| Throughout history, wars have been fought because rulers wanted to increase their power and wealth by taking over lands, people or trade controlled by others - or because they were forced to defend their own lands, people or trade from an enemy. Sometimes wars were fought to spread a new religion. Even when a war was being fought for profit, leaders often used religion to make it appear that they were fighting for noble reasons.
A war can involve one or many battles. It may end only when one side finally loses the will to go on or has no army left. Or it may end after a single, decisive fight. The Hundred Years War from 1337 to 1453 is an example of the first kind of war. The Norman invasion of England in 1066 is an example of the second kind of war.
- Battle of Hastings
Battle in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy, and the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, Harold II.
- Boer Wars
In the 19th century relations between the British Government and the Boers changed many times.
- English Civil War
Between 1642 and 1646 England was torn apart by a bloody civil war.
- Hundred Years War
War between England and France from 1337 to 1453.
- Korean War
At the mid point of the twentieth century a savage war broke out in a remote country at the extremity of the Asian landmass.
- Napoleonic Wars
When war broke out between Britain and Revolutionary France in the spring of 1793 there was no immediate threat of French invasion.
- Spanish Civil War
This began as a revolt by army commanders in Morocco.
- War of the Roses
Between 1455 and 1485 two rival branches of the Plantagenet dynasty fought for control of the English throne.
- Vietnam War
The Americans used an attack by the North Vietnamese on the US destroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 as the excuse to begin bombing the north.
- World War One - 1914 to 1919
A German decision to invade France through neutral Belgium led to the British declaration of war on Germany on the 4 August 1914.
- World War Two - 1939 to 1945
The Second World War in Europe began on 3 September 1939 when Britain and France declared war on Germany.
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