BATTLES · BLADES · COMMANDERS
World at War Timeline
Follow the conflicts that shaped history.
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Showing a 400-year window around your selected year. Sword dates are approximate periods of use; commander bars show military activity.
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Akinakes
A short sword associated with Scythian and Persian traditions.
Xiphos
A double-edged Greek sword used alongside the spear in ancient warfare.
Brasidas
A Spartan commander whose northern campaign challenged Athenian power.
Peloponnesian War
Athens and Sparta led rival alliances through a long struggle across the Greek world, with campaigns reaching Sicily and the Aegean.
Amphipolis
A Spartan victory over Athens during the Peloponnesian War, costing both Brasidas and Cleon their lives.
Alexander the Great
The Macedonian king whose campaigns overthrew the Achaemenid Empire.
Granicus
Alexander crossed into Persian territory and fought his first major battle of the Asian campaign.
Punic Wars
Three wars between Rome and Carthage, fought in North Africa, Iberia, Italy and the Mediterranean. The regional highlight spans several continents.
Gladius Hispaniensis
A Roman sword form associated with Republican warfare.
Hannibal
The Carthaginian commander best known for his campaigns against Rome.
Scipio Africanus
The Roman commander who defeated Hannibal at Zama.
Zama
Scipio defeated Hannibal in the battle that ended the Second Punic War. The exact battlefield remains disputed.
Pydna
Roman legionaries defeated the Macedonian army, breaking the power of the Antigonid kingdom.
The Colline Gate
Sulla’s army fought a decisive and exceptionally bloody battle outside Rome.
Seax
A family of single-edged knives and longer fighting blades found across early medieval northern Europe; forms and dates vary.
Heavenfield
Oswald defeated Cadwallon near Hadrian’s Wall in a battle usually dated to c. 634, helping restore Northumbrian power.
Danish Viking sword
Double-edged swords of the Viking Age; forms and fittings varied.
Lindisfarne
The raid on the island monastery became one of the best-known early Viking attacks on Britain.
Æthelred I
King of Wessex who fought the Great Army, including at Ashdown alongside his brother Alfred.
Ashdown
West Saxon forces under Æthelred and Alfred defeated a Viking army. The battlefield’s precise location is uncertain.
Alfred the Great
King of Wessex whose campaigns and reforms helped his kingdom survive Viking conquest.
Hafrsfjord
Traditionally dated to c. 872, this victory is associated with Harald Fairhair’s consolidation of power. Both its date and the later unification story are debated.
Harald Fairhair
A Norwegian ruler associated with Hafrsfjord and the gradual consolidation of kingship. His chronology is uncertain.
Edington
Alfred defeated Guthrum’s army in a decisive reversal of the Viking campaign against Wessex.
Tettenhall
A Mercian and West Saxon army defeated Northumbrian Viking forces returning from a raid into Mercia.
Æthelstan
The English king whose coalition victory at Brunanburh reinforced his rule.
Brunanburh
Æthelstan and Edmund defeated an alliance including Norse, Scottish and Strathclyde forces. Several battlefield locations have been proposed.
Petersen Type Z sword
A late Viking Age sword hilt type, with dating and distribution varying by individual find.
Maldon
An English force under Byrhtnoth was defeated by Viking raiders. The battle became the subject of an Old English poem.
Arming sword
The one-handed, double-edged sword familiar from medieval European warfare.
Svolder
A coalition defeated Olaf Tryggvason in a naval battle traditionally dated to c. 1000. Its exact location is unknown; the marker indicates only a broad candidate region.
Cnut the Great
The Danish ruler whose conquest of England helped create a North Sea empire.
Clontarf
Brian Boru’s coalition defeated an alliance of Irish and Norse forces. The battle was not a simple contest between Irish and Viking armies.
Edmund Ironside
The English king who fought a series of campaigns against Cnut in 1016.
Olaf Haraldsson
The Norwegian king who died at Stiklestad and became Saint Olaf.
Assandun
Cnut defeated Edmund Ironside in a pivotal battle for the English kingdom. The site remains disputed; the marker uses the Ashingdon candidate area.
Stiklestad
Olaf Haraldsson died fighting a coalition opposed to his return to power. His subsequent cult gave the battle a lasting religious significance.
Harald Hardrada
The Norwegian king and veteran of service in the Byzantine world whose English invasion ended at Stamford Bridge.
Harold Godwinson
The English king who defeated Hardrada at Stamford Bridge before falling at Hastings.
Hastings
William’s invasion army defeated Harold’s forces in a contest for the English throne.
Fulford
Harald Hardrada and Tostig defeated the northern English earls Edwin and Morcar on 20 September, shortly before Stamford Bridge.
Stamford Bridge
Harold Godwinson defeated Harald Hardrada’s invading army on 25 September. Hardrada and Tostig were killed.
Crusades in the eastern Mediterranean
A sequence of crusading expeditions and regional wars in the eastern Mediterranean. These dates cover the conventional span of the Latin states, rather than every crusade.
The siege of Antioch
The First Crusade’s long siege was followed by a desperate struggle against a relief army.
Saladin
The Ayyubid ruler and military leader who recaptured Jerusalem in 1187.
Montgisard
Baldwin IV’s army surprised and defeated Saladin’s forces in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
La Forbie
Khwarazmian and Egyptian forces defeated a coalition of Frankish and Syrian troops.
Longsword
A European double-edged sword with a grip suited to two hands, used in varied military and civilian contexts.
Robert the Bruce
King of Scots and a central figure in Scotland’s wars of independence.
Stirling Bridge
A narrow river crossing helped the Scottish army defeat a larger English force.
Bannockburn
Robert the Bruce’s army defeated Edward II during the struggle for Scottish independence.
Hundred Years’ War
A series of wars between the English and French crowns, interrupted by truces and fought largely in France. Includes the campaigns of Crécy, Agincourt and Joan of Arc.
Crécy
Edward III’s army defeated a French force in a major English victory during the Hundred Years’ War.
Katana
The curved Japanese sword developed over centuries, with substantial variation in use and form.
Henry V
The English king whose campaigns included Agincourt and the conquest of Normandy.
Agincourt
Henry V’s army defeated a larger French force on a narrow, rain-soaked battlefield.
Meung-sur-Loire
Joan of Arc’s campaign secured the bridge at Meung and helped open the way along the Loire.
Joan of Arc
A central presence in the French campaigns of 1429, including the Loire offensive.
Kilij
An Ottoman curved sword whose forms evolved over a long period.
Wars of the Roses
Intermittent dynastic struggles for the English crown, from St Albans to Stoke Field. Yorkist, Lancastrian and Tudor coalitions fought through shifting alliances.
Towton
Edward IV’s victory over the Lancastrians helped secure his possession of the English crown.
Edward IV
The Yorkist king and commander whose victories included Towton, Barnet and Tewkesbury.
Tewkesbury
A Yorkist victory that destroyed the immediate Lancastrian military challenge to Edward IV.
Richard III
A Yorkist commander and king who died fighting at Bosworth Field.
Bosworth Field
Richard III died in the battle that brought Henry Tudor to the throne as Henry VII.
The fall of Tenochtitlan
A Spanish-led coalition, including large Indigenous armies, besieged and captured the Mexica capital. The macuahuitl was a wooden weapon with obsidian blades, rather than a metal sword.
Tokugawa Ieyasu
A military and political leader whose victory at Sekigahara preceded the Tokugawa shogunate.
Okehazama
Oda Nobunaga’s attack defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto during Japan’s Sengoku period.
Eighty Years’ War
The revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish rule, fought through sieges, field campaigns and long interruptions. The Dutch Republic secured recognition in 1648.
The siege of Leiden
The city held out during the Dutch Revolt before flooding and a relief fleet helped end the siege.
Sisak
A Christian relief force defeated an Ottoman army near a strategic frontier fortress.
Sekigahara
Tokugawa Ieyasu’s victory reshaped the political order of Japan.
Pappenheimer sword
A complex-hilt European sword associated with the early seventeenth century.
Gustavus Adolphus
The Swedish king whose campaigns helped reshape the Thirty Years’ War.
Thirty Years’ War
A complex series of religious, dynastic and political wars centred on the Holy Roman Empire. Explore the armies and weapons, and the Swedish campaign at Lützen.
Cup-hilt rapier
A thrust-oriented sword particularly associated with Iberian fencing traditions.
Lützen
Swedish forces held the field, but Gustavus Adolphus died in the fighting during the Thirty Years’ War.
English Civil Wars
Three connected civil wars involving Royalists, Parliamentarians and their changing allies. Part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which also engulfed Scotland and Ireland.
Edgehill
The first major pitched battle of the English Civil Wars ended without a decisive victory.
Charles I
The king at the centre of the Royalist cause during the First English Civil War.
Oliver Cromwell
A Parliamentarian cavalry commander and later Commonwealth leader, active across the Three Kingdoms.
Thomas Fairfax
The Parliamentarian commander appointed to lead the New Model Army.
Lostwithiel
Charles I’s campaign trapped the Earl of Essex’s army in Cornwall during the English Civil War.
Naseby
The New Model Army defeated Charles I’s main field army in a decisive Parliamentarian victory.
Napoleon Bonaparte
The French general and emperor whose campaigns transformed Europe.
Horatio Nelson
The British admiral who commanded at the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar.
The Duke of Wellington
A British commander whose campaigns ranged from India to the Iberian Peninsula and Waterloo.
Napoleonic cuirassier sword
Long, straight cavalry swords associated with French heavy cavalry.
Pattern 1803 infantry sabre
A British infantry officer’s sword with a curved blade and distinctive lion-head pommel.
Napoleonic Wars
Successive coalitions fought Napoleon’s France across Europe and beyond. The highlighted region is the principal European theatre, not the full global extent.
Austerlitz
Napoleon defeated the allied Russian and Austrian armies in the Battle of the Three Emperors.
Trafalgar
Nelson’s fleet defeated the combined French and Spanish fleet. Nelson died during the battle.
Gebhard von Blücher
The Prussian commander whose army played a decisive part in the coalition victory at Waterloo.
Talavera
British and Spanish armies faced French attacks in a costly Peninsular War battle.
Prussian Model 1811 Blücher sabre
A Prussian cavalry sabre adopted during the Napoleonic era and retained in later service.
Borodino
On 7 September 1812, Napoleon’s army captured Russian positions at enormous cost. The Russian army withdrew without being destroyed.
Leipzig
Coalition armies defeated Napoleon in the multi-day Battle of the Nations, forcing a French retreat from Germany.
La Rothière
Coalition armies defeated Napoleon during the winter campaign in France.
Waterloo
Wellington’s multinational army and Blücher’s Prussians defeated Napoleon on 18 June 1815, ending his final campaign.
US Model 1840 cavalry sabre
A heavy curved cavalry sword carried before and during the American Civil War.
American Civil War
The Union and Confederacy fought a war shaped by secession and slavery. Follow major campaigns and battles, including Gettysburg.
Gettysburg
Three days of fighting halted Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North during the American Civil War.
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