📅 On This Day in Military History

February 24

9 events across history

Battle of Roslin

A Scottish force under the Guardian John Comyn and Simon Fraser surprised and defeated an English reconnaissance army near Roslin, reportedly catching its divisions strung out and beating them in succession. It was a rare bright spot in a grim decade of English dominance.

Roslin showed resistance still smouldered under Comyn's Guardianship, but it provoked Edward's massive 1303–04 campaign that finally forced almost all of Scotland to submit.

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🛡️The Italian Wars1525

Battle of Pavia

The Imperial army broke into the walled park of Mirabello before dawn to relieve besieged Pavia. Francis, seeing a chance, led the gendarmes in a charge that masked his own artillery — and rode into 1,500 Spanish arquebusiers dispersed among the trees, who shot the French cavalry apart from cover. The flower of the French nobility died in the park. Francis's horse was killed under him and the King of France was captured.

The decisive battle of the Italian Wars and the day the armoured knight died as a battlefield arm. Loose arquebusiers using terrain destroyed the finest heavy cavalry in Europe and took a king prisoner. Francis wrote to his mother that all was lost save honour, was carried off to Madrid, and signed away Burgundy to get out — then repudiated it the moment he was free. Charles V had won Italy and gained an enemy for life.

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⚔️📍 Pavia, Italy1525

Battle of Pavia — France Crushed by Habsburg Forces

Habsburg Imperial forces under Charles de Lannoy destroyed the French army of King Francis I near Pavia, killing most of the French nobility and capturing the king himself. The battle lasted less than two hours and was decided by Spanish arquebusiers.

Pavia demonstrated the decisive power of firearms over medieval cavalry and ended French ambitions in Italy for a generation, cementing Habsburg dominance of Europe.

Outcome

Habsburg victory; King Francis I captured

Casualties

10,000

💀Iran-Iraq War1984

Operation Kheibar

Iran launched Operation Kheibar into the Hawizeh Marshes — a vast labyrinth of water, reeds, and islands on the Iraq-Iran border — using small boats and infantry to cross the waterways and capture the Majnoon Islands, site of one of Iraq's largest undeveloped oil fields. The marsh terrain neutralized Iraq's armor and gave Iran's infantry an advantage. Iraq responded with chemical weapons for the first time against mass civilian-age conscripts, deploying mustard gas by artillery shell and aircraft. Iran captured the Majnoon Islands but could not exploit the breakthrough against prepared positions.

Operation Kheibar was the crucible of Iraq's chemical warfare expansion. Having used tear gas and limited blister agents before, Iraqi commanders now deployed nerve agents against Iranian infantry on a large scale. International protests were muted. The Majnoon Islands changed hands multiple times over the next four years. The operation also demonstrated that Iran had developed a limited amphibious capability — which it would use to devastating effect at Faw in 1986.

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🛢️The Gulf War1991

Operation Desert Sabre — The Left Hook

At 4:00 a.m. on February 24, 1991, 300,000 coalition troops surged into Kuwait and Iraq in the largest ground offensive since World War II. Schwarzkopf's masterstroke was the 'Left Hook' — VII Corps (with 1,500 tanks) and XVIII Airborne Corps made a massive sweeping maneuver 300 miles into the Iraqi desert to the west, far beyond the Iraqi defensive lines, then pivoted east to encircle Kuwait and cut off the Republican Guard's retreat. Marines breached Iraqi minefields and berms directly into Kuwait, pinning Saddam's forces in place while the main blow fell on their flank. Iraqi resistance in most sectors collapsed within hours.

The 'Left Hook' stands as one of the most brilliantly executed ground maneuvers in modern military history — Schwarzkopf's deception plan kept 13 Iraqi divisions watching the coast while the real blow fell hundreds of miles to the west.

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🇺🇦Russia-Ukraine War2022

Battle of Kyiv

Russia's opening gambit — a rapid armored thrust from Belarus toward the Ukrainian capital, accompanied by an airborne seizure of Hostomel Airport. The plan called for Kyiv's fall within 72 hours. Instead, Ukrainian defenders, armed with Javelin missiles and fierce resolve, halted the advance. Russian columns ran out of fuel and were ambushed on clogged roads. The airborne bridgehead at Hostomel was contested and destroyed. After five weeks, Russian forces withdrew completely, having failed to take a single major Ukrainian city.

The failed Kyiv offensive proved Ukraine could resist Russia's military, demolished the myth of Russian military invincibility, and galvanized Western military aid. The discovery of mass atrocities in liberated Bucha and Irpin hardened international opinion and ended any ambiguity about the war's character.

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🇺🇦Russia-Ukraine War2022

Siege of Mariupol

The port city of Mariupol was surrounded within days of the invasion's start. The Ukrainian garrison — primarily the Azov Regiment and marine infantry — withdrew to the vast Azovstal steel plant and conducted a siege-within-a-siege that lasted 82 days. The plant's underground tunnels sheltered fighters and hundreds of civilians. Russia bombarded the complex with artillery, air strikes, and thermobaric weapons. The world watched as the defenders — massively outgunned and out of ammunition — finally negotiated a surrender on May 16.

Mariupol's fall gave Russia a land bridge from the Donbas to Crimea, achieving a key strategic objective. But the 82-day resistance embarrassed Russian timelines, tied down major forces, and the Azov fighters became symbols of Ukrainian defiance. The treatment of prisoners raised war crimes concerns.

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🇺🇦Russia-Ukraine War2022

Battle of Kharkiv

Ukraine's second city — just 40 km from the Russian border — faced intense fighting in the opening weeks of the invasion. Russian forces entered Kharkiv's outskirts and shelled the city center extensively, destroying civilian infrastructure, the central market, and government buildings. However, Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from taking the city itself. Sustained artillery bombardment of residential areas produced large civilian casualties. By mid-May, Ukrainian counterattacks had pushed Russian forces back toward the border, out of artillery range of the city.

Kharkiv's successful defense was a decisive strategic victory — denying Russia control of Ukraine's industrial and academic heartland. The city's proximity to Russia made it a lucrative target that Russia repeatedly failed to capture or hold despite months of intense shelling. The defense demonstrated the fighting capacity of Ukrainian territorial forces supplemented by regular units.

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🇺🇦Russia-Ukraine War2022

Battle of Snake Island

A tiny Ukrainian island outpost in the Black Sea became the war's first legendary moment. On February 24, the Russian warship Moskva and a border guard vessel demanded the island's 13-man garrison surrender. The garrison's radio response — 'Russian warship, go f**k yourself' — went viral globally and became a rallying cry. The garrison was captured, but the island became a contested symbol. Ukraine launched repeated drone and missile strikes on Russian naval assets supporting the island occupation. On June 30, Russia withdrew from Snake Island entirely, citing 'goodwill gesture' — in reality abandoning an exposed position Ukraine had made untenable.

Snake Island's symbolic importance was immense — the phrase became a Ukrainian motto and appeared on a celebrated postage stamp. Militarily, Ukraine's strikes on Russian naval assets around Snake Island contributed to the broader Black Sea campaign. Russia's retreat removed the threat of landing operations on Ukraine's Odesa coastline and marked the beginning of Russia's Black Sea Fleet's steady attrition.

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