Famous Battlefields as They Look Today

Battles happen in real places, and many of them can still be walked. This gallery shows famous battlefields as they look now, in the order the battles were fought, from the burial mound on the plain of Marathon to the beaches of Iwo Jima. Every photo shows the ground itself or the memorial that stands on it, and each caption says what happened there, when, and what a visitor can still see. A place earned its spot by being a battle people still argue about, teach or travel to, with ground that still explains part of the story: a ridge, a beach, a moor or a cemetery that grew where the men fell. Castles and fortresses are left to a separate list, and wartime archive photos are left out, so every picture here is the place as it looks in our time.