That was truly a civilization altering event. There have been some very neat “alternate histories” written around that …no xtian Roman Emperor being one.
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The surrender of Fort Detroit
There was a good special on it and apparently Brock had his sparse troops shifting their uniforms and appearing in and out of the forest to appear to be a much larger force…his 500 men finangled a strategic fort out of the 3 x larger Americans…without bloodshed. 
The Manhattan Project.
Security was so tight on this massive project VP Truman did not know anything about it when Roosevelt died…then needed to decide to use it and carve up the world with Stalin and Churchill
Operation Dynamo. Churchill came into office on May 10th 1940 and was met with the problem of a complete loss of the British army in France with no hope of retrieval. He came up with a plan to use a fleet of small civilian boats to rescue them. On May 26th (16 days after taking office) he launched operation Dynamo and successfully retrieved almost all of the stranded soldiers.
The UK also engaged in the Tizard mission which involved sending all of their high tech research to the US. One of the advanced technology sent was the magnetron which miniaturized microwave transmission. The US was able to advance it’s use in aircraft which was a turning point in the war. It forced Germany to withdraw it’s submarines.
Stormin’ Norman and the first Gulf War, Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm were extremely effective and efficient.
Thermopylae was a gross failure and the Spartans put up a terrible fight, collapsing and letting the Persians in far earlier than anticipated:
The force with Leonidas was sent forward by the Spartans in advance of their main body, that the sight of them might encourage the allies to fight, and hinder them from going over to the Medes, as it was likely they might have done had they seen that Sparta was backward. They intended presently, when they had celebrated the Carneian festival, which was what now kept them at home, to leave a garrison in Sparta, and hasten in full force to join the army. The rest of the allies also intended to act similarly; for it happened that the Olympic festival fell exactly at this same period. None of them looked to see the contest at Thermopylae decided so speedily; wherefore they were content to send forward a mere advanced guard. Such accordingly were the intentions of the allies.
Despite later Spartan propaganda, this was nearly calamitous for the Greeks. The alliance was on the point of fracture, Spartan began building a defensive wall at the Corinthian isthmus, threatening to abandon half of Greece to defend their own lands. Only the naval victory at Salamis kept the alliance together.
Churchill absolutely did not come up with the plan to use small boats, that was the Royal Navy under Admiral Ramsay, the mastermind of Operation Dynamo.
Nagumo’s carriers were vulnerable for several hours. Substantial ac were aboard for a possible 2nd Midway strike, then the Midway strike was recovered, then the constant dribble of attacks from Midway kept delaying the rearming and launching of the bombers. When the American dive bombers arrived at 1020 the IJN flight decks were empty, so there was at least another half hour of peak vulnerability after 1020.
Had Nagumo been able to launch his counter strike before the SBDs arrived, the damage to his carriers would have been much reduced, but still crippling. Given the number of dive bombers, it’s likely 2-3 carriers would be sufficiently damaged to force their withdrawal.
The genius of the battle was in the American code breaking, and Nimitz’ preparations. He went against his boss’ orders to bring Halsey’s 2 carriers back from the South Pacific, reinforced Midway, and kept Yorktown’s repairs to the minimum so she could participate.
No comment intended on what’s happening in today’s world, but man… don’t f**k with the Israelis.
They land several C-130s full of military assets at a civilian airfield without anyone noticing, then rescue most of the hostages. And all of this hours away from any real support. In their planning they even considered having to evacuate over land if things went bad. They meant business and got it done. Incredible.
Stanislaus, I am no expert on the Battle of Thermopylae but most sites say it was a heroic stand by the 300 Spartans (and some helots (people enslaved by the Spartans), and 1,100 Boeotians).
“Today the Battle of Thermopylae is celebrated as an example of heroic persistence against seemingly impossible odds. Soon after the battle, the Greeks built a stone lion in honour of those who had died and specifically for the fallen king Leonidas. In 1955 a statue of Leonidas was erected by King [Paul]”.
The Inchon Landing is considered to be a brilliant maneuver in the Korean War.
The Vicksburg Campaign.
Everyone concentrates on the battles in the east. Vicksburg won the war. It was a brilliant, audacious, original campaign.
Together with the clever bit of spycraft and counterintelligence that let the Americans know that the Japanese were going to be at Midway. We knew from intercepted communications that Japan was planning on attacking a target code-named “AF”, but we didn’t know what that code meant. One plausible possibility was Midway, so the military leaked rumors that there were problems with Midway’s water supply (presumably, other rumors were leaked about other candidate targets, but I don’t know if it’s recorded what those were). Sure enough, Japanese coded transmissions started talking about AF having a problem with their water supply.
I’d also add Napoleon lotsa things. Although he ultimately lost I’d say his 1814 campaign was brilliant. He was outnumbered more than 4:1 and still almost pulled it off.
And both IJN Admirals still wanted to protect the battleships. If they had sent them in first- with the carriers covering them- the battle might have turned out differently. The US Navy would have sunk a bunch of battleships sure, but the carriers were the important part.
But yeah, the US Navy had some brilliant tactics & strategy and a little luck.
I think the Dauntless Dive Bombers would still have hurt badly if not sunk thoise carriers, But it is hard to know, i admit.
It always amazes me that countries would build these hugely expensive ships and then be extremely reluctant to use them. I get losing one is a big blow but not using them is also crazy. Sitting in port is enough of a threat to scare the other guy and justify their cost and maintenance?
You built the weapon…use the weapon. IIRC the US did use their battleships. Not against other ships but as mobile, seaborne artillery and they were very good at it.
Good choice.
I cant argue with this.
That likely was a war turning point. Remember there was a strong peace element in Parliament, and if the Germans had wiped out or campurted 300,000 soldier, the Brits might have agreed to peace.
Good modern pick.
I concur.
In a way, the IJN did the USN a favor at Pearl. It forced the USN to turn to carriers. And then since the "brown shoes’ were in charge, the BBs were relegated to escort and shore bombardment- which they were really good at.
On a much smaller scale than many of the operations mentioned below, perhaps a bit more tactical manoever - Chamberlain’s bayonet charge on Little Round Top during the battle of Gettysburg. During a desperate moment, he chose the only option available - attack. Whether or not this was a significant event in the war has been debated, but it was a heroic application of the idea that a cornered animal is dangerous.
Agincourt was a significant victory, but it owes as much if not more to a series of terrible French decisions than to brilliance on Henry V’s part.
The English were in a shitty situation. They’d taken far too long to take Harfleur, and the campaigning season was almost over. Now they were in possession of a Harfleur that was much less defensible (owing to e.g. big holes in the walls, lack of food, smaller garrison etc.) so Hal made the bold decision to lead the French away from attacking it by marching his army across northern France to Calais. This was clever but risky, especially as his army was riddled with disease, fairly exhausted and under provisioned for cold weather. Even more so when he he ordered them to take the absolute minimum of food - if they didn’t reach Calais within 8 days, they’d be eating scraps and forced to risk sending out foraging parties which the French could easily defeat in detail.
The journey didn’t go great! The French did a reasonable job of blocking their route and forcing them to go the long way round. But the English forced an important river crossing and got themselves somewhere resembling back on track.
However, they were still miles from safety, with a larger and growing French army between them and safety. They were running out of food, disease was still rife, morale was failing. Henry had to force a battle because the status quo was killing him slowly.
So the French should never have fought! Militarily, they absolutely didn’t need to, and they certainly didn’t need to let Henry pick the battle site. They just had to slow his progress to Calais, harass and divert him, cut his access to food and let cold hunger and disease do their job.
Politically however, avoiding battle was tricky. Feudal nobles need to be seen as warriors, glory was social currency and the dishonour of not meeting the bold, virile Henry in combat would be politically destabilising for a regime that was already on shaky ground due to Charles VI mental incapacity. On that vacuum, glory hungry nobles looking out solely for their own interests were able to force the nominal French commander into a battle they didn’t need to fight.
And they didn’t need to fight it so badly! Squabbles over precedence and honour led to a grossly swollen vanguard, poorly positioned archers and cavalry and a level of general disorganisation so bad that Henry could order his archers to dismantle their prepared positions, the match to and set up new ones, without coming under attack. And of course the field of battle was horrific - a freshly ploughed field with woods on either side that would negate the French numbers, slow them horribly and funnel them towards the waiting English. Again, the French absolutely did not need to fight this battle!
Henry did very well on the day, and his pre campaign planning meant that his archers were well supplied with enough arrows to maintain a devastating rate of fire. He acted boldly in moving positions and forcing battle, and he took full advantage of the ground. But he had put his whole army in a highly precarious position that a better led France would and should have exploited to the full.
Did the French know how bedeviled by cold, hunger, and disease the English were?