David Wallechinsky - The Book of Lists

On June 13, 1905, the crew of the Russian cruiser Potemkin mutinied after an unsuccessful protest challenging the quality of meat served on the ship. Captain Golikov, the ship’s commander, was seized by the mutineers and flung overboard. This incident was dramatised in the classic film Battleship Potemkin (1925), directed by Sergei Eisenstein.

In 1632, at the Battle of Lützen during the Thirty Years’ War, King Gustavus Adolphus was shot in the back while leading his cavalry in a charge against the Catholic armies of the Holy Roman Empire. Who actually killed him remains an unanswered question. However, many historical authorities insist that Gustavus must have been killed by one of his own men, if not accidentally, then intentionally by a traitor.

In the early morning hours of March 16, 1971, an enlisted man at the US Army base in Bienhoa, Vietnam, cut a hole through the screen covering a window in the officers’ quarters and threw a fragmentation grenade inside. Two lieutenants — Richard Harlan and Thomas Dellwo — were killed. Private Billy Dean Smith was arrested and court-martialled for the crime but was later declared innocent. The real murderer was never found.

On the night of May 2, 1863, at the Battle of Chancellorsville during the American Civil War, Confederate General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson went on a scouting mission ahead of his lines in order to find a way to attack the rear of the Union forces. When he returned, Jackson was fired upon by a North Carolina Confederate regiment that thought he and his staff were Yankee cavalrymen. He died eight days later.

On March 12, 1917, in Petrograd (now St Petersburg), Russian soldiers of the Volynsky Regiment refused to fire on street demonstrators and, instead, shot their commanding officer, Captain Lashkevitch. This marked a major turning point in the Russian Revolution, because after killing Lashkevitch, the Volynsky Regiment — the first Russian unit to mutiny — joined the revolutionary forces.

In 1948, US Army Colonel David Marcus resigned his post at the Pentagon and enlisted in the newly formed Israeli Army. On the night of June 10, 1948, after overseeing the construction of a relief road from Tel Aviv to besieged Jerusalem during the Israeli war for independence, Marcus was shot and killed while urinating in a field. One of his own sentries had mistaken him for an Arab because he had a bed sheet wrapped around him.

A Turkish tribesman who became a Persian general and then head of the Persian Empire, Nadir Shah was a highly successful conqueror who defeated the Afghans, Mongols, Indians and Turks. In 1747 Nadir’s own military bodyguard murdered him. His death met with widespread approval in Persia because of the harshness and cruelty of his rule.

Tillman, a member of the Arizona Cardinals football team, gave up a lucrative contract extension to join the US Army in 2002. On April 22, 2004, Tillman was killed while leading a team of Army Rangers up a hill in southeastern Afghanistan to knock out enemy fire that had pinned down other soldiers. The army posthumously awarded him the Silver Star, its third-highest honour. One month later, the army announced that Tillman had been killed by fellow Americans in a ‘friendly fire’ accident.

In 1559 Captain Pedro de Urzúa led an expedition of Spanish soldiers from coastal Peru across the Andes to the Amazon Basin in search of El Dorado. Two years later, while still searching unsuccessfully for gold, de Urzúa was killed by his own men when they mutinied under the leadership of Lope de Aguirre. De Urzúa’s death and the fate of the mutineers was depicted in the 1973 movie Aguirre, Wrath of God .

$ Millions (US) (1998–2002)

1. USA 37,723

2. Russia 20,741

3. France 8,312

4. Germany 4,954

5. UK 4,811

6. Ukraine 2,673

7. Italy 1,787

8. China 1,561

9. Netherlands 1,520

10. Belarus 1,142

Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI Yearbook 2002)

Millions of US Dollars (1998-2002) Majaor Supplier

1. China 8,818 Russia (93%)

2. Taiwan 6,822 USA (71%)

3. India 4,824 Russia (81%)

4. Turkey 4,688 USA (60%)

5. Saudi Arabia 4,360 USA (66%)

6. Greece 3,958 USA (47%)

7. South Korea 3,445 USA (64%)

8. Egypt 3,251 USA (91%)

9. United Kingdom 3,116 USA (82%)

10. Israel 3,033 USA (74%)

Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI Yearbook 2002)

From 1206 to 1227 Mongol chieftain, Genghis Khan, conquered approximately 4,860,000 square miles. Stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea, his empire included northern China, Mongolia, southern Siberia and central Asia.

From 334 to 326BC the Macedonian king, Alexander the Great, conquered approximately 2,180,000 square miles. His empire included the southern Balkan peninsula, Asia Minor, Egypt and the entire Near East, as far as the Indus River.

From 1370 to 1402 the Islamic Turkicised Mongol chieftain, Tamerlane, conquered approximately 2,145,000 square miles. His empire included most of the Near East, from the Indus River to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the Indian Ocean north to the Aral Sea.

From 559 to 539BC the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, conquered approximately 2,090,000 square miles. He conquered the Median Empire, Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, the Indus Valley and southern Turkestan.

From 433 to 453 Attila, the king of the Huns and the Scourge of God, conquered approximately 1,450,000 square miles. Although he failed in his attempt to conquer Gaul, Attila ruled an empire encompassing central and eastern Europe and the western Russian plain.

From 1933 to the autumn of 1942 Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, conquered 1,370,000 square miles, all of which he lost within three years. Hitler’s Third Reich included most of continental Europe and extended from the English Channel to the outskirts of Moscow, and from North Africa to Norway.

From 1796 to the height of his power in 1810 Napoleon Bonaparte conquered approximately 720,000 square miles. Napoleon’s Grand Empire included France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and Spain.

From 997 to 1030 Mahmud, the Muslim sultan and Afghan king of Ghazni, conquered 680,000 square miles. His Near Eastern empire extended from the Indian Ocean north to the Amu Darya River, and from the Tigris River east to the Ganges River in India.

From 1531 to 1541 Spanish adventurer, Francisco Pizarro, conquered 480,000 square miles. Employing treachery and assassination, and taking advantage of internal discord, he subjugated the Inca Empire, which extended from Ecuador south through the Andes to Bolivia.