Thursday, August 28, 2008

Great Battlefield Tour

Virginia Monument
Gettysburg Battlefield
Gettysburg, Penn.

An article on MSNBC.com yesterday titled Great Battlefield Tours by Joe Yogerst of Forbes Traveler was almost certainly written with an eye towards students of military history as well as travelers looking for new destinations. In a short but well-written piece Joe Yogerst gives a brief overview of some of the worlds great battles. A slide show accompanying the article lists several more famous battles. This has always been an interest of mine - traveling to view important battlefields, as well as visiting old forts and castles.

The article begins with a description of the Battles of Saratoga from the American Revolution. From there the list goes on to the Battle of Hastings, Waterloo, the battle to conquer the capital of the Aztec Empire by Cortes, two battles at Poitiers, France and the greatest battle ever fought on U.S. soil - Gettysburg. All good choices for such a short list.

The slide show covers these battles and goes on to list the Battle for Normandy (France), the attack on Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Culloden (Scotland) and out of the ancient world, the city of Troy in Turkey. This particular list appears to be more for the tourist and world traveler than just exclusively for the history buff. But given the natural beauty of those locations, I have no objection at all to visiting any of them. In future posts I will discuss many of these battles and provide my own list for a great battlefield tour.

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