World War II
The deadliest conflict in human history is also the one that quietly shaped almost every major institution the world still runs on today.
World War I
A war triggered by a single assassination that, thanks to a web of alliances, dragged the entire European continent into fighting within weeks.
Pearl Harbor
One Sunday-morning raid lasting under two hours pulled a reluctant United States into the largest war in history.
The Battle of Stalingrad
A city named for Stalin became the place where Hitler's advance in the East finally broke.
The Battle of Britain
A few thousand pilots, a new technology called radar, and one very well-organized control system kept Britain in the war.
D-Day
Nearly 160,000 troops landed on a single stretch of coastline in a single day, making D-Day still the largest seaborne invasion ever attempted.
The Manhattan Project
Over 130,000 people worked on the Manhattan Project at its peak, and most had no idea what they were building.
The Marshall Plan
One 1947 Harvard commencement speech set in motion roughly $13 billion in aid to rebuild war-wrecked Western Europe.
The Cold War
A four-decade standoff between two superpowers who never fought each other directly, but came within minutes of nuclear war more than once.
The Treaty of Versailles
The treaty meant to prevent another world war is often blamed for helping cause the next one.