50 Fun Facts About American Wars

Which famous residence did British troops set on fire after capturing Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812?

The White House fire and the others were put out within a day by a sudden, violent thunderstorm, possibly a hurricane. The Capitol burned on the same night in August 1814.

Which Boston silversmith rode out on the night of April 18, 1775, to warn that British troops were on the march?

Paul Revere never reached Concord: a British patrol intercepted him beyond Lexington, questioned him and let him go. His fellow riders William Dawes and Samuel Prescott both escaped.

On the beaches of which French region did Allied troops come ashore on D-Day, June 6, 1944?

Normandy was one of four sites the planners weighed. A deception built around a fictitious army group led the Germans to expect the main attack at Calais instead.

Which national symbol points at the viewer in James Montgomery Flagg's famous World War I recruiting poster?

Uncle Sam wears a modified version of the artist's own face in the poster. Flagg borrowed the pointing pose from a British poster of Lord Kitchener made three years earlier.

What kind of animal was Sergeant Stubby, the mascot of a US infantry regiment in France during World War I?

A dog of uncertain breed, Stubby was a stray whom a soldier hid aboard a troop ship bound for Europe. His owner gave the preserved body to the Smithsonian in 1956.

Which future president won the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, two weeks after a peace treaty was signed?

Andrew Jackson beat the British before word of the Treaty of Ghent, signed on Christmas Eve 1814, had crossed the Atlantic. The British suffered over 2,000 casualties to the Americans' 71.

On which Pacific island did six US Marines raise the flag on Mount Suribachi in a famous 1945 photograph?

Iwo Jima's famous picture shows the second flag raised that day, after a smaller one went up in the morning. Three of the six Marines in it were killed later in the battle.

Which Civil War nurse, nicknamed the Angel of the Battlefield, went on to found the American Red Cross?

Clara Barton also ran an office after the fighting that answered more than 41,000 letters and helped locate over 22,000 missing soldiers.

Which Native American nation's language did Marine code talkers turn into an unbroken battlefield code in World War II?

Navajo had no words for modern weapons, so the code talkers made them up: a submarine became an iron fish. The code was never broken.

Which country did US-led forces invade in October 2001, beginning the longest war in American military history?

Afghanistan held American troops for almost 20 years, until the last transport plane left Kabul in August 2021. The invasion began less than a month after the September 11 attacks.

Which hired German troops did Washington surprise at Trenton after crossing the Delaware on Christmas night 1776?

Hessians, rented out to Britain by German princes, made up about a quarter of its land forces in the war. Around 900 of them were taken prisoner at Trenton.

At which Virginia town did Lord Cornwallis surrender his British army in 1781, all but ending the Revolutionary War?

Yorktown's surrender ceremony went ahead without Cornwallis, who claimed to be ill. His deputy offered the sword to a French general, who pointed him toward Washington instead.

Which French nobleman became a major general in Washington's army at age 19 and a hero of the Revolutionary War?

Lafayette came back in 1824 as the nation's guest and toured all 24 states to a rapturous welcome. He is sometimes called the Hero of the Two Worlds.

At which Pennsylvania encampment did Washington's army endure the hungry winter of 1777–78 and emerge better drilled?

Valley Forge cost the army nearly 2,000 lives, lost to disease rather than battle. A Prussian drill master, Baron von Steuben, used the months to retrain the survivors.

Which American general plotted to hand the fort at West Point to the British in 1780 and fled to their side?

Benedict Arnold's plot fell apart when militiamen caught British Major John André carrying papers that revealed it. André was hanged, and the general's name became a byword for treason.

Which American victory in upstate New York in 1777 persuaded France to enter the Revolutionary War as an ally?

Saratoga ended with General John Burgoyne surrendering his entire British army, which had marched south from Canada to take Albany and never reached it.

Which Baltimore stronghold withstood a 25-hour British bombardment in 1814, inspiring the words of the national anthem?

Fort McHenry's defenders swapped their storm flag for a far larger one at dawn. Francis Scott Key saw it still flying and began the poem that became the anthem.

Which US Navy frigate earned the nickname Old Ironsides when British shot rebounded off its hull in the War of 1812?

USS Constitution won the name while wrecking HMS Guerriere in 1812. Launched in 1797, the ship sailed under its own power again to mark its 200th birthday.

Which Shawnee leader built a confederacy of tribes, sided with Britain in the War of 1812 and died in battle in 1813?

Tecumseh helped the British capture Detroit in August 1812. His death at the Battle of the Thames, in what is now Ontario, caused his alliance to collapse.

Which president asked Congress to declare war on Britain in 1812 and fled the capital two years later to avoid capture?

James Madison got his war by the narrowest margin of any American declaration of war: 79 to 49 among the representatives and 19 to 13 in the Senate.

Which river did the United States claim as the border of Texas, a dispute that sparked the Mexican–American War?

The Rio Grande was the line President Polk insisted on, while Mexico put the border at the Nueces River, farther north. Fighting began after Polk sent soldiers into the strip between them.

Which general, nicknamed Old Rough and Ready, rode his Mexican–American War fame to the presidency in 1848?

Zachary Taylor had never voted in an election before his own. He had held off a much larger Mexican army under Santa Anna at Buena Vista in 1847.

Which future US state did Mexico cede in February 1848, nine days after gold was found there at Sutter's Mill?

California was the prize of a peace treaty that cost Mexico 55 percent of its territory. The United States paid $15 million for the land.

Which three-day battle in Pennsylvania in July 1863 is widely considered the turning point of the Civil War?

Gettysburg cost the two armies between 46,000 and 51,000 casualties, the most of any Civil War battle. It ended after Pickett's Charge, an assault by about 12,000 Confederates, was thrown back.

Which island post in Charleston Harbor did Confederate guns bombard in April 1861 to open the Civil War?

Fort Sumter gave up after 34 hours of shelling in which nobody on either side was killed. Lincoln answered by calling for 75,000 volunteers, and four more states left the Union.

In which Virginia village did Robert E. Lee surrender his army in April 1865, all but ending the Civil War?

Appomattox homeowner Wilmer McLean had moved there to escape the war after its first major battle was fought near his farm at Manassas. The surrender was signed in his parlor.

Which Civil War battle in Maryland remains the bloodiest single day in American history?

Antietam left nearly 23,000 dead, wounded or missing on 17 September 1862. The result gave Lincoln the confidence to issue his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation five days later.

Which Union general captured Vicksburg in 1863 and was then given command of all the Union armies?

Ulysses S. Grant had already been hailed by Northern newspapers as Unconditional Surrender Grant, a play on his initials, after taking Fort Donelson in 1862.

Which Union general led the March to the Sea across Georgia in 1864, from Atlanta to the port of Savannah?

William T. Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln to present the captured port as a Christmas gift, along with 150 heavy guns and about 25,000 bales of cotton.

Which Union ironclad fought CSS Virginia to a standstill in 1862, in history's first combat between ironclad warships?

USS Monitor carried just two guns, mounted in a revolving armored turret. The ship sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras on the last day of the same year.

At which port near Seoul did UN forces make a surprise amphibious landing behind North Korean lines in September 1950?

Inchon was a risky choice: its currents were dangerously quick and its tides so extreme that follow-up landings had to wait. It struck far behind the army besieging UN troops around Pusan.

Which cavalry commander was killed with every man under his direct command at the Little Bighorn in 1876?

George Custer died alongside two of his brothers, a nephew and a brother-in-law. Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors wiped out five troops of the 7th Cavalry.

Which 1898 war began after USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor and was over in under four months?

The Spanish–American War lasted just 16 weeks, yet it handed the United States Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines and made Cuba an American protectorate.

Which future president helped lead the volunteer cavalry regiment called the Rough Riders in Cuba in 1898?

Theodore Roosevelt and his cavalrymen fought on foot, because their horses were not shipped to the island with them. He had quit a senior Navy Department post to join up.

Which British ocean liner did a German U-boat sink off Ireland in 1915, killing about 128 Americans?

RMS Lusitania went down in only 18 minutes after a single torpedo struck, and nearly 1,200 of the people aboard were lost. The sinking turned opinion in many countries against Germany.

Which intercepted 1917 German message, offering Mexico help to win back Texas, pushed the US toward World War I?

The Zimmermann Telegram was decoded by British codebreakers in the Admiralty's Room 40. It proposed a military alliance with Mexico if America joined the fight against Germany.

By what nickname, first recorded in the Mexican–American War, were American infantrymen of World War I known?

Doughboys stayed in use until the early 1940s, when G.I. gradually took over for the next generation of soldiers. Nobody is sure where the name came from.

Which US federal holiday on November 11 began as Armistice Day, marking the end of the fighting in World War I?

Veterans Day got its present name in 1954, after ex-servicemen's groups urged Congress to widen the holiday. The date recalls the ceasefire of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

Which general, nicknamed Black Jack, commanded the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I?

John J. Pershing is the only American promoted in his own lifetime to General of the Armies, the highest possible rank in the United States Army. Free to pick his own insignia, he kept wearing four stars.

Which Iraqi city did US Marines and soldiers storm in November 2004, in the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War?

Fallujah brought some of the heaviest urban combat American troops had seen since the fight for Hue in Vietnam in 1968. Coalition forces lost 107 dead in about six weeks.

Which battleship, sunk at Pearl Harbor with the loss of 1,177 crew, still lies beneath a memorial there?

USS Arizona accounted for about half of all the lives lost in the attack, after a bomb set off one of its ammunition magazines. The memorial is built across the sunken hull.

What was the code name of the secret American program that built the first atomic bombs during World War II?

The Manhattan Project was named for the Army engineer district that ran it, whose first headquarters were in New York City. At its peak it employed nearly 130,000 people.

Which general did President Truman relieve of command in April 1951 for publicly criticizing his Korean War policy?

Douglas MacArthur was a five-star general, and his dismissal became a lasting test case for civilian control of the military. Matthew Ridgway took over his command.

Which 1968 surprise attack, launched during a holiday truce, struck more than 100 South Vietnamese towns and cities?

The Tet Offensive began while about half of South Vietnam's troops were due to be on leave for the lunar new year. American public support for the war declined in its wake.

Which South Vietnamese capital fell to North Vietnamese forces in April 1975 and was renamed Ho Chi Minh City?

Saigon's fall was preceded by the largest helicopter evacuation in history, which lifted about 7,000 people out of the city in two days.

Which small oil-rich country did Iraq invade in August 1990, setting off the Gulf War?

Kuwait was overrun within two days. The ground campaign that freed it the following February lasted just one hundred hours before the coalition called a ceasefire.

Which 21-year-old Yale student designed the black granite wall in Washington that names America's Vietnam War dead?

Maya Lin beat more than 1,400 other entries in a public design competition while still an undergraduate. Her V-shaped wall points toward the Lincoln Memorial on one side and the Washington Monument on the other.

Which North African city's ruler declared war on the United States in 1801 after Jefferson refused to pay tribute?

Tripoli's pasha declared war in the customary Barbary manner, by cutting down the flagstaff outside the American consulate. The fight is remembered in the opening of the Marines' Hymn.

Which naval conflict did the United States fight against France, mostly in the Caribbean, from 1798 to 1800?

The Quasi-War was never formally declared by either side. It grew out of French privateers seizing American merchant ships and ended with the Convention of 1800.

Which 47-day American campaign in France in 1918 is the deadliest in the history of the United States Army?

Meuse–Argonne drew in 1.2 million Americans and cost 26,277 of them their lives. The fighting stopped only with the Armistice of 11 November 1918.