Charles I leads his army into action at Edgehill - the first, but inconclusive, battle in the English Civil War

In the first decisive battle of the English Civil War the king's nephew, Rupert of the Rhine, is heavily defeated at Marston Moor

The royalist forces, again under the command of Rupert of the Rhine, suffer another major defeat at Naseby

Charles II is defeated by Cromwell at Worcester and escapes in disguise to France

Turenne defeats Condé in a battle in the Paris suburbs, hastening the decline of the Fronde

The armies of James II and William III confront each at the river Boyne, with victory going to William

The duke of Marlborough wins a major victory over the French at Blenheim, capturing twenty-four battalions and four regiments

The Swedish king Charles XII suffers his first major defeat in a brilliant career, when he faces the Russians at Poltava

Maurice de Saxe, with a French army including an Irish brigade, defeats British, Austrian and Dutch forces at Fontenoy

Charles Edward Stuart and his 5000 Scots are routed at Culloden, bringing the Forty-Five Rebellion to an abrupt end

George Washington kills ten French troops at Fort Duquesne, in the first violent clash of the French and Indian war

The army led by Edward Braddock and George Washington is ambushed at Fort Duquesne and Braddock is killed

British general James Wolfe sails up the St Lawrence river with 15,000 men to besiege Quebec

Frederick the Great suffers his first major defeat, by a Russian and Austrian army at Kunersdorf

A British defeat of the French in Quiberon Bay prompts David Garrick to write Heart of Oak

George Washington defeats the British at Trenton at a psychologically important moment in the course of the war

The American general Horatio Gates captures the army of General Burgoyne near Saratoga

The British general Charles Cornwallis, isolated at Yorktown, is forced to surrender in the final engagement of the Revolutionary War

A French revolutionary army defeats the Austrians and Prussians at Valmy, and thus saves Paris from attack

After their success at Valmy, French republican armies overrun much of the Austrian Netherlands

Napoleon's campaign in Egypt begins well with the Battle of the Pyramids, a victory over an Egyptian army

Disaster strikes the French in Egypt when Nelson finds their fleet in Aboukir Bay and destroys it in the Battle of the Nile

Napoleon takes a French army through the Alps before the snows have cleared, and defeats the Austrians at Marengo

Horatio Nelson puts his telescope to his blind eye when the signal is given to withdraw from Copenhagen harbour

Horatio Nelson dies on the deck of the Victory after winning the battle of Trafalgar