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WarExplorer

Explore history's defining conflicts through interactive maps, primary sources, character profiles, and narrative storytelling. Understand not just who fought — but why.

⚔️ Choose a Conflict 📊 Compare Wars 🕸️ Connections Graph ℹ️ About

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Current Conflicts

Historical context for today's wars

Russia-Ukraine War

2022 – Present

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine — the largest conventional war in Europe since WWII. Ukraine's resistance shattered expectations and redrew the post-Cold War order.

Historical roots

✈️World War II·Same Theater☢️Cold War·Direct Predecessor👑Napoleonic Wars·Strategic Echo

Israel-Hamas War

2023 – Present

Hamas's October 7 attack — the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust — triggered Israel's military campaign in Gaza and a humanitarian crisis reshaping the Middle East.

Historical roots

🪖World War I·Root Cause✈️World War II·Founding Context

US–Iran Conflict

2025 – Present

US precision airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — the most direct US military action against Iran in decades — reshaped the Middle East's strategic balance.

Historical roots

☢️Cold War·Deep Root✈️World War II·Pattern of Intervention🛢️Gulf War·Regional Context

Sudan Civil War

2023 – Present

War between Sudan's army and the RSF paramilitary has created the world's largest displacement crisis — over 10 million displaced, famine spreading through Darfur, and a capital city reduced to rubble.

Historical roots

✈️World War II·Colonial Legacy☢️Cold War·Proxy Roots

Interactive Feature

Compare Wars Dashboard

All conflicts on one canvas — timeline, casualties chart, and a world map of every recorded battle.

Interactive Feature

War Connections Graph

See how every conflict connects. French & Indian War → American Revolution → Napoleonic Wars → WWI → WWII. The Seven Years' War ties into almost everything.

Choose a Conflict

French & Indian War

1754 – 1763

Britain and France battle for dominance of North America, sowing the seeds of the American Revolution.

Seven Years' War

1756 – 1763

The first true world war — Prussia and Britain against Austria, France, and Russia. Frederick the Great's survival against impossible odds and Britain's global victories remade the modern world.

American Revolution

1775 – 1783

Thirteen colonies declare independence from the British Empire and forge a new nation through eight years of revolutionary war.

Napoleonic Wars

1803 – 1815

Napoleon Bonaparte's bid to dominate Europe — twelve years of revolutionary warfare that remade the continent and ended at Waterloo.

War of 1812

1812 – 1815

The young United States fights Britain again over maritime rights and impressment, burning York and defending Fort McHenry.

Mexican-American War

1846 – 1848

Manifest Destiny drives the U.S. to war with Mexico, resulting in the conquest of half a continent and training a generation of Civil War generals.

American Civil War

1861 – 1865

A nation divided over slavery and the nature of the republic tears itself apart in the bloodiest war in American history.

American Indian Wars

1860s – 1890

The decades-long struggle between the U.S. Army and the Native nations of the Great Plains — a conflict of survival, broken treaties, and the closing of the frontier.

Spanish-American War

1898

A ten-week war that ended the Spanish Empire and launched the United States as a global power — fought in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

Russo-Japanese War

1904 – 1905

Japan's stunning defeat of a European great power shocked the world, inspired anti-colonial movements across Asia, and set the stage for the Russian Revolution.

World War I

1914 – 1918

The Great War — empires collapse, industrialized slaughter in the trenches, and the world is remade by the armistice.

World War II

1939 – 1945

The largest conflict in human history — from Blitzkrieg to D-Day to Hiroshima, the world fights fascism.

Korean War

1950 – 1953

The 'Forgotten War' — a brutal three-year conflict that divided a peninsula, defined Cold War brinkmanship, and ended in an armistice that still holds today.

Vietnam War

1955 – 1975

Cold War proxy war in the jungles of Southeast Asia reshapes American foreign policy and domestic politics.

Gulf War

1990 – 1991

Operation Desert Storm — a 42-day air war and 100-hour ground blitz that expelled Iraq from Kuwait, forged the largest coalition since WWII, and ushered in the age of precision warfare.

Cold War

1947 – 1991

The 44-year ideological struggle between the United States and Soviet Union — fought through nuclear brinkmanship, proxy wars on every continent, covert operations, and the space race — that defined the second half of the twentieth century.

Arab-Israeli War

1948 – 1949

Israel's War of Independence — the newborn state fights for survival against five Arab armies in the conflict Palestinians call the Nakba, the Catastrophe.

Suez Crisis

1956

Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal, triggering a secret Anglo-French-Israeli invasion — and a humiliating superpower veto that ended British imperial pretensions and forged the modern Middle East.

Six-Day War

1967

In six days, Israel destroys three Arab air forces on the ground, captures the Sinai, West Bank, Gaza, and Golan Heights — reshaping the Middle East for generations.

Yom Kippur War

1973

Egypt and Syria launch a surprise attack on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, nearly destroying Israel before a massive US resupply saves it — and the oil shock that followed reshapes the global economy.

Iran-Iraq War

1980 – 1988

Eight years of industrial-scale slaughter — Saddam Hussein's invasion of revolutionary Iran becomes a grinding war of attrition that kills a million people and ends exactly where it began.

War in Afghanistan

2001 – 2021

Twenty years after 9/11, the Taliban are back in Kabul — America's longest war ends where it began, raising fundamental questions about the limits of military power and nation-building.

Iraq War

2003 – 2011

Operation Iraqi Freedom — a 21-day blitzkrieg topples Saddam Hussein, then the occupation collapses into sectarian civil war, insurgency, and Abu Ghraib, defining a generation of American foreign policy failure.

Russia-Ukraine War

2022 – Present

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine — the largest conventional war in Europe since WWII. Ukraine's resistance shattered expectations and redrew the post-Cold War order.

Israel-Hamas War

2023 – Present

Hamas's October 7 attack — the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust — triggered Israel's military campaign in Gaza and a humanitarian crisis reshaping the Middle East.

US–Iran Conflict

2025 – Present

US precision airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — the most direct US military action against Iran in decades — reshaped the Middle East's strategic balance.

Sudan Civil War

2023 – Present

War between Sudan's army and the RSF paramilitary has created the world's largest displacement crisis — over 10 million displaced, famine spreading through Darfur, and a capital city reduced to rubble.