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A lengthy siege by Roman troops of the hilltop fortress of Masada led to the decision by the surrounded Jewish Sicarii rebels to take their own lives rather than surrender to the enemy. The corpses of nearly 1,000 victims of the siege were found scattered throughout the citadel.
The prospect of Rome being looted by Habsburg Imperial and Spanish troops led Pope Clement VII to order 189 Swiss Guards under the command of Captain Kaspar Röist to defend the city. The valiant rearguard action allowed the pontiff to seek refuge in Castel Sant'Angelo, but ultimately led to the deaths of the besieged honor guard. The city eventually fell in what became known as the Sack of Rome.
The Battle of Nieuwpoort—an engagement fought during the Eighty Years' War—ended with the slaughter of a Spanish regiment by the Dutch after refusing to surrender. The Spaniards had been accused of orchestrating a previous massacre of prisoners of war and as such were shown no mercy by their vengeful foe. Image: Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Despite their considerable bravery and amazing skill with a blade, the 500 samurai surrounded by 30,000 Japanese soldiers at the Battle of Shiroyama were doomed. They managed to hold their positions in close-quarter combat until their leader, Saigō Takamori—one of the most influential samurai in the country's history—fell. In a final gesture of defiance, the remaining samurai charged downhill and into a hail of gunfire.
The slaughter of hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, by US soldiers followed a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp. More than 500 troops later attacked the encampment. Lakota warriors returned fire with what little weaponry they had left, but were quickly subdued. Twenty soldiers were subsequently awarded the medal of honor for their role in what at the time was described as a victory against an intractable enemy, but what today is remembered as an outright massacre.
One of the very first military engagements of the Second World War was the poetically sounding Defense of the Polish Post Office in Danzig. On September 1, 1939, Polish personnel defended the city's strategically important post office building against German SS units for 15 hours. Once captured, all but four of the employees were sentenced to death. Pictured is a 1939 photograph of the actual assault taking place.
The heroic defense of Calais by units of the British Army and their allies stands as one of the most compelling, yet also one of the most tragic battles of the Second World War. Charged with holding back an emboldened German advance, several Allied battalions were ordered to dig in and halt the enemy so as to facilitate the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) through Dunkirk. Heavy fighting ensued, but the citadel was eventually taken by a numerically superior enemy. Casualty numbers made grim reading. British: 300 killed, 200 wounded (evacuated); 3,500 captured French, Belgian, and Dutch, with over 16,000 ending up as prisoners of war. Image: History Dept. of United States Military Academy
Czech resistance fighters Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš were responsible for planning and carrying out Operation Anthropoid—the assassination of high-ranking SS official Reinhard Heydrich. Following a tip-off, Gabčík and Kubiš and other members of their team were tracked down to Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral in Prague, where they were hiding. After a fierce gun battle, two of the Czechoslovaks were killed and the rest took their own lives to avoid capture. Pictured is Heydrich's damaged staff car shortly after the attack.
After 20 years of conflict, the war in Vietnam reached its inevitable conclusion with the fall of Saigon. On April 30, 1975, an army of 120,000 North Vietnamese soldiers marched into the city. The evacuation of almost all American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians, was completed shortly before the People's Army of Vietnam raised their flag over the South Vietnamese presidential palace. The city was quickly renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
The largely unreported Battle of Sirte took place in the Libyan city of Sirte and pitted Islamic State (Daesh) forces against those loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA) backed by the United States. During fighting, part of Sirte's garrison broke out and escaped. But the 2,500 Islamic State fighters left behind refused to surrender and mostly fought to the death.
Sources: (BBC) (Historynet) (National Geographic) (The Washington Post)
See also: Historic battlefields you can visit
After diverting to Montevideo for urgent overhaul after damage sustained by the British Navy during the Battle of the River Plate, the German heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, was given just 72 hours to effect repairs and leave the capital city of neutral Uruguay. Apparently believing that the British had gathered a superior force to await his departure, Langsdorff ordered the ship to be scuttled. He died by his own hand three days later in Buenos Aires.
The German battleship Bismark fought its last battle in the Atlantic Ocean against naval and air elements of the British Royal Navy. With its steering gear crippled, Bismark was limited in its capacity to maneuver. This made the vessel an easy target for HMS King George V, Rodney, Dorsetshire, and Norfolk, the vessels collectively firing some 2,800 shells and scoring around 400 direct hits. Out of a crew of over 2,200 men, only 114 survived. Pictured are survivors from the Bismarck pulled aboard HMS Dorsetshire on May 27, 1941.
In August 1942 during heavy fighting near the village of Sutoki-Byakovo in the Novgorod Oblast, Red Army sniper Natalya Kovshova (left in photograph) and her spotter, Mariya Polivanova, were pinned down by German troops after most of their unit had been gunned down or were too injured to fight. The pair used up their ammunition and after being totally surrounded pulled out the pins of four grenades, killing themselves and a fair number of the enemy. The women were posthumously awarded Heroes of the Soviet Union.
Rather than see their leader fall into the hands of General Augusto Pinochet, members of the armed Group of Personal Friends fought to the bitter end protecting incumbent Chilean president Salvador Allende during the 1973 coup d'état. Allende eventually took his own life while many of the guards were killed in the fighting. Those who survived were summarily executed.
The First Battle of Mogadishu is notable for the infamous downing of two American Black Hawk helicopters. Delta snipers Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart were deployed to protect the crash site of helicopter 'Super 6–4' and injured pilot Michael Durant. After a fierce and prolonged gunfight, both died at the hands of a Somali mob. Durant, meanwhile, was taken prisoner by members of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's militia. He was later released. The episode is known as the "Black Hawk Down" incident. Pictured is Michael Durant's helicopter heading out over Mogadishu on October 3, 1993. Image: United States Special Operations Command
An estimated 13,000 Jews were killed during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a defiant act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland. The rebellion started after the ghetto refused to surrender to Waffen-SS units that were attempting to transport the remaining ghetto population to Majdanek and Treblinka death camps. The Nazis retaliated by burning the ghetto, block by block. Anyone left alive was carted off to the camps.
The six-day military engagement at Qala-i-Jangi Fortress in Afghanistan following an uprising of Taliban prisoners of war involved Northern Alliance Forces, CIA operatives, and British and American special forces. After their attempt to escape was thwarted, the Taliban detainees endured numerous assaults on a basement they had retreated into, including air strikes. The last holdouts only surrendered after the order was given to flood the basement with water. One of the recaptured prisoners was revealed to be an America citizen, John Walker Lindh, who had joined the Taliban in its fight against the Northern Alliance. Pictured is the memorial to CIA agent Johnny Micheal Spann, the only US fatality during the battle.
Commonly referred to as "Custer's Last Stand," the Battle of the Little Bighorn is one of the most infamous clashes ever recorded between the US Army and Native American tribes. George Armstrong Custer and 700 soldiers of the US 7th Cavalry were outmaneuvered by their enemy and ended up on an open hilltop. In what became the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876, five of the 7th Cavalry's 12 companies were annihilated and Custer was killed.
A final stand was made by British forces against Afghan tribesmen during the 1842 retreat from Kabul. After being surrounded on a snow-lashed hillock, 65 officers and men of the 44th East Essex Regiment were picked off by sniper fire and then overrun. A handful of survivors were taken into captivity.
The Battle of Chapultepec has gone down in Mexican history for the deaths of six cadets, the Niños Héroes, who leapt to their deaths rather than be captured by advancing American forces. The six had refused to fall back after their regiment looked likely to be overwhelmed, and fought to the bitter end.
The ghastly exchange of fire that became known as the "Attack of the Dead Men" was a battle that took place during the First World War at Osowiec Fortress (located today in northeastern Poland). The incident is named for the awful bloodied, zombie-like appearance of the Russian combatants after they were targeted by poison gas while defending the fortress from German attack. Despite a brave counterattack, during which they panicked their adversaries with their bloodshot eyes and foaming mouths, the Russians, realizing they had little chance of surviving another assault by gas, demolished the position and withdrew to safety.
During the First Matabele War, a unit of the British South Africa Company consisting of just 34 soldiers was ambushed by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors. Rather than surrendering, the vastly outnumbered troops took up arms in a dramatic last stand that saw 500 of their adversaries killed before the unit was wiped out in a spear charge. The engagement was later named the Shangani Patrol, as it took place just north of the Shangani River.
Heading an army of 20,000 legionnaires plus 40,000 allies and mercenary troops, Roman general Scipio Aemilianus surrounded the settlement of Numantia during Rome's conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The Numantines, composed of Celts and Celticized peoples, were trapped under siege for eight months. Refusing to surrender, the population either succumbed to starvation, Roman arrows, or by their own hand. The siege ended with the torching and complete destruction of the city. Pictured is a glazed tile display in Seville, Andalusia, depicting the final engagement.
One of the most famous sieges in military history ended with the deaths of all those who defended the Alamo mission against a vastly superior Mexican army under the command of President General Antonio López de Santa Anna. Among those slain were James Bowie and Davy Crockett, both of whom are revered as American folk heroes.
The Battle of Singapore was a last-ditched effort by the Allies to hold out against the Japanese on the island of Singapore. Relentless air raids left thousands of civilian casualties in their wake. Clearly underestimating the ruthlessness and brutality of their foe, Allied forces eventually capitulated. About 80,000 British, Indian, Australian, and local troops became prisoners of war in what is considered to be one of the greatest military defeats in the history of the British Empire.
The Battle of Berlin effectively crushed the Third Reich and was the last major offensive of the European theater of the Second World War. The Red Army encircled the city, closing in on Hitler's bunker. With capture out of the question, the Nazi dictator took his own life on April 30, 1945, as did several of his officials shortly afterward. The fall of Berlin was complete.
During the Great Siege of Malta, the Ottomans set their sights on Valletta's Fort Saint Elmo. The occupants of the Hospitaller stronghold repelled numerous assaults, with both sides suffering many casualties. After 28 days the fort fell. None of the defending knights survived. But they had held off long enough for reinforcements from Spain to arrive and rearm and restock two other strategically important fortresses.
A detachment of US Army soldiers led by Captain William J. Fetterman were lured into an ambush by a confederation of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes. In the ensuing battle, Fetterman and all 81 combatants under his command were killed by the Native American warriors in less than half an hour.
An alliance of ancient Greek city-states numbering 7,000 men led by King Leonidas I of Sparta held off an invading force of nearly 300,000 Persian soldiers loyal to the Achaemenid Empire to block the narrow coastal pass at Thermopylae. The Greek defenders held their positions for three days before being annihilated in one of history's most famous last stands.
Taking place during the Second Anglo-Afghan War, the Battle of Maiwand saw a force of 2,500 British and Indian troops attempt to hold positions outside of the village of Maiwand against a determined Afghan force numbering 12,000 to 25,000. Staring defeat in the eye, the British-Indian brigades withdrew, save for a contingent of 11 men of the 66th Regiment who stood as a rearguard action. After running out of ammunition, they were overrun and killed.
Throughout history, humanity has recorded countless episodes where small defensive units face seemingly insurmountable odds as they attempt to fight off a numerically superior and better armed foe. These military engagements can number combatants in the many thousands, or just a few dozen. But a last stand is just that—a final tactic used if retreat or surrender is impossible or fighting is essential to the success of the cause.
Intrigued? Click through and revisit some famous last stands in history's greatest battles.
Famous last stands in history's greatest battles
The final push before the fall
LIFESTYLE Military
Throughout history, humanity has recorded countless episodes where small defensive units face seemingly insurmountable odds as they attempt to fight off a numerically superior and better-armed foe. These military engagements can number combatants in the many thousands, or just a few dozen. But a last stand is just that—a final tactic used if retreat or surrender is impossible or fighting is essential to the success of the cause.
Intrigued? Click through and revisit some famous last stands in history's greatest battles.