Most decisive battles in all of history

[Martin]

The battle between a late Roman army led by Flavius Aëtius and the Huns on 20 June 451.
This battle near Troyers saved Western Europe from the Huns and their leaders and they pulled back eastwards.

[Emperor]

If we talk of one battle thant changed society as it was known, than Battle of Milvian bridge between Constantine and Maxentius has changed history a lot.

[Roland_Kupski]

My divorce...

[despertaferro]

I think je_touche arguments are quite right.

But, in my opinion, the most significant military action in the whole human been History has been the dropping of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WW2.

I don’t want to be misunderstood; I think it was a horrible act of war. But my arguments for its significance (not for its support!) are not because it ended WW2 or how long and costly in human lives the surrender of Japan main islands could have been… But, can you imagine the outcome of the Cold War with both nuclear powers amassing a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons never tested in battle? Can you imagine the consequences if, at the Korean War, the US forces use them to stop the Chinese invasion?

In my opinion, if the first use of nuclear weapons in war had been made with Russia already having them… well, the world that we know today could be radically different.

[santifernandez]

For me there may be three battles that changed history.
Gettysburg,1863.
Arsuf,1191.
Kursk,1943.
Santi.

[Michel]

732 Tours
1529 Vienna
1683 Vienna

[Kekso]

Battle of Yavin when first Death Star was destroyed. I'm not sure about the year

[Graeme]

you have to ask if the outcome of a battle changed the societies and cultures involved in their entirety

Culloden comes closer than most.

There were quite big historical impacts from the battle. It marked the end of the Stuart claim to the British throne, the end to the notion of the divine right of kings to rule and the end to the Catholic Church's bid to regain it's position as a major political power in Britain, resulting in a long unchallenged period of secular rule by parliament. This was certainly an environment where the industrial revolution could flourish, I wonder how it would have fared if events had been different.

But the social impacts in the wake of the battle were huge. Remaining rebel sentiment was hunted down, killed, tried and executed, transported or turned out of homes, stripped of possessions and left to freeze or starve.
Then came the proscriptions on language, dress, music, and the right to bear arms. People were detached from their cultural identity. The role of the clan chiefs changed from father of their people to London socialite absentee landlord. And, eventually the population was cleared from the land to be replaced, first by sheep and later by a theme park fairy tale dreamed up by a Germanic Prince and a lowland romance writer.
A whole way of life came to an end and the last of Europe's feudal warrior societies disappeared. If it happened today somewhere in the Balkans there would be claims of ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide.

Secondly, I feel I have to mention the battle which has had the biggest impact on me personally. Which is Waterloo. Because it's the reason why I have a wardrobe full of plastic.

Actually I don't think Waterloo is a non event, I can see peoples point when they say Leipzig was the battle where napoleon was finally defeated but Napoleon didn't accept that defeat and neither, it seems, did the French people. Napoleon came back and France flocked to him.

Is it certain that napoleon would have been beaten by the combined armies of Austria and Russia ( the armies were not combined nor anywhere near it). how many times had he beaten them before? And did they have a perfect record of coordinating their efforts against him.

The other factor is uncertainty in Britain. Pitt's government was all for the war but the opposition was not. a defeat of Wellington at Waterloo might have turned the political tide and taken Britain out of the war. What happens in Europe once the British gold is gone?

I think it took the unique combination of the talents of Blucher and Wellington to finally put a stop to Napoleon. Could anyone else have done it? Well, they didn't because they weren't there.

Despertaferro's comments about the dropping of the atomic bomb are most pertinent. that really was the day when the world was changed forever.

[Der Hauptmann]

Zama 202 BC.
Poitiers 732
Pavia 1525
Poltava 1709
Leipzig 1813

[Emperor]

Battle of the Helms deep
Battle of the Final Valley

[Emperor]

@Graeme-You mean this Pitt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3jIE3b-bhY
Who knows how many changes we will see it in our lives...