Shocking Defeat Legacy

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    In fiction (and in Real Life) during a great war there's a certain strategic loss that is very significant to the point of being demoralizing, shocking, and Iconic in universe. One faction might be fighting a intergalactic war with Scary Dogmatic Aliens, But there's one place in the galaxy that has no chance in hell of falling at the hands of the enemy. Perhaps it's a planet that's fortified by surrounding Kill Sat, a squadron of Sun Crushers and an armada of Titan-class motherships, guarded by battalions of Voltrons and other Combining Mecha, SDF fleets and Valkyries.

    But in the end, said planet falls, sending a chilling wave down the spines of The Federation. Sometimes it could be a turning point in the war, but not always. A faction can suffer these defeats and not necessarily be defeated. But it's still a crippling loss that'll at least slow them down significantly. Sometimes these defeats are due to surprise attacks. Could end up as a Pyrrhic Victory for the attackers. Sometimes it's described as a Noodle Incident in some stories. This is usually The Worf Effect, but for battles/wars (or even sports) instead of individuals. Usually to show how high the stakes is.

    Usually overlaps with Hopeless War, Remember the Alamo!, and Last Stand.

    For the victors it could overlap with Pyrrhic Victory, and Was It Really Worth It?.

    Examples of Shocking Defeat Legacy include:

    Anime and Manga

    Film

    • The Rebel Alliance from Star Wars blowing up not only the first Death Star, but the second one as well.

    Literature

    • The Battle Of Yonkers. They threw everything but the god damn kitchen sink at the enemy and still lost.
      • Though that was actually a detriment in the end, as all their gear and defenses and tactics were based on fighting an enemy that obeyed no human nor life norms (no pain, no fear, no stopping...)
        • It also didn't help that the Battle of Yonkers was perhaps the most ineptly-planned and executed operation known to man. See Hollywood Tactics.
    • The Fall of Coruscant to the Yuzzhan Vong in the New Jedi Order series. Under the incredulous eyes of many of the surviving characters, the lights of The City That Never Sleeps go out for the first time in several thousand years.

    Han Solo: The end of the world. Who’d’ve thought we’d live to see it?

    Live-Action TV

    • The Battle of Wolf 359 from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
      • The loss of Betazed in the Deep Space Nine series to the Dominion, and the destruction of Vulcan in the 2009 film too.
      • Also from Deep Space Nine, the Breen attack on San Francisco. Not as damaging as some of the others on this list, but shocking in that they were able to stab at the heart of The Federation.
    • The Battle of Serenity Valley in Firefly, which was apparently the battle that lost the war for the Independents and sent Malcolm Reynolds over the Despair Event Horizon.
    • In Doctor Who, much of the Last Great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks has only been explained through dialogue by the Doctor himself. However, we do have a definite shocking defeat that was said on the show: the Fall of the Cruciform, which was so shocking that it made the Master himself flee to the end of the universe.

    Video Games

    • In World of Warcraft there are numerous examples of this, as well as a couple of subversions, but given the name of the game, that's hardly surprising. There is the War of the Ancients which led to the destruction of the Kaldorei kingdom and the world splitting apart. Then the Orcs almost complete annihilation of the Draenei on Draenor. After which, said orcs go on to invade the world of Azeroth and sack the human city of Stormwind. Later, they go on to enslave the Red Dragon Flight, with which, they almost reduce Quel'Thalas to burning ash. Later, Prince/Death Knight Arthas ends up killing every man, woman, and child in Stratholme. After that, he kills his father, several paladins, including another father figure, Uther, then sacks Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon City to use the Sunwell, which he then blows up. Oh yeah, at the end of that campaign, Archimonde comes around to completely demolish Dalaran. The Kaldorei lose their beloved demigod, Cenarius, in a battle with Grom Hellscream. Finally, the Kaldorei give up their immortality by blowing up the World Tree to kill Archimonde. Did I mention there were a lot of examples in this?
    • The Fall Of Reach in the Halo universe. Which is the equivalent of America's CENTCOM, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Fort Bragg, and Norad being taken out all at once.
      • The Covenant get one of their own by losing a whole armada of about 500 hundred ships thanks to Badass Admiral Cole.
      • By the year of 2552, The Covenant lost the Battle of Installation 04, which took a heavy toll on the Covenant. Later, after Prophet of Regret's death, The Covenant's capital city High Charity was conquered by the Flood. Since it the Covenant begun to become the losing side of the war.
        • In addition to the 500 ships The Covenant lost, they also lost 90% of The Fleet Of Particular Justice trying to destroy Reach. And what was left was utterly annihilated by the destruction of the aforementioned Installation 04. The prophets was so shocked and annoyed they gave Thel 'Vadamee (the fleet's Supreme Commander) a Promotion Demotion.
    • Deus Ex: the (French!) terrorist group blows up the Statue of Liberty!
    • Mass Effect has Shanxi, a human colony that was blockaded and sieged by the Turians during the First Contact War until it was forced to surrender. The DLC Bring Down the Sky features a devastating Colony Drop that heralds the return of the Batarians into galactic politics. Averted thanks to Shepard, though.
    • EVE Online has the battle of Vak-Atioth, a Curb Stomp Battle between the Jove and Amarr Empires, which sent the latter reeling into Vestigial Empire status. Later on, the Amarr reversed their fortune in the Battle of Mekhios, where they wiped out an entire Minmatar fleet and send the remnants of their forces packing.
    • Dragon Age has the Battle of Ostagar, in which the Player Character participates. Much of the Fereldan army, and all of the Grey Wardens but the Player Character and The Lancer Alistair, are killed after Teyrn Loghain's forces, The Cavalry, abandon the battlefield.

    Western Animation

    • Avatar: The Last Airbender had Iroh's siege.
      • Not the best example, since the siege failed but didn't even slow the Fire Nation's progress. More appropriate examples would be the conquest of Omashu and Azula's coup in Ba Sing Se during the second season: the latter was particularly significant as Ba Sing Se was the last free city in the Earth Kingdom.
      • However, considering the effect it had on the line of succession in Fire Nation's monarchy, it was an important defeat nonetheless. The city of Ba Sing Se was sieged relentless off and on for a hundred years, but Iroh's siege is the only notable attempt to capture Ba Sing Se due to it being a turning point in the history of the Fire Nation, and as a result, the 100 Year War. Iroh's loss in favor gave Ozai an opportunity to make a claim on the throne, which was successful, and as a result of Ozai's leadership, the Fire Nation came dangerously close to winning once and for all. Shocking Defeat Legacy is not a killing blow or major surprise attack, but instead a defeat that no one saw coming and one that has major consequences. Nobody imagined Iroh's son would be killed, nor that as a result Iroh would retreat. If it were any other soldier, Iroh would probably have pressed the attack and won. Or, at least, that's what everyone was expecting to happen. He might still have lost, but that's irrelevant. It's the perception of defeat at the hour of victory or safety that defines this trope.
        • Iroh was a much better leader than Card-Carrying Villain Ozai, and if he hadn't retired, he would've found a way to crack Ba Sing Se open anyway, either with his original siege or later (he later managed it with a much smaller army, and against an army of comet-empowered Firebenders no less). Demoralizing Iroh and pushing him away from the war and the conquering mindset was the all-important coup which led to the Fire Nation's eventual defeat. Moreover, a hypothetical Fire Lord Iroh would have encouraged massive numbers of Les Collaborateurs due to his competence, winning personality and kindness, ensuring Fire Nation dominion over the Avatar world during his lifetime at least. Instead, Ozai succeeded Azulon, but he only really cared for himself and increasing his personal power, using and abusing even his favoured daugher and his country as a whole as tools to this end and running both ragged in the process; further, with his Complete Monster antics, he put all his enemies into a very motivating "do or die" situation, as well as adding his own son and brother, considerable powers in the world especially the latter, to their ranks. Any fight against Fire Lord Iroh would have been half-hearted at best, by comparison. TL, DR: It was this trope because it replaced Iroh's solid leadership with Ozai and his Villain Ball, a major strategic defeat for the Fire Nation.
      • Another example was the Day of Black Sun. The Water Tribes and Earth Kingdoms had united to hit the Fire Nation at exactly the time that firebenders would be unable to bend. Everything was planned out and executed perfectly, but due to some clever stalling tactics by Azula and Ozai, the Fire Nation held out and the good guys were forced to break and retreat, and the Fire Nation could prepare for Sozin's Comet unopposed.
    • The loss of the Homeworlds for the Terrans in Exo Squad, although the utter destruction of Mars late in the second season was an even more devastating blow to the Neosapiens. Phaeton built most of his anti-Terran propaganda upon it afterwards.

    Real Life

    • Waterloo - So famous it's practically a synonym for defeat.
      • Although as with many battles, what gave Waterloo such a "knock-out blow" mystique that one tends to forget that fighting continued for quite a while after was not the battle itself but the subsequent pursuit. Thus in 1815, unlike 1812/13 and 1813/14, Napoleon's army was not given time to regroup and replenish.
      • Another example would be the Battle of the Berezina, which marked the end of Napoleon Bonaparte's squalid retreat from Russia. It was so bad, "une Berezina" became a synonym for catastrophe in France for a while afterwards.
      • Subverted with the Battle of Bailen - the Spanish destroyed three French divisions. Unfortunately, it was so shocking...that Napoleon turned up to sort the mess out in person, and promptly sent Spain into retreat.
    • The surprise attack on Pearl Harbour might count as one of these for the U.S.
      • Subverted, however, in that Pearl Harbor was for more catastrophic for Japan than the U.S. A tactical defeat for the U.S., but it added to what was already a hopeless war with China.
    • The Battle of Midway became this for the Japanese, as their loss in the battle effectively halted their expansion and put them fully on the defensive for the first time. US Naval Supremacy was only a matter of time, however; the Empire couldn't stay lucky forever in the face of the Allies' overwhelming economic superiority.
    • Another real life example would be the Battle of Hastings, as England would've ended up an entirely different country without it. Yet another real life example (and an often fictionalised one) would be the Battle of Chi Bi in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as it's widely believed that if the aggressors hadn't been defeated, the Three Kingdoms period might have ended then and there, which would have had a drastic impact on China's history.
      • Another example, although lesser known to Westerners, but with nearly as much impact on China's history is the Battle of Fei River. Had Jin lost, the Han Chinese could have lost control of China, however, Xie An (who was famous as a great administrator and had little military experience) decided he wasn't going to let Former Qin run wild and beat back a far more experienced army well over twice the size of his own. It was the single largest catalyst in the fall of Former Qin and just ten years later practically ceased to exist.
      • Hastings is a perfectly justified example, in that the King of England got an arrow to the head and his troops kept falling for fake retreats. Since few people really cared who was king at the time, William the Bastard Conqueror pretty much won by default.
    • Britain's 1940 retreat from Dunkirk marked a turning point in World War II, but is remembered in Britain more for the heroic rescue of stranded troops than as a defeat.
      • The "Fall of France" fits the trope name better. Dunkirk is more of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat (although Churchill was quick to point out that you don't win wars with retreats and that while it was great to save the troops, the Fall of France was still a major defeat for the Allies).
        • Also, they had to leave most of their heavy arms and equipment behind, so it would take a while before they were in a condition to face the Wehrmacht in the field again.
        • Which actually had a positive side in that it was New Improved equipment.
    • For the European colonial powers in general, and the UK in particular, the Fall of Singapore. It had been boasted that Singapore was the best-defended city in the world, the armour-piercing shells of her heavy gun emplacements capable of punching through any ship the Japanese had to offer. However, Singapore was besieged from the landward side, and their anti-battleship defenses were wholly ineffective at targeting infantry. Percival had 100,000 troops on paper, but they were in no shape to continue fighting. Realising that their situation was hopeless, he surrendered. Only to find that the Japanese only numbered some 30,000 and their supply situation had been even worse.
      • Churchill himself felt the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1941 was the greatest defeat in British history.

    Winston Churchill:"I put the telephone down. I was thankful to be alone. In all the war I never received a more direct shock."

    • Vietnam was the greatest military quagmire in United States history.
      • Within the war itself, the Tet Offensive can be considered this. The vietcong attacked many cities simultaneously, notably claiming the US Embassy in Saigon. This was a major hit to the vision of American strength and hit their morale deeply. In reality the Vietcong suffered heavier losses than the American troops, and the American counterattack reclaimed all lost territory within four days, but in terms of public perception this drastically swayed the war in their favour.
    • The Battle of Stalingrad, for the German forces in the Soviet Union. So much so that this was the first time the Nazis publicly acknowledged that the war was beginning to go badly.
    • The Second Battle of El Alamein, for the German forces in North Africa.
      • Despite the loss and withdrawal from El Alamein, the campaign in North Africa continued for another six months. When Rommel ordered the retreat, Montgomery did not pursue and thus allowed the broken German formations to withdraw, fortifying themselves within Tunisia. The loss of Tunisia occurred only a few months after the loss at Stalingrad, with a quarter of a million troops taken prisoner. Soon after, the loss of Sicily was so great that the Italians overthrew Mussolini.
    • The Battle of Gettysburg was a major turning point of the American Civil War.
      • Although the war did continue for nearly two years after that. Many however actually see the Battle of Antietam as the real turning point of the war, because this was the last real chance the Confederacy had of not just temporarily carrying the war north (there was also a Southern offensive in the west at the time, while even if Gettysburg had been won by Lee, Vicksburg still would have fallen to Grant), but also to gain recognition from the major European powers.
    • The Battle of the Alamo, which was a major defeat for the Republic of Texas.
      • Subverted and completely reversed in that the Alamo actually fulfilled its objectives. While a tactical defeat, it was a resounding strategic victory that not only severely bled out the Mexican Army and allowed the Texan Army to organize into a fighting force. Also provided substantial morale boost.
      • The men of the Alamo had actually been ordered by Sam Houston to leave—Bowie's men originally came to destroy the fort, but the defenders chose to stay. Perhaps a better example from that war is the Battle of San Jacinto, where the relatively ragtag and much smaller Texan army hid out in the swamplands near what is now Houston, and defeated Santa Anna's men in a completely unexpected attack.
    • Gallipolli for Australia and New Zealand. It's viewed in much the vein as Dunkirk for the UK, only more so.
    • The Battle of Lepanto and the second Siege of Vienna for the Ottoman Empire.
    • The Battle of the Allia for Ancient Rome. The Gaulish chieftain Brennus defeated the Roman army and sacked Rome itself. The Romans were determined never to allow this to happen again, and strengthened the city's defences, reorganised the army and, for generations afterwards, marked the anniversary of the defeat by sacrificing the city's guard dogs as punishment for their failure to alert the Romans to a night attack on the Capitoline Hill. The sacred geese that did alert the Romans were carried through the city on gilded cushions in the same ceremony.
      • Same thing would happen 800 years later in year 410, when the Visigoths under Alaric I sacked Rome. The Roman Empire remained as an independent nation and would live to 476, but it was clear to everyone after the sack that Rome was at that point just a shadow of its former glory self, and the only reason why the Huns were not able to finish the job was because of Flavius Aetius (who historians calls "the last true Roman")' tactical genius and his alliance with the Visigoths.
    • During the Russian Civil War, Kolchak's defeat at Tobol was the turning point for the Whites to start losing. After that defeat, Kolchak's Eastern White army started a retreat that quickly escalated to panicked flight resulting in the fall of Omsk, the rebellion at Irkutsk and Admiral Kolchak's own demise. For Denikin's Southern White army, the failure of his Moscow offensive at the battle of Orel was such a defeat; after Tobol and Orel the Reds had a practically guaranteed win, and the rest of the war was basically cleanup of remnant Whites, Blacks and Greens.
    • The sinking of the SMS Szent István during World War I was this for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Before that, the Austro-Hungarians had tried various times to break the Otranto Barrage. Then the Szent István, the flagship of the fleet, was sunk by two Italian torpedo boats that just happened to be in the area, and not only the attack the flagship was supposed to lead was canceled, but the Austro-Hungarian navy didn't dare to leave the ports anymore.
    • The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars overall were this for the Austrian Empire. Despite ultimately succeeding in defeating Napoleon and partially restoring their borders, Austria left the war far weaker than any of the other major powers in the Coalition. Unlike Prussia, Russia and Britain, who managed to make major gains in territory and unify their kingdoms, Austria had several territories strongly desiring independence and increasingly was seen as a meddler in much of the Empire under French control such as Italy and Germany. The revolutionary wave of the Spring of Nations badly undermined the Empire's cohesion due to the demands for independence and recognition of the many languages in the Empire, to the point that in the aftermath of the Crimean War, which saw Austria's last ally Russia abandon it, Austria was forced to become Austria-Hungary to remain a great power and was forced to grant significant concessions regarding partial self-determination in the parts of the Empire under their control, while recognizing Prussia as the main power in Germany.
    • The Battle of Ankara in 1402 would be this for the burgeoning Ottoman Empire. In the years since the Battle of Kosovo, Sultan Bayezid I the Thunderbolt had been on an impressive winning streak, conquering Bulgaria, parts of Serbia and Greece, Albania, repelling the Crusade of Nicopolis and bringing almost all of Anatolia under the heel of the Ottoman Empire either through conquest or vassalization. However, Bayezid's rapid conquest of Anatolia had upset all of the Turkic beyliks who now strongly desired to reassert their independence and his string of conquests had caused Bayezid to believe that he and his sultanate were unbeatable, making no effort to reign in Ottoman raids on his vassal territories, which alienated the vast majority of the European vassals and they began to look for opportunities to regain their independence and sever their ties to Bayezid. They got their opportunity when Bayezid got into a quickly heated feud with the infamous Tamerlane or Timur, the man who claimed to be the successor to Genghis Khan. With the defeated rivals of both sides flooding into their courts, the cold war between the two great powers quickly turned hot when Bayezid launched an attack when of his vassals defected to Timur. Timur retaliated by taking the vassal's lands outright and massacring an Ottoman garrison. Bayezid in retaliation, recaptured the area while Timur was campaigning against the Mamluks. The two corresponded with letters with both warning the other that they would not be like their other adversaries, with Bayezid referring to Timur's brutal sacks against the Muslim realms of the Middle East, while Timur harshly criticized Bayezid's choice to have Christian soldiers in his armies and demanding the cedeing of eastern Anatolia. As the war of letters went nowhere, it became obvious that a showdown was inevitable. In 1402, Timur declared war on Bayezid and invaded Anatolia. Bayezied, overseeing the siege of Constantinople was taken by surprise and rushed to Anatolia, gathering an army of his Kapakolu and Janissary elites, European vassals and Turkic forces, a large portion of which were composed of many of the former beyliks that Bayezid had conquered. Bayezid stopped at Ankara, where several advisors urged him to stay and fight, since the hilly terrain would drastically negate Timur's superior cavalry and give Bayezid a stable supply line. Unfortunately, Bayezid, not wanting to risk losing Eastern Anatolia without a fight forced marched his army into Eastern Anatolia and defeated a Timurid force. However, this force was a screening force left by Timur to deceive Bayezid while he led the main army in a wide outflanking march to attack Ankara. Upon learning of this, a horrified Bayezid proceeded to force march his army back to Ankara, but the two forced marches in quick succession in the hot Anatolian plateau caused thousands of casualties, exhausted the army and deprived it of supplies and meant that the fight, rather than being on the hills, would now be fought in the plain, which would be ideal for Timur. Bayezid hoped to repeat his feat at Nicopolis of surprising Timur in a head on attack, but unlike at Nicopolis, where Bayezid outnumbered the crusaders, at Ankara Bayezid was the one outnumbered by a number of at least 30,000, Timur had a far higher portion of heavy cavalry and horse archers, which the Ottomans often struggled against, and furthermore, there were ample opportunities for Timur to pull the feigned retreat. In addition, Timur had 32 war elephants in front his line, meant to terrify the enemy and make it easier to create gaps for the cavalry to exploit. In light of all these circumstances, several advisors and officers urged Bayezid to heavily reconsider taking Timur head on, but Bayezid was convinced he could repeat his victory at Nicopolis. However, this was not going to be a repeat of Nicopolis. While the Ottomans held their ground across the battle, Timur had persuaded Bayezid's Tartar mercenaries to defect in the heat and they encircled the Ottoman left wing. While the Ottoman rearguard under Mehmed managed to create a gap for the encircled left wing to escape, both Mehmed and Suleyman, Bayezid's heir, realized that the battle was lost, and they began to make an orderly withdrawal. As panic began to engulf the Ottoman army, the portion of the army composed of the conquered beyliks turned against Bayezid and attacked the Ottoman center, having reached an agreement to aid Timur in exchange for having their independence restored. All of a sudden, Bayezid was seeing a repeat of Nicopolis, but he was in the unfortunate position of his enemy on that day, King Sigismund of Hungary. The Serbian vassal, Prince Stefan Lazarevic, learning of the collapse of the flanks and the betrayal of the Turkoman beyliks broke off from the right wing, cut his way through the treacherous Turkoman soldiers and raced to Bayezid's position in the center, urging him to retreat as defeat was inevitable. Bayezid refused and was captured. Bayezid's capture plunged the Ottoman sultanate into a decade of civil war, with the vast majority of the Ottoman holdings in Anatolia being redistributed to the restored Turkic beyliks by the victorious Timur. In addition, the Byzantine Empire forced the Ottomans to cede lands in Thrace and Greece to them and several vassals increasingly abandoned their ties to Edirne. The Ottoman Empire would ultimately survive under Mehmed I and Murad II, but it still took them decades to recover their former power. Both rulers would avoid the mass string of conquests that Bayezid performed in Anatolia to avoid provoking Timurid wrath, while the Ottomans would be far more cautious in their dealings with major powers. A similar strings of Ottoman conquests similar to Bayezid would not occur for another half century until the reign of Mehmed II the Conqueror and the Ottoman conquest of Anatolia would not be completed until the 1470's under Mehmed.
    • Selim I of the Ottoman Empire inflicted two of these in quick succession. The first one, the Battle of Chaldiran, marked the beginning of centuries of warfare in the East between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire, and the defeat was so severe that Ismail I would fall into alcoholism and die 10 years later, as the Ottoman success of destroying his heavy cavalry with cannon fire and convinced his successors to invest in creating a modern gunpowder army that could successfully take on the Ottomans. The second one, the battle of Marj Dabiq, saw the Mamluk heavy cavalry, famed as being unbeatable on the open field, get utterly slaughtered by Ottoman cannon fire. Al-Ghari, the Mamluk sultan, attempted to break into the Ottoman center, but the heavy artillery bogged him down and led to horrendous casualties. At this point, the governor of Aleppo, leading the shattered left flank, left the field with what was left of his cavalry and the conscripted infantry, and this allowed Selim I to have the Ottoman cavalry flank the Mamluk center and right flank. In the fighting, Al-Ghari was either killed in battle or died of a heart attack, and the remaining Mamluk army was either slaughtered or routed. After that, Selim entered Egypt around the turn of the year in 1517 and conquered the Mamluk Sultanate. This now made it much easier for the Ottoman navy to contest the Medditerean with the European powers due to having a more ample coastline. Most importantly, the fall of the Mamluk Sultanate resulted in the Ottoman dynasty becoming the new Caliphs, allowing them to act as rulers for the entire Muslim world, and therefore, strongly discouraging other Muslim states from attacking them.
    • The Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 would be this for the cause of the Crusades. The Crusade was called in an attempt to stop Bayezid I of the Ottomans from capturing Constantinople, and a large portion of Europe would respond to the call, resulting in a large army being assembled in an attempt to end the Ottoman sultanate. However, religious and sectarian tensions between the Roman Catholic Frankish knights and the Eastern Orthodox leaders of Hungary and Wallachia would have devastating consequences, as the French knights disobeyed Sigismund's orders and massacred Ottoman prisoners of war. This had devastating consequences, as these massacres quickly convinced the Ottoman garrison of Nicopolis to refuse Sigismund's call to surrender, and it forced the Crusaders into a lengthy siege. This siege gave Bayezid time to arrive at Nicopolis with his army and his Serbian vassals, catching the Crusaders between his army, Nicopolis, and the swollen Danube River, forcing the Crusaders to fight. Sigismund attempted to convince the Frankish knights that the Wallachians and Moldavians should fight in the first line since they had been more experienced in fighting against the Ottomans, especially since Mircea I, the voivode of Wallachia had defeated Bayezid the previous year. The Frankish knights refused, and at the start of the battle, charged Bayezid's army head on. While this succeeded in inflicting heavy casualties on the Ottomans, it also separated them from the rest of the Crusader army and it allowed Bayezid to encircle them, while setting up another line to engage Sigismund. Once the Frankish knights began to surrender en masse due to exhaustion, the Wallachians and Moldavians, realizing the battle was lost, began an orderly retreat from the battlefield. The final blow was delivered when Bayezid's Serbian vassals charged into the Hungarian flank, triggering a rout. Seeing this, the garrison of Nicopolis sallied out and attacked the fleeing Crusaders. Sigismund barely escaped, and those Crusaders who were not executed by Bayezid were ransomed off to Western Europe in the following years. The catastrophic defeat marked the last time the Papacy had any authority to call a crusade and for it to be taken seriously, as while Hungary would call other Crusades against the Ottomans, it was never officially condoned by the Papacy. It also marked the final end to the Bulgarian Empire, as most of the Empire had been conquered by Murad I before splitting off into three realms. In the lead up to the crusade, Bayezid had conquered the successor states aside from the Tsardom of Vidin, under Ivan Shishman. The Crusaders planned to restore Bulgaria, and Shishman cooperated with the Crusaders in the hopes of ruling a restored Bulgaria. Following the defeat of Nicopolis, Bayezid, infuriated by Shishman's betrayal, launched an invasion of the Tsardom in early 1397, capturing it and arresting Shishman before having him executed, bringing a final end to the Bulgarian Empire. Bulgaria would remain under Ottoman control until the late 19th century.
    • While the Qing Dynasty had been in severe trouble ever since the First Opium War in 1839, having suffered from numerous internal rebellions and disastrous defeats at the hands of foreign powers, especially the Sino Japanese War of 1894, it was the Boxer Rebellion of 1899 to 1901 that proved to be the fatal blow to the dynasty. The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists had become more active in the decades leading up to the rebellion as they claimed that spiritual possession rendered them immune to harm, particularly from the new weapons of the Western powers. Known as the Boxers in the West because of their fighting stance, they and other secret societies had exploded due to the utter failure of China to stop the Western powers from taking parts of China. The most blatant form of anger had been at Christian missionaries and Chinese converts, who had special protection as a result of the treaties China had signed with the Western powers and could not be tried under Chinese law. Several missionaries used this as an excuse to act with impunity and to intervene and protect converts who had broken Chinese law. In 1899, the Boxers, taking advantage of severe discontent with Qing's failure to stop the Western powers, and massive anti-Western sentiment, particularly in the northern provinces of China, stormed into Peking, the Chinese capital, and demanded that Empress Dowager Cixi declare war. The Empress agreed, believing that a partially modernized China could expel the Westerners and declared war on all foreign powers on Chinese soil. It backfired catastrophically. The southern provinces refused to abide by the declaration and stayed neutral, and a European-Japanese coalition invaded China, occupying the northern provinces and annihilating the Boxers. Peking was brutally sacked, and the capital and the northern provinces were temporarily occupied. Empress Cixi was forced to pay a massive indemnity over four decades for all the Westerners and Chinese Catholic converts killed by the Boxers. While this finally compelled the Qing to go even farther than before in modernizing China, it was too late. The occupation of the capital utterly convinced the Chinese that the Qing dynasty, who were already heavily hated for being Manchu by the Han majority population, would never be able to repel the Western powers and that the only way to save China was to abolish the monarchy altogether. When Empress Cixi died in 1908, and the Qing throne passed to a two-year-old Pu Yi, revolutionary sentiment skyrocketed. In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution began, and the population of the southern provinces, aided by soldiers disgruntled with the Qing's terrible military record, revolted en masse. The Qing dynasty was convinced to abdicate to stop a civil war, marking the end of the Qing dynasty and 2000 years of monarchial rule in China.
    • The Battle of Varna in 1444 would prove to be the final chance the Catholic powers of Europe would have to throw the Ottoman Empire out of Europe. The Ottomans, after recovering from their severe defeat at Ankara by Timur in 1402, gradually restored their former power under Mehmed I and Murad II. However, the conquests were much slower and more gradual as the two rulers wished to avoid the mass string of conquests that Bayezid I had initiated, since all of his hard work was undone after his defeat at Ankara. The Ottomans main rival, the Kingdom of Hungary entered into a brief succession war where the Polish king, Wladyslaw III became king of Hungary, appointing John Hunyadi as the Magnate of Transylvania. Hunyadi quickly went on to win an impressive winning streak against the Ottomans, who had not suffered serious battle defeats in Europe. Emboldened by these victories, Wladyslaw and Hunyadi initiated a crusade in the winter of 1443, with the aim being to restore some of the Catholic kingdoms conquered by the Ottomans such as Serbia and Bulgaria and save Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire who had been threatened with conquest by the Ottomans ever since the time of Sultan Bayezid I. The timing was fortunate, as Murad II had been embroiled in a war with the Karamanid beylik in Anatolia during the summer, and most of the army was in winter quarters. Hunyadi easily defeated the few Ottoman armies in Serbia, and they immediately marched on the Ottoman capital of Edirne. This was not helped by the fact an Albanian auxiliary commander, Iskender Bey, later known as Skanderbeg deserted the Ottoman army and initiated a massive rebellion in Albania. A horrified Murad II instantly realized that Edirne was severely exposed to the Crusader invasion, and he quickly resorted to desperate measures, rallying the army out of winter quarters, declaring a jihad to muster more soldiers into the army on short notice and resorting to a scorched earth strategy to trade space for time to get his army ready. Nevertheless, Murad knew that with such a ragtag army, he could not take on the heavily armored Crusader cavalry in a field battle and his only chance to save Edirne was to make the Crusaders fight him in the mountain passes, where the Crusader cavalry would be negated and it could come to a fight of numbers. Murad got his wish and at the battle of Zlatisa, the Ottomans managed to hold the Shipka Pass against the Crusaders, as Ottoman artillery and the small bottleneck allowed the more numerical Ottomans to keep the Crusaders at bay and forcing them to retreat. Murad attempted to scatter the Crusaders, but the Ottomans were defeated, and Murad's son was captured by John Hunyadi. The Long Campaign of 1443 had been a stalemate, but it did not hide the fact that not only had Edirne been severely exposed to attack, but Murad's tactics and the failure to destroy the weakened Crusader army showed that the Ottomans, even after a century of fighting in Europe, still could not defeat the heavily armored knights. Murad, with his realm in ruins and facing serious pressure from his advisors and the Ottoman populace sent messengers to Wladyslaw to sue for peace. John Hunyadi was jubilant as Murad was willing to make some serious concessions, such as restoring Serbia as a buffer state, paying some serious war reparations and releasing multiple political prisoners. However, Cardinal Julian Cesarini urged Wladyslaw to lead the Crusade again against the Ottomans, as with how much the Ottoman realm had been damaged the previous year, it seemed as though one last push would save Constantinople and push the Ottomans out of Europe. Wladyslaw ultimately sided with Cesarini and signed the Peace of Szeged with Murad in 1444 while secretly planning to launch another invasion. Things got even better, when Murad II, believing the long wars with Hungary was over and grieving over the death of his son Alaeddin during his campaign in Anatolia, announced his intent to abdicate the throne to his son Mehmed II. The news that a child was occupying the Ottoman throne caused enthusiasm for another campaign in Hungary to skyrocket. All of this easily convinced Wladyslaw to lead another invasion against the Ottomans. The plan that Cesarini drafted was to have the Venetian navy blockade the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, trapping the main Ottoman army in Anatolia while at the same time, Wladyslaw and Hunyadi would lead the Crusader army to capture Edirne and then march on to Constantinople. Hunyadi and other Balkan Catholic leaders had serious misgivings about the plans, but Wladyslaw and Caesarini overruled them. On September 18, 1444, the Crusader army invaded Ottoman territory in blatant violation of the Peace of Sezged. Swiftly taking Vidin, Oryahovo and Nicopolis, it seemed as though nothing could stop the Crusader advance. However, in Edirne, the Ottoman court realized the severity of the crisis and attempted to prod Murad II in Manisa to take command again and save the Ottoman state. Murad refused, stating he had retired and that it was Mehmed's job to handle the Crusader invasion. Mehmed II, well aware he was not capable of facing the Crusaders, proceeded to personally order Murad to take command of the army. Reluctantly assenting, Murad reunited with the Ottoman Anatolian army at the Bosphorus straits. The Republic of Genoa, fearing that their Venetian rivals would become too powerful if the crusade succeeded, ferried Murad's army across the strait into Europe. Arriving in Edirne, Murad was given a hero's welcome, since he was seen as the true leader of the Ottomans unlike Mehmed. Murad once again declared a jihad to increase the Ottoman army on short notice. Meanwhile, the Crusader invasion began to spiral when their siege of the former Bulgarian capital of Tarnavo ended in disaster when an Ottoman sortie destroyed their supply wagons. Knowing they needed supplies for their march on Edirne, Hunyadi and Wladyslaw agreed to march to the Black Sea to rendezvous with the Venetians and regain supplies, even if it meant leaving Edirne for the time being. This allowed Murad II to quickly raise an army of 40,000 to take the Crusaders on. Being made aware of Murad's return, the Crusaders made the decision to use the fortress of Varna as where they would meet the fleet, but the fleet was not there. Murad, having learned the Crusaders were at Varna entered the area on November 9. The Crusaders were trapped with the Black Sea at their backs and most of the terrain would make an organized retreat impossible. Nevertheless, Murad knew that even heavily outnumbering the Crusaders was not a guarantee of success, as he knew that the Ottomans would struggle against the heavily armored knights. Throughout the battle on November 10th, the Ottoman flanks were easily beaten back, and despite the heavy Crusader losses, it seemed as though they had won. In a council of war, Hunyadi urged Wladyslaw to let the army rest and adopt a wait and see approach, as Murad would either retreat or launch a desperate attack. However, Wladyslaw decided to take the fight to Murad directly and launched a full charge against Murad's Janissaries at the center. Murad, true to Hunyadi's prediction had been planning to retreat, but seeing the Hungarian king's charge, prepared to make a last stand. The field fortifications Murad had placed before the center served him well, forcing the knights to slow to a trot to avoid impaling themselves on the sharpened stakes and it quickly became a battle of numbers, one the Janissaries were quickly winning. Hoping to end the battle for good, Wladyslaw broke off from the main body and charged Murad directly, but at the last second, a Janissary managed to knock the king off his horse, badly dazing him. Almost immediately after, Wladyslaw's head was cut off and put on a pike. Hunyadi having seen the king's fatal charge, made a desperate attempt to recover Wladyslaw's body, but after heavy casualties and night approaching abandoned the field, recognizing the battle was lost. Murad, with a recovered Ottoman army, attacked the surviving Crusaders the following day. While most of the cavalry and the Crusader leaders managed to narrowly escape the battle, Cardinal Caesarini and all of the Crusader infantry perished to the last man. The Ottoman army had sustained severe losses, and Murad waited three days before he finally realized he had won, but the scale of the Ottoman victory was palpable. The death of Wladyslaw III plunged Hungary into civil war once again, and furthermore, any idea the Papacy had of launching any more crusades against the Ottomans was permanently buried. Furthermore, any realistic chance of throwing the Ottomans out of Europe was over, as the Ottoman capital would not be exposed to direct attack again. Nine years after Varna, Mehmed II would capture Constantinople, removing the casus belli for the anti-Ottoman crusades.
    • The 04 Dream Team during the 04 Olympics, whom were soundly beaten by...Puerto Rico . The media never let them live it down. Until they started curb stomping international teams again.
    • Happened in the NBA with the Goldenstate Warriors knocking off The Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs!
    • Ice Hockey World Championship, 2003. Finland, who were the tournament's host, had a 5-1 lead over eternal rivals Sweden by the time the second period was half way through. The game ended 6-5 for Sweden.
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