Record · Classical world · Europe
How Did a 20-Year-Old Conquer the World?
At twenty Alexander inherited his father's unbeatable army, struck the gap at Gaugamela, and reached India — his true legacy was the Hellenistic world.
· 336 BCWars & battles
Articles about wars & battles across every continent and era, oldest first.
Record · Classical world · Europe
Can Half an Army Beat Hundreds of Thousands?
At Gaugamela (331 BC) Alexander's ~47,000 faced a Persian host the sources call hundreds of thousands — and won by driving a cavalry wedge through a single gap, ending the Achaemenid empire.
· 331 BC
Record · Classical world · Africa
Why Did Nine-Year-Old Hannibal Swear an Oath Against Rome?
As a boy of about nine, Hannibal is said to have sworn at an altar never to be a friend to Rome — an oath his father Hamilcar Barca set in him after Carthage's defeat in the First Punic War, told by the historian Polybius.
· 237 BC
Record · Classical world · Africa
Why Did One Man Lead War Elephants Over the Alps?
Why did Hannibal lead war elephants over the Alps? The sea was Rome's, so Carthage's general took the road no one expected — and trapped Rome at Cannae.
· 218 BC
Record · Classical world · Africa
What Single Day's Battle Is Still Taught in Military Academies?
At Cannae (216 BC), the outnumbered Hannibal drew Rome's larger army into a double envelopment and turned its numbers into a trap — still taught in military academies 2,200 years later.
· 216 BC
Record · Medieval world · East Asia
How Did the Nomads of the Steppe Swallow the World?
Not numbers but a war machine: speed, decimal discipline, and absorbed siege tech built history's largest land empire — about twice the size of Rome.
· 1206
Record · Medieval world · East Asia
What Pulled the Trigger on History's Largest Empire — the Mongol Empire?
History's largest land empire began not with an army but with a trade caravan: the Otrar massacre of ~450 merchants and the killing of Genghis Khan's envoys triggered the invasion of Khwarazm — an empire about twice the size of Rome.
· 1206
Record · Medieval world · East Asia
Which Empire Was the Largest in History — Was It Really Rome?
The largest empire in history was not Rome. By contiguous land, the 13th-century Mongol Empire — some 24 million km² from the East Sea to Eastern Europe — was the biggest ever, though the British Empire was larger by non-contiguous total.
· 1279
Record · Ancient world · Africa
What Did Howard Carter See by Candlelight in Tutankhamun's Tomb?
In 1922 Howard Carter peered by candlelight through a sealed door in Egypt's Valley of the Kings and said 'wonderful things' — the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, the only nearly-intact pharaoh's tomb ever found.
· 1922