Outcome · 6 battles
Tactical
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Greco-Persian Wars · 480
The Last Stand at Thermopylae
In 480 BC, Leonidas and a Greek coalition held a narrow pass against Xerxes's army in a deliberate, calculated sacrifice that forged the moral foundation of Western civic virtue.
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Queen Anne's War (War of the Spanish Succession) · 1702
The Siege of Castillo de San Marcos
In 1702, Carolina's James Moore tried to take Spanish St. Augustine and the coquina-walled Castillo de San Marcos. The walls absorbed everything he threw at them — and two Spanish warships finished the story.
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World War I · 1918
Belleau Wood, 1918: The Battle That Made Marines Famous
In June 1918, U.S. Marines stopped the German spring offensive in a tangled wood near Château-Thierry — earning the name 'Devil Dogs' and forging the modern Marine Corps identity in blood.
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World War I · 1918
Examining the 'Lost Battalion': Who Was to Blame?
On Hill 198 in the Argonne, Major Charles Whittlesey's 308th held its ground for five days surrounded, gassed, and shelled by its own guns. A reckoning with the leaders who put them there.
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World War II · 1941
Forgotten Valor: The Heroic Defense of Wake Island
For 14 days in December 1941, a handful of Marines, sailors, soldiers, and civilians held a tiny Pacific atoll against the Japanese Navy — and proved Japan was beatable.
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Vietnam War · 1968
The Battle of Hue: Another Example of USMC Tenacity
In January–March 1968, U.S. Marines and ARVN forces clawed back the ancient imperial capital from the NVA in the largest and bloodiest urban battle of the Vietnam War.