plans for the summer campaigning season and possibly reduce the pressure on the besieged Confederate garrison at Vicksburg. Lee decided upon a second invasion of the North (the first was the unsuccessful Maryland Campaign of September 1862, which ended in the bloody Battle of Antietam). Shortly after the Army of Northern Virginia won a major victory over the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Chancellorsville (April 30В вЂ“ May 6, 1863), Robert E. On November 19, President Abraham Lincoln used the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery to honor the fallen Union soldiers and redefine the purpose of the war in his historic Gettysburg Address. Between 46,000 and 51,000 soldiers from both armies were casualties in the three-day battle, the most costly in US history. Lee led his army on a torturous retreat back to Virginia. The charge was repulsed by Union rifle and artillery fire, at great loss to the Confederate army. On the third day of battle, fighting resumed on Culp's Hill, and cavalry battles raged to the east and south, but the main event was a dramatic infantry assault by 12,500 Confederates against the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge, known as Pickett's Charge. All across the battlefield, despite significant losses, the Union defenders held their lines. On the Union right, Confederate demonstrations escalated into full-scale assaults on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. In the late afternoon of July 2, Lee launched a heavy assault on the Union left flan k, and fierce fighting raged at Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, and the Peach Orchard. The Union line was laid out in a defensive formation resembling a fishhook. On the second day of battle, most of both armies had assembled. However, two large Confederate corps assaulted them from the northwest and north, collapsing the hastily developed Union lines, sending the defenders retreating through the streets of town to the hills just to the south. John Buford, and soon reinforced with two corps of Union infantry. Low ridges to the northwest of town were defended initially by a Union cavalry division under Brig. Joseph Hooker moved his army in pursuit, but was relieved of command just three days before the battle and replaced by Meade.Д®lements of the two armies initially collided at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, as Lee urgently concentrated his forces there, his objective being to engage the Union army and destroy it. Prodded by President Abraham Lincoln, Maj. With his army in high spirits, Lee intended to shift the focus of the summer campaign from war-ravaged northern Virginia and hoped to influence Northern politicians to give up their prosecution of the war by penetrating as far as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or even Philadelphia. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's attempt to invade the North.ДЄfter his success at Chancellorsville in Virginia in May 1863, Lee led his army through the Shenandoah Valley to begin his second invasion of the North-the Gettysburg Campaign. George Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen.

The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war's turning point. T he Battle of GettysburgВ was fought July 1вЂ“3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Note: Much of the narrative below is sourced via Wikipedia In the final act of the war, between 70,000 and 80,000 Japanese were killed when the U.S. Somewhere between 22 and 26 million men died in battle during the war. Notably, the HolocaustВ alone resulted in over 11 million people killed, including 6 million Jewish people. Tragedies and atrocities were documented all over. Most of the fighting occurred in Europe, Northern Africa, and Asia, with all of Europe taking the most devastating hits. World War II was truly a global war, touching every continent and country in some way. The catalyst was Germany's invasion of Poland.

A weakened global economy and the Great Depression, and Hitler and Mussolini's rise to power, were chief among them. This war started due to numerous factors.

On the other side were the Allies, made up of Great Britain, France, Russia, China, and the United States. The Axis powers included Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Japan. What would become known as World War II saw fighting on a scale like never before.ДЄs in the previous war, countries took sides and were divided into two groups. It is hard to imagine the devastation that could take place in six short years.

History channel civil war great battles