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RESOURCES
Interminable War Timeline
The U.S. at War
The U.S.—from its inception to the present—is plagued by perpetual, endless military adventures in its pursuit of global hegemony. Our "Interminable War Timeline" project shows just that, a history of U.S. military supremacy and its excesses and destructive powers, both domestically and internationally, and the long-term consequences that follow its tragedies.
We want to help build a world that favors peace.
Below is a timeline of wars, which we here define as armed, violent conflicts, whether declared by Congress or not, in which the U.S. was involved in any capacity.
Of its 246 years of existence, the U.S. has had 14 years of peace.
U.S. HISTORY
18TH CENTURY
Pennamite-Yankee War (1769 - 1784)
Northwest Indian War (1785 - 1795)
Quasi-War (1798 - 1800)
1798
1783
Oconee War (1783 - 1796)
Cherokee-American War (1776 - 1795)
1776
The Declaration of Independence of the United States is signed on July 4th, 1776.
American War of Independence (1775 - 1783)
1785
1775
19TH CENTURY
First Barbary War (1801 - 1805)
1801
1811
1812
1813
Tecumseh's War (1811 - 1813)
War of 1812 (1812 - 1815)
Creek War (1813 -1814)
1815
Second Barbary War
1817
First Seminole War (1817 - 1818)
1820
Texas-Indian Wars (1820 - 1875)
1823
Arikara War
1827
Winnebago War
Peoria War
U.S. Expands Territory in West Florida
1814
U.S. Expands Territory in Florida
1825
Yellowstone Expedition
Black Hawk War
1811
1835
Texas Revolution (1835 - 1836)
Second Seminole War (1835 - 1842)
1830
Congressional passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 begins a ten year-long program of forced Indian removal along the Trail of Tears.
1832
1818
1819
Anti-Piracy War (1818 - 1825)
Yellowstone Expedition (1819 - 1820)
1831
Sac and Fox Indian War
1834
Pawnee Indian Territory Campaign
1836
Second Creek War (1836 - 1837)
Cherokee Removal (1836 - 1838)
1837
Heatherly Indian War
Osage Indian War
1840
1841
U.S. Naval Forces Invade Fiji Islands
1846
Mexican-American War (1846 - 1848)
1847
1851
1855
Cayuse War (1847 - 1855)
Apache War (1851 - 1900)
1854
Bleeding Kansas (1854 - 1861)
Puget Sound War
Rogue River War
Third Seminole War (1855 - 1858)
Yakima War (1855 - 1858)
1856
Second Opium War (1856 - 1859)
Utah War (1857 - 1858)
1857
1858
Navajo Wars (1858 - 1866)
1861
1859
First and Second Cortina War (1859 -1861)
1860
Paiute War
The American Civil War
(April 12th, 1861 - May 9th, 1865)
Yavapai Wars (1861 - 1875)
1862
Dakota War
U.S. Naval Forces Invade Samoa
1843
U.S. Forces Clash with China
U.S. Troops Invade West African Coast
1849
1st Cavalry & Indian Skirmish
1850
1863
1864
1865
Colorado War (1863 - 1865)
Shimonoseki War
Snake War (1864 - 1868)
1866
The Reconstruction Era
(Dec 8, 1863 – Mar 31, 1877)
Red Cloud's War (1866 - 1868)
Powder River
1867
Comanche Campaign (1867 - 1875)
1853
Walker War
California Indian Wars (1850 - 1866)
Utah Indian Wars (1851 - 1853)
1st Cavalry & Indian Skirmish
Klickitat War
U.S. Forces Invade Uruguay
Tintic War
Conflict in Nicaragua
U.S. Forces Invade Uruguay
Mohave War
Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War
U.S. Forces Attack Paraguay
U.S. Forces Invade Mexico
Kiowo-Comanche War
Cheyenne Campaign (1861 - 1864)
Goshute War
Utah's Black Hawk War (1865 - 1872)
Conflict in China
U.S. Invades Mexico
1st Cavalry & Indian Skirmish (1866 - 1868)
Franklin County War (1866 - 1872)
U.S. Troops Occupy Nicaragua
U.S. Troops Attack Taiwan
1872
Modoc War (1872 - 1873)
1868
Battle of Washita River
1871
Kingsley Cave Massacre
U.S. Forces Invade Korea
Mason County War (1874 - 1877)
Red River War (1874 - 1875)
Cypress Hills Massacre
U.S. Forces Invade Mexico (1873 - 1896)
Las Cuevas War
Colfax County War
San Elizario Salt War
Lincoln County War (1877 - 1878)
1876
Great Sioux War of 1876
Buffalo Hunter's War (1876 - 1877)
1877
Nez Perce War
1st Cavalry & Indian Skirmish
1883
Sino-French War (1883 - 1885)
Sheepeater Indian War
White River War
1879
1878
Cheyenne War (1878 - 1879
Bannock War
1891
Garza Revolution (1891 - 1893)
On December 29th, 1890, nearly 300 Lakota people at Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota are killed by the U.S. army in what has been known as the Wounded Knee Massacre. It is often regarded as the end of the multi-century series of Indian Wars.
1890
Jim Crow South (1890 - 1965)
1886
Victorio's War (1879-1881)
Pleasant Valley War
1888
U.S. Shows Force on Haiti
Ghost Dance War (1890 - 1891)
Sioux Indian War ( 1890 - 1891)
1896
Yaqui Wars (1896 - 1918)
1893
U.S. Forces Invade Hawaii
1898
Spanish-American War
Second Samoan Civil War (1898 - 1899)
Moro Rebellion (1899 - 1913)
Boxer Rebellion (1899 - 1901)
1899
Philippine-American War (1899 - 1902)
1892
Johnson County War
Battle at Leech Lake
Chippewa Indian Disturbances
20TH CENTURY
1875
1874
1873
Border War (1910 - 1919)
Negro Rebellion
1914
Bluff War (1914 -1915)
First World War
(July 28th, 1914 - November 11th, 1918)
1918
Russian Civil War (1918 - 1920)
1923
Last Indian Uprising
The Chinese Civil War
(1927 - 1949)
1927
1939
Second World War
(September 1st, 1939 - September 2nd, 1945)
Two atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on August 6th and 9th, 1945.
1945
1946
First Indochina War
(December 19th, 1946 - August 1st, 1954)
The Cold War
(1947 - 1991)
1947
1948
The British Malayan Emergency
(1948 - 1960)
1954
Covert War in Guatemala
Lao Civil War, also known as the Secret War in Laos (1953 - 1975)
1953
Jayuya Uprising
1950
Korean War
(June 25th, 1950 - July 27th, 1953)
1910
1912
Second Indochina War, also known as the U.S. war in Viet Nam (or Vietnam War) (1955 - 1975)
1955
1958
Lebanon Crisis
Conflict in Haiti
Simba Rebellion, also known as Operation Dragon Rouge
End of Jim Crow
Dominican Civil War (1965 - 1966)
Korean DMZ Conflict (1966 - 1969)
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated on April 4th, 1968 in Memphis, TN.
War in South Zaire
Cambodian Civil War (1967 - 1975)
U.S. Aid for Israel in Yom Kippur War
1979
Over 3 million people are slaughtered in the "Killing Fields" by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot's rule in Cambodia (1975 - 1979).
1987
Tanker War (1987 - 1988)
Invasion of Grenada
1983
1981
First Gulf of Sidra Incident
1988
U.S. Occupation of Panama (1988 - 1990)
1989
Second Gulf of Sidra Incident
End of the Cold War
1991
1990
Gulf War (1990 - 1991)
1992
Bosnian War (1992 - 1995)
Somali Civil War (1992-1995)
1994
Conflict in Iraq (1992 - 1996)
1995
U.S. Invades Haiti (1994 - 1995)
1998
Kosovo War (1998 - 1999)
21ST CENTURY
NATO Intervention in Bosnia & Herzegovina
Bombing of Iraq
Missile Strikes Against Afghanistan & Sudan
1959
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1973
1978
Attacks by the Wahhabi terrorist group Al-Qaeda against the United States bring down the Twin Towers in New York City on September 9th, 2001
2001
War in Afghanistan (2001 - 2021)
2003
Iraq War (2003 - 2011)
2011
Libyan Civil War
Lord's Resistance Army (2011 - 2017)
2014
U.S. Intervention in Syria (2014 - Present)
U.S. Intervention in Iraq (2014 - 2021)
2015
Yemeni Civil War (2015 - Present)
2022
PRESENT
War in Ukraine (2022 - Present)
2023
War in Gaza (Present)
1808
Congress passes the "Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves," officially abolishing the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
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