resistence to the US Army. Signalled victory in the American genocidal campaign against the Indian populations.

10--YORKTOWN, 1783. Without it, the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the parchment it is written on.

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I'm glad you included number 6, but its a reflection of our historical biases that only one significant battle occurs outside of Europe and North America. Surely Asia, South America and Africa were not just peaceful "paradises" throughout recorded history, or continents were only "insignificant" wars were fought.

jgarden said:

I'm glad you included number 6, but its a reflection of our historical biases that only one significant battle occurs outside of Europe and North America. Surely Asia, South America and Africa were not just peaceful "paradises" throughout recorded history, or continents were only "insignificant" wars were fought.

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I recognize that most on a board like this are going to merely talk about European/American history, and that is fine, folks will talk about what they know. But if you would like to carry on a conversation about the rise and fall of the African empires--Ghana, the Songhai, Mali--it would be a stretch, but I would be honored. I can also carry on conversations about Asian history as well.

I did think, however, a battle involving Native Americans would be something to pique your interest.

For your edification, here are five significant battles in other places of the world that maybe should be on a similar list:

1--DIEN BIEN PHU, 1954. The Vietnamese declared their independence in 1945 with the withdrawal of the Japanese. The Allies wished to maintain France as a colonial power, and the new communist regime would have no part of it. Dien Bien Phu is to Vietnam what Yorktown is to the United States. It ended French occupation and initiated American involvement.

2--BATTLE AT THE PYRAMIDS, 1798. Napoleon sought to make Egypt a jewel in his new empire. What he actually did, in the long run, is initiate a new era of European colonialism, where especially France and England carved up the Middle East and Asia for their own purposes. The basic problems in the Middle East today can trace their antecedents to this battle.

3--KAMIKAZE, 1294?. Kublai Khan completed the Mongol conquest of China and set his sights on Japan. Not known as a maritime power, Khan was able to assemble a fairly impressive fleet. But a storm, a "divine wind" (despite modern opinion, the word kamikaze means divine wind, not suicide), swept over the Mongol fleet and saved the Japanese islands from certain invasion. Not a real battle per se. But definitely a military event worth noting.

4--VERACRUZ, 1848. Instead of waging a border battle with Mexico, the US decided to go straight for Mexico City and find a swift victory. By landing in southern Mexico, like Cortez had done three centuries earlier, the American armies were able to lay seige to Mexico City and strangulate it, much as conquistadors had done to Tenochtitlan. The Americans could have taken the entire country of Mexico at that point--instead, they took what they wanted and left the rest. Without this battle and war, Americans might never hanve discovered gold in Northern California later that year, and the Westward Expansion, one of the largest human migrations in history, might not have occurred.

5--MOLLACAS, 1513. The Portuguese were new to southeast Asia, and they were competing with the Spanish for the riches of the Orient. A young Portuguese explorer fighting under the Spanish flag, Ferdinand Magellan, assisted the great Spanish general de Albuquerque in defeating a cavalry of Malays on elephant-back. This victory ensured Magellan a certain bit of prestige, enough to secure for himself a small armada when he returned to Europe for an unprecedented voyage around the world. Had Magellan died in battle, who knows.

Really, there are too many, and evil (or w/e) is too subjective. I doubt Hitler or his followers considered him evil, but look at the modern opinion of him. Also, I believe in a certain degree of predestination were we have free will but there is only one possible reality, it is very confusing for even me so don't ask me to explain it...

The Battle of the Milvean Bridge in 312. Where Constantine won and through a series of twists, Christianity became legal in the empire.

Individual-KesTrel said:

I think the first battle we had on earth was probally the most important. Because it just created that dumb idea that violence can be used as a solution to problems, rather than the fact that it is a problem.

I think the most important battles were staged by Martin Luther King Jr. one of few who knows how to battle.

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ah, from one who has experience.

Peaceful protests are important but true battles are one where you put your life on the line to support or defend something worth fighting for.

If you aren't willing to fight for something then you will fall for everything.

War should be the last resort but they must be fought.

Sorry to tell you, war is a solution to problems, conquering and killing the problem takes care of it.

The most important battle ever fought was during 1588 when Britain defeated the Spanish Armada. From this point on the sun never set on English soil until very recently. Had this not occurred the US as the greatest country the world has ever seen would not have come into existance.

reznwerks said:

From this point on the sun never set on English soil until very recently.

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1997 I think.

toss up- Pearl Harbor or D-DAY