This is a list of wars ordered chronologically by the year that hostilities were initiated. (See also war; law of war; military technology; collective violence.)

1300–1200 bce

• Trojan War (dates uncertain)

1200–1100 bce

• Trojan War (dates uncertain)

800–700 bce

• First Messenian War (c. 735–715 bce)
• Lelantine War (c. 720–680 bce; dates uncertain)

700–600 bce

• Lelantine War (c.720–680 bce; dates uncertain)
• Second Messenian War (c. 660 bce)

500–400 bce

• Greco-Persian Wars (492–449 bce)
• Peloponnesian War (431–404 bce)

400–300 bce

• Lamian War (323–322 bce)

300–200 bce

• First Punic War (264–241 bce)
• Second Punic War (218–201 bce)

200–100 bce

• Third Punic War (149–146 bce)

100 bce–100 ce

• Gallic Wars (58–50 bce)

600–700

• Jinshin-no-ran (672)

1000–1300

• Norman Conquest (1066)
• Crusades (1095–1291; sporadically thereafter)
• Gempei War (1180–85)
• Barons’ War (1264–67)

1300–1400

• Hundred Years’ War (c. 1337–1453)
• War of the Eight Saints (1375–78)

1400–1500

• Hundred Years’ War (c. 1337–1453)
• Thirteen Years’ War (1454–66)
• Wars of the Roses (1455–85)
• Ōnin War (1467–77)

1500–1600

• Count’s War (1534–36)
• Araucanian Wars (1541–58)
• Livonian War (1558–83)
• Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648)
• War of the Three Henrys (1587–89)

1600–1700

• Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648)
• Kalmar War (1611–13)
• Thirty Years’ War (1618–48)
• Powhatan War (1622–44)
• Bishops’ Wars (1639; 1640)
• English Civil Wars (1642–51)
• First Northern War (1655–60)
• War of Devolution (1667–68)
• King Philip’s War (1675–76)
• War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97)
• King William’s War (1689–97)

1700–1800

• Second Northern War (1700–21)
• War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14)
• War of the Emboabas (1708–09)
• Carnatic Wars (1746–48; 1749–54; 1758–63)
• Queen Anne’s War (1702–13)
• Yamasee War (1715–16)
• War of the Polish Succession (1733–38)
• War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739–48)
• War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48)
• King George’s War (1744–48)
• French and Indian War (1754–63)
• Silesian Wars (1740–42; 1744–45; 1756–62)
• Seven Years’ War (1756–63)
• Lord Dunmore’s War (1774)
• Rohilla War (1774)
• American Revolution (1775–83)
• First Maratha War (1775–82)
• War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–79)
• Cape Frontier Wars (1779–1879)
• French Revolution (1787–99)
• French revolutionary wars (1792–1801)

1800–1900

• Cape Frontier Wars (1779–1879)
• French revolutionary wars (1792–1801)
• War of the Oranges (1801)
• Tripolitan War (1801–05)
• Second Maratha War (1803–05)
• Third Maratha War (1817–18)
• Napoleonic Wars (1803–15)
• Black War (1804–30)
• Peninsular War (1808–14)
• War of 1812 (1812–15)
• Creek War (1813–14)
• War of Greek Independence (1821–32)
• Padri War (1821–37)
• Naning War (1831–32)
• Pastry War (1838–39)
• Mexican-American War (1846–48)
• Crimean War (1853–56)
• Bleeding Kansas (1854–59)
• American Civil War (1861–65)
• War of the Triple Alliance (1864/65–70)
• Seven Weeks’ War (1866)
• Selangor Civil War (1867–73)
• Franco-German War (1870–71)
• Acehnese War (1873–1904)
• Red River Indian War (1874–75)
• Serbo-Turkish War (1876–78)
• Anglo-Zulu War (1879)
• War of the Pacific (1879–83)
• Gun War (1880–81)
• Sino-French War (1883–85)
• Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885–86)
• Sino-Japanese War (1894–95)
• Spanish-American War (1898)
• Philippine-American War (1899–1902)
• South African War (1899–1902)
• The War of a Thousand Days (1899–1903)

1900–2000

• Acehnese War (1873–1904)
• Philippine-American War (1899–1902)
• South African War (1899–1902)
• The War of a Thousand Days (1899–1903)
• Boxer Rebellion (1900–01)
• Moro Wars (1901–13)
• Russo-Japanese War (1904–05)
• Pig War (1906–09)
• Mexican Revolution (1910–20)
• Italo-Turkish War (1911–12)
• World War I (1914–18)
• Baltic War of Liberation (1918–20)
• Russian Civil War (1918–20)
• Russo-Polish War (1919–20)
• Rif War (1921–26)
• Chaco War (1932–35)
• Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–36)
• Spanish Civil War (1936–39)
• Sino-Japanese War (1937–45)
• Phony War (1939–40; no actual hostilities)
• Russo-Finnish War (1939–40)
• World War II (1939–45)
• Greek Civil War (1944–45; 1946–49)
• Arab-Israeli wars (1948–49; 1956; 1967; 1973; 1982)
• Korean War (1950–53)
• Algerian War (1954–62)
• Vietnam War (1954–75)
• Six-Day War (1967)
• War of Attrition (1969–70)
• Yom Kippur War (1973)
• Dirty War (1976–83)
• Afghan War (1978–92)
• Iran-Iraq War (1980–88)
• Falkland Islands War (1982)
• Persian Gulf War (1990–91)
• Bosnian conflict (1992–95)
• Kosovo conflict (1998–99)

2000–

• Afghanistan War (2001–14)
• Iraq War (2003–11)
• Syrian Civil War (2012– )