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Fredericksburg, USA -

The American Civil War was responsible for the first wholesale civic destruction of modern times. The Battle of Fredericksburg, fought in Virginia on December 11–15, 1862, involved nearly 200,000 combatants⁠—the largest concentration of troops in any Civil War engagement. Union artillery hammered the city into near oblivion before it was occupied by Ambrose Burnside's troops, only for it to be retaken and shattered days later by Confederate forces.

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Chambersburg, USA -

Similarly, the earlier raid on Chambersburg in Pennsylvania by Confederate forces on October 10–12, 1862 left more than 500 of the city's 800 buildings destroyed: 278 residences and places of business, 98 barns and stables, and 173 outbuildings of various. Pictured is the shell of the court house building.

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Atlanta, USA -

The Battle of Atlanta laid waste to a once-thriving city. Its fall on September 2, 1864, to Union forces left over 9,000 dead, with many more wounded. Over and above the severe damage caused by Union artillery, retreating Confederate forces destroyed all public buildings and possible assets that could be of use to the victors.

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Richmond, USA -

Richmond in Virginia was the capital of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and therefore a prime target for the Union Army. Northern forces had already taken nearby Petersburg. Not wishing to let their capital fall into enemy hands, the Confederate government began to evacuate from Richmond in early April 1865. Retreating soldiers were under orders to set fire to bridges, the armory, and supply warehouses as they left. The flames quickly spread out of control to leave an already bomb-damaged city broken and charred.

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Air war era -

Before the First World War, aerial bombardment during conflict was undertaken using crude but effective incendiary balloons. The development of aircraft heralded the air war and on November 1, 1911, Italian aviator Giulio Gavotti (1882–1939) conducted the first-ever air raid, dropping 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs) of bombs on Ain Zara, a village near the Libyan capital Tripoli, during the Italo-Turkish War. Gavotti is pictured on a Farman biplane in Rome in 1910.

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First civilian target -

The first civilian target to be bombed from the air was the Belgian city of Antwerp during the First World War. German Zeppelin airships conducted raids on the port in August and September 1914, deliberately targeting residential areas.

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Ypres, Belgium -

The Antwerp raids set a historic precedent. Suddenly, cities and civilians became legitimate targets, and the combined strategy of bombardment by aircraft and artillery was to prove devastating. Pictured in 1915 is the completely destroyed town of Ypres in Belgium.

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Reims, France -

Indiscriminate targeting of built-up areas not only resulted in civilian casualties, it invariably meant the destruction of historic monuments and other culturally significant landmarks. This May 1916 image shows the shelled 13th-century Reims cathedral and other damaged buildings in the French city after heavy bombing by German forces.

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Cambrai, France -

Two battles for Cambrai, in 1917 and 1918, left the French city in near ruins. Combined artillery, infantry, and tank assaults by both British and German forces flattened the area.

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Guernica, Spain -

One of the most infamous air assaults on a city during the 20th century was the attack on Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. On April 26, 1937, the Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and elements of the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria bombed the Basque town for no other reason than to test the capability of the German air force. Few of the many hundreds of casualties were military personnel. The event is forever remembered in Pablo Picasso's antiwar painting 'Guernica,' now exhibited in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.

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Belchite, Spain -

In another infamous Spanish Civil War engagement, the small town of Belchite was reduced to rubble after prolonged air and artillery bombardment by Republican forces in August and September 1937. Later, Franco ordered that the ruins be left untouched as a "living" monument of war. What was left has been preserved and can be visited today.

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Barcelona, Spain -

The bombing of Barcelona took place from March 16 to 18, 1938. The series of airstrikes led by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany supporting the Franco-led Nationalists led to the deaths of over 1,000 people in what is considered the first aerial carpet bombing in history.

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Shanghai, China -

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, the Second Sino-Japanese War reached a new low with the capture by Japanese forces of Beijing, Shanghai, and the capital, Nanjing. These cities were bombed mercilessly, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. This full-scale war between the Chinese and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of the Second World War in Asia.

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Coventry, England -

On September 1, 1939, the Second World War began in Europe. Nazi Germany unleashed its terrifying blitzkreig, or "lightning war," a military campaign that included the carpet bombing of Allied cities across Europe. Among cities targeted in England was Coventry. In mid-November 1940, the city endured wave after wave of aerial bombardment, the most destructive of which occurred on the night of November 14. More than 43,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and 554 people lost their lives.

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London, England -

The Blitz bombing campaign lasted from September 7, 1940 to May 11, 1941, during which numerous strategic cities across Britain were targeted. London was extensively damaged: on one night alone, October 14, 1940, 200 people were killed in the capital. Incredibly, one of London's—indeed the country's— most recognized historic monuments, St. Paul's Cathedral, survived to become a symbol of pride and resilience throughout the land.

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Birmingham, England -

Britain's second city was another obvious target. Air raids on Birmingham on the nights of April 9-10, 1941 were especially brutal. This scene shows the destruction in Newton Street, a mixed residential and commercial area of the city.

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Belfast, Northern Ireland -

Across the Irish Sea, Belfast in Northern Ireland also bore the brunt of Nazi aggression. This photograph shows the aftermath of an attack on on an industrial plant in spring 1941. In all, 43,000 civilians were killed during the eight-month Blitz bombing campaign.

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Warsaw, Poland -

Poland was an early victim of Nazi Germany aggression. By the end of the war, Polish cities were little more than piles of broken bricks. Warsaw was demolished. But in an extraordinary act of resolve, the city was rebuilt exactly as it had looked before the start of hostilities.

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Stalingrad, Russia -

By February 1943, the Russian city of Stalingrad had been virtually obliterated from the map in what was the deadliest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. The German 6th Army was eventually routed, but not until after an estimated two million had perished, including Axis and Soviet forces and 40,000 civilians.

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Nuremberg, Germany -

Towards the end of the Second World War, much of Europe lay in ruins. This is bombed-out Nuremberg, pictured in June 1945. Allied bombings from 1943 until 1945 destroyed more than 90% of the city center, and killed more than 6,000 residents. After the war, Nuremberg was symbolically chosen as the city in which to host a series of war crime trials, where surviving members of the Nazi hierarchy faced their accusers.

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Dresden, Germany -

The bombing of Dresden by British and American aircraft between February 13-15, 1945 resulted in an apocalyptic firestorm that claimed the lives of an estimated 25,000 people. The raid, which many saw as unwarranted, decimated the city and remains one of the great moral causes célèbres of the war.

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Wesel, Germany -

Pictured: the remains of the German town of Wesel after intensive Allied area bombing in 1945. The destruction percentage was estimated at 97% of all buildings.

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Berlin, Germany -

By April 1945, Berlin as a functioning city ceased to exist. The capital of the Third Reich had crumbled under relentless attacks by Allied forces. Seen here overlooking Tauentzienstraße Strasse is the church now known as the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It still stands today as a reminder of war and destruction.

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Lingayen, Philippines -

In the Pacific Theater, the US Navy shelling of Lingayen in early January 1945 crippled the city and served as a prelude to an Allied amphibious operation in the Philippines. But nobody was prepared for what happened eight months later. 

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Hiroshima, Japan -

The Hiroshima atomic bomb of August 6, 1945 exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT. At the moment of detonation, a fireball was generated that raised temperatures to 4,000°C (7,232°F ), turning the city into an inferno. Total casualties numbered 135,000, with 66,000 dead and 69,000 injured. The effects of radioactive fallout were to claim more lives over subsequent years. A similar fate was to befall Nagasaki three days later.

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Wansan, Korea -

Conflict once again reared its ugly head in the Asia-Pacific region after North Korea, supplied and advised by the Soviet Union, invaded the South in 1950. At least 2.5 million people lost their lives in three years of fighting, many dying as a result of aerial bombardment. In this August 1950 image, a US Air Force Superfortress drops its deadly cargo on North-occupied Wansan, in South Korea.

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Hanoi, Vietnam -

In 1966, restrictions against bombing North Vietnam's capital city Hanoi and the country's largest port, Haiphong, were lifted. With this green light, the United States extended Operation Rolling Thunder to attack both targets. Pictured is bombed-out Hanoi in January 1967.

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Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina -

Sarajevo was heavily bombed in 1994 during the especially violent Bosnian War of 1992-1994. The armed conflict left many parts of the city in ruins, including the former ice-skating stadium, used in the 1984 Winter Olympic Games and seen here as a burnt-out shell being used by the United Nations as a base.

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Grozny, Chechnya -

The Russian Army's invasion and subsequent conquest of Grozny during the First Chechen War left the capital city lifeless and in fragments. The battle, which pitted Moscow against Chechen rebels, caused an astonishing level of destruction and casualties among the civilian population, and saw the heaviest bombing campaign in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Pictured is drifting smoke around Grozny's presidential palace, taken by Russian troops on January 19, 1995.

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Baghdad, Iraq -

The 2003 invasion of Iraq by coalition forces led by the United States included sustained bombardment of the capital Baghdad. The city suffered serious damage to its civilian infrastructure, economy, and cultural inheritance from the fighting, with at least 1,700 Iraqi civilians killed and more than 8,000 injured.

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Mariupol, Ukraine -

This aerial photograph of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine shows how residential areas in the country were systematically destroyed. The Siege of Mariupol began on February 24, 2022, and lasted until May 20 of that same year, as part of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The two armed forces fought for control over the city, which Ukraine eventually lost. However, the war between the countries started 10 years before and is still ongoing.

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Beirut, Lebanon -

Beirut was the epicenter of the long drawn-out Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 1990. During this time, the city was left in pieces. Rebuilt and modernized, Beirut once again suffered calamity in 2020 following a huge and unexpected explosion. Cities across Lebanon have also become battlefields at the hands of five Israeli invasions that have taken place since 1978. The latest occurred on October 1, after a year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel carried out an invasion in Southern Lebanon that lasted until a ceasefire agreement was signed on November 26, 2024. However, some attacks have continued since.

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Aleppo, Syria -

The four-year Battle of Aleppo represents one of the longest sieges in modern warfare and one of the bloodiest battles of the Syrian Civil War, ending in 2016 and leaving an estimated 31,000 people dead. However, the Civil War continued long after and it was only at the end of November 2024 that it began to come to an end. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, head of the HTS Islamist opposition group, led an offensive that by December 8 had ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after 13 years of war, six decades of autocratic rule, and the death of over 600,000.

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Gaza, Palestine -

The Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip. The attack came after years of tension and almost 60 years of Israeli occupation in Palestine. The next day, Israel declared itself in a state of war, which has continued to this day and seen Gaza turned into a battlefield. By November 2024, it was estimated that over 48,000 Gazans had been killed and two-thirds of buildings in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed.Sources: (United Nations) (Oxford University Press) (BBC) (The Guardian) (Britannica) (Los Angeles Times) (Al Jazeera) 

See also: When children are the target of conflict

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