History turns on days like these. From the phalanx at Marathon to the beaches of Normandy, these are 32 battles that decided the fate of empires, faiths and nations. Each one is told in full in our Field Dispatch; follow the thread across more than two thousand years.
Antiquity
Marathon, 490 BC. Athens saves itself and the idea of Greece.
Thermopylae, 480 BC. The 300 and a stand that became legend.
Salamis, 480 BC. The narrows where the Persian fleet was broken.
Gaugamela, 331 BC. Alexander shatters the Persian Empire.
Cannae, 216 BC. Hannibal's perfect double envelopment.
Zama, 202 BC. Scipio beats Hannibal and ends Carthage.
Actium, 31 BC. The sea battle that made the first emperor.
The Middle Ages
Tours, 732. Charles Martel halts the Umayyad advance.
Hastings, 1066. The day England changed hands.
Crécy, 1346. The longbow breaks the French chivalry.
Grunwald, 1410. The Teutonic Order shattered in an afternoon.
Agincourt, 1415. Henry V's archers in the mud.
The Early Modern age
Lepanto, 1571. The last great galley battle.
Sekigahara, 1600. The battle that made a shogun.
Vienna, 1683. The charge that turned back the Ottomans.
The Napoleonic Wars
Austerlitz, 1805. Napoleon's tactical masterpiece.
Trafalgar, 1805. Nelson breaks two fleets at sea.
Jena-Auerstedt, 1806. Prussia falls in a single day.
Borodino, 1812. The bloodiest day before Moscow.
Leipzig, 1813. The Battle of the Nations.
Waterloo, 1815. The end of the empire.
The Industrial age
Gettysburg, 1863. The Confederacy's high-water mark.
The First World War
The Marne, 1914. The miracle that saved Paris.
First Ypres, 1914. The trenches reach the sea.
Verdun, 1916. They shall not pass.
The Somme, 1916. A million casualties, the symbol of the war.
The Second World War
Battle of Britain, 1940. The few hold the sky.
Moscow, 1941. The Wehrmacht's first great defeat.
Midway, 1942. Five minutes that turned the Pacific.
El Alamein, 1942. The end of the beginning.
Stalingrad, 1942. The tide of the war turns.
Normandy, 1944. The longest day on the beaches.