Tariq ibn Ziyad or Taric bin Zeyad (d. 720), known in Spanish history and legend as Taric el Tuerto (Taric the one-eyed), was a Berber Muslim and Umayyad general who led the conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711. He is considered to be one of the most important Military Commanders in Spanish History. He was initially the deputy of Musa ibn Nusair in North Africa, and was sent by his superior to launch the first thrust of an invasion of the Iberian peninsula. Some claim that he was invited to intervene by the heirs of the Visigothic King, Wittiza, in the Visigothic civil war.

On April 30, 711, the armies of Tariq landed at Gibraltar (the name Gibraltar is derived from the Arabic name Jabal Al Tariq, which means mountain of Tariq). Upon landing, Tariq is said to have made the following speech, well-known in the Muslim world, to his soldiers:

أيّها الناس، أين المفر؟ البحر من ورائكم، والعدوّ أمامكم، وليس لكم والله إلا الصدق والصبر...
Hey People ! There is nowhere to run away! The sea is behind you, and the enemy in front of you: I swear to God, you have only sincerity and patience. (as recounted by al-Maqqari).

The Moorish armies swept through Iberia and, in the summer of 711, won a decisive victory when the Visigoth king, Roderic, was defeated and killed on July 19th at the Battle of Guadalete. Afterwards, Tariq was made governor of Hispania but eventually was called back to Damascus by the Umayyad Caliph Walid I because he did not authorize the Muslim invasion of Spain.

Sir William Wallace (c.1270 – 23 August 1305) was a Scottish knight who led a resistance to the English occupation of Scotland during significant periods of the Wars of Scottish Independence. William was the inspiration for the historical novel The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie written by the 15th century minstrel Blind Harry. This work is more of a novel than a biography and is responsible for much of the legend encompassing the history of William Wallace.

Joan of Arc, also known as Jeanne d'Arc or The Maid of Orleans[1] or Jeanne la Pucelle (6 January 1412 – 30 May 1431),[2] is a national heroine of France and a saint of the Catholic Church. She stated that she received visions from God, through which she helped inspire Charles VII's troops to retake most of his dynasty's former territories, which had been under English and Burgundian dominance during the Hundred Years' War. She had been sent to the siege of Orléans by the then-uncrowned King Charles VII as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the disregard of veteran commanders and ended the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims, making Charles the only one of the two claimants to be officially crowned.

Following the coronation, the Royal army attempted further campaigns, but with less success. She refused to leave the field when she was wounded during an attempt to recapture Paris that autumn. Hampered by court intrigues, she led only minor companies from then on, and fell prisoner during a skirmish near Compiègne the following spring. A politically-motivated trial by the English convicted her of heresy. The English regent, John, Duke of Bedford, had her burnt at the stake in Rouen. She had become the heroine of her faction at the age of seventeen, but died at the age of nineteen. Some twenty-four years later, after the English were driven out, Joan's aged mother, Isabelle, convinced the Inquisitor-General and Pope Callixtus III to reopen Joan's case, resulting in an appeal which overturned the original conviction by the English.[3] Pope Benedict XV canonized her on 16 May 1920.

Owain Lawgoch, (English: "Owain of the Red Hand", French: "Yvain de Galles"), full name Owain ap Thomas ap Rhodri (c. 1330 - 1378), was a Welsh soldier who served in Spain, France, Alsace and Switzerland. He led a Free Company fighting for the French against the English in the Hundred Years' War. As the last descendant of Llywelyn the Great in the male line, he was a claimant to the title of Prince of Gwynedd and of Wales.

The year in which Owain entered the service of the king of France is uncertain. Froissart claims that he fought on the French side at the Battle of Poitiers, but there is no evidence to support this. He was certainly in the service of the French as leader of a Free Company when the period of truce between France and England following the Treaty of Brétigny ended and hostilities resumed in 1369.

Owain's company consisted largely of Welshmen. The second in command of this company was Ieuan Wyn, known to the French as le Poursuivant d'Amour, a descendant of Ednyfed Fychan, seneschal of Gwynedd under Owain's ancestors. While in French service Owain had good relations with Bertrand du Guesclin and others and gained the support of Charles V of France.

He made his first attempt to claim his inheritance in late 1369. A fleet was prepared in Harfleur at King Charles' expense to invade Wales under Owain's command and set sail just before Christmas. However storms forced it to return to port after a few days. Owain served with Bertrand du Guesclin in Maine and Anjou in 1370 and in 1371 he and his company were in the service of the town of Metz.

In May 1372 in Paris, Owain announced that he intended to claim the throne of Wales. He set sail from Harfleur with money borrowed from Charles V. Owain first attacked the island of Guernsey, and was still there when a message arrived from Charles ordering him to abandon the expedition in order to go to Castile to seek ships to attach La Rochelle. Owain defeated an English and Gascon force at Soubise later that year, capturing Sir Thomas Percy and Jean de Grailly, the Captal de Buch. Another invasion of Wales was planned in 1373 but had to be abandoned when John of Gaunt launched an offensive. In 1374 he fought at Mirebau and at Saintonge. In 1375 Owain was employed by Enguerrand de Coucy to help win Enguerrand's share of the Hapsburg lands due to him as nephew of the former Duke of Austria. However they were defeated by the forces of Berne and had to abandon the expedition.

In 1377 there were reports that Owain was planning another expedition, this time with help from Castile. The alarmed English government sent a spy, the Scot Jon Lamb, to assassinate Owain, who had been given the task of besieging Mortagne sur Mer in Poitou. Lamb gained Owain's confidence and became his chamberlain, which gave him the opportunity to stab Owain to death in July 1378. The Issue Roll of the Exchequer dated 4 December 1378 records "To John Lamb, an esquire from Scotland, because he lately killed Owynn de Gales, a rebel and enemy of the King in France ... £20". Owain was buried in the church of Saint-Léger and Ieuan Wyn took over the command of his company.

After the assassination of Owain Lawgoch the remaining heirs of the House of Gwynedd all went into hiding until John Wynn, 1st Baronet asserted his pedigree in the 17th Century. No other person would proclaim themselves Prince of Wales until Owain Glyndŵr ("Owain IV") in 1400 and he was not from the House of Gwynedd, but of Powys.

Blackbeard (c. 1680–November 22, 1718) was the nickname of Edward Teach, alias Edward Thatch, (other sources give his name as Edward Drummond) a notorious English pirate who had a short reign of terror in the Caribbean Sea between 1716 and 1718, during a period of time referred to as the Golden Age of Piracy. His final and best known vessel, the Queen Anne's Revenge, is believed to have run ashore near Beaufort Inlet in North Carolina in 1718. Blackbeard had over a dozen wives, most of which were common-law marriages. His last wife was Mary Ormond (or Ormand) of Bath, North Carolina, to whom he was only married for a short while. A painting of him hangs in Van Der Veer House (ca. 1790), in Bath N.C. He is thought to have been born in either Bristol, England, or Jamaica.

Blackbeard often fought with, or simply showed himself wearing, multiple swords, knives, and pistols, and was notorious for wearing hemp and lighted matches woven into his enormous black beard during battle. This image, which he cultivated, has made him the premier image of the seafaring pirate.

One legend says that he shot his own first mate, because "if he didn’t shoot one or two [crewmen] now and then, they’d forget who he was." [1]Another says that on one occasion, having a mite too much to drink, Blackbeard said to his crew, Come, let us make a Hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it. Going below into the ship's hold, they closed the hatches, filled several pots with brimstone and other combustible matter and set them on fire. Soon the men were coughing and gasping for air as the hold filled with sulfurous fumes. All of the men, with the exception of Blackbeard quickly scrambled for fresh air. When Blackbeard finally emerged he snarled, Damn ye, ye yellow ___ ___ ___! I'm a better man than all ye milksops put together!

Hannibal (247 BC – 183/182 BC; sometimes referred to as Hǎnnibal Barca) was a Carthaginian politician and statesman who is considered to be one of the finest military generals in history. He lived in a period of tension in the Mediterranean, with both Carthage and Rome (then the Roman Republic) vying for control of the region. Considered by many as the greatest enemy of the Roman Republic, he is best known for his achievements in the Second Punic War, when he marched an army, which famously included war elephants, from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into northern Italy.

During his invasion of Italy he defeated the Romans in a series of battles, out of which the most famous included the Battles of Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae. After Cannae he seized the second largest city in Italy, Capua, but could not move on to attack the city of Rome as his army needed reinforcements. He maintained an army in Italy for more than a decade and his decision not to attack Rome became a controversial one as the Roman armies regrouped. A Roman counter-invasion of North Africa forced him to return to Carthage, where he was defeated in the Battle of Zama. The defeat forced the Carthaginian Senate to send him into exile. During this exile, he lived at the Seleucid court, where he acted as military advisor to Antiochus III in his war against Rome. Defeated in a naval battle, Hannibal fled again, this time to the Bithynian court. When the Romans demanded his surrender, he preferred to commit suicide rather than submit.

Vercingetorix (72 BC – 46 BC), chieftain of the Arverni, led the great Gallic war against Roman imperialism in 53–52 BC. His name in Gaulish means "over-king of the marching men"; the "marching men" would now be called "infantry". His name was pronounced, in Gaulish (and therefore in Latin), (wer-king-gheto-rīks).

Genghis Khan (c. 1162[1]–August 18, 1227) (IPA: [ʧiŋgɪs χaːŋ], Mongolian: Чингэс хаан, Чингис Хаан, Чингис хан, Chinese: 成吉思汗, pronunciation (help·info)), (also spelled as Chengez Khan in Turkic ,Chinggis Khan, Jenghis Khan, Chinggis Qan, etc.), was the founder of the Mongol Empire (Их Монгол Улс), (1206–1368), the largest contiguous empire in world history. Born Temüjin (Mongolian: Тэмүүжин，Chinese: 鐵木真, Pinyin: Tiěmùzhēn), he united the Mongol tribes and forged a powerful army based on meritocracy, to become one of the most successful military leaders in history.

While his image in most of the world is that of a ruthless bloodthirsty conqueror, Genghis Khan is celebrated as a hero in Mongolia, where he is seen as the father of the Mongol Nation. Before becoming a Khan, Temüjin united the many Turkic-Mongol confederations of Central Asia, giving a common identity to what had previously been a territory of nomadic tribes.

Starting with the conquest of Western Xia in northern China and consolidating through numerous conquests including the Khwarezmid Empire in Persia, Genghis Khan laid the foundation for an empire that was to leave an indelible mark on world history. Several centuries of Mongol rule across the Eurasian landmass, a period that some refer to as 'Pax Mongolica', radically altered the demography and geopolitics of these areas. The Mongol Empire ended up ruling, or at least briefly conquering, large parts of modern day China, Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine, Korea, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Moldova, Kuwait, Poland and Hungary.

Read this, this guy was a trooper!

Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, DSO, MC and Bar (September 16, 1906—March 8, 1996), nicknamed "Fighting Jack Churchill", fought throughout World War II armed with a bow, arrows and a claymore. He once said "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed".

In May 1940, Churchill and his unit, The Manchester Regiment, ambushed a German patrol near l'Epinette, France. Churchill gave the signal to attack by cutting down the feldwebel (Sergeant) with his barbed arrows.

Before the war, Churchill had graduated from Sandhurst in 1926 and served in Burma with the Manchesters. He left the service in 1936 and worked as a newspaper editor. He used his archery and bagpipe talents to play small film roles in movies like Sabu and The Thief of Baghdad.

He resumed his commission after Poland was invaded and volunteered for the Commandos after fighting at Dunkirk. He led two companies in the raid on the German garrison at Vaasgo, Norway. As the ramps fell on the first landing craft, Churchill leapt forward playing the "March of the Cameron Men" on his pipes. The Commandos destroyed the battery and eliminated the garrison.

For his actions at Dunkirk and Vaasgo, Churchill received the Military Cross and Bar. He received the Distinguished Service Order in 1943 for capturing the battery at Salerno, while commanding Number 2 Commando.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Leading from the front, Churchill infiltrated the town with only a corporal in support. He kidnapped a sentry and forced him to make his comrades surrender. Churchill and the riflemen walked out of town with 42 prisoners and a mortar squad.

In 1944, he led Number 2 Commando to Yugoslavia, where they supported the efforts of Tito's partisans. The soldiers raided the German-held island of Brac and assaulted hill 622. Only Churchill and six others managed to reach the objective. A mortar shell killed or wounded everyone but Churchill, who played "Will Ye No Come Back Again?" on his pipes as the Germans advanced. He was knocked unconscious by grenades and was flown to Berlin for interrogation after being captured.

He escaped from Sachsenhausen concentration camp in April 1945 and walked 150 miles to Verona, Italy where he met an American armored column. The war was almost over, and Churchill went to Palestine in 1948. He rescued 700 Jewish doctors, students and patients from a hospital under attack from Arab militants and his squad of 12 men escorted them to safety.

He retired in 1959 and died in Surrey in 1996. Eccentric until the end, Churchill would toss his briefcase out of the window of the commuter train he rode home every day. Passengers and conducters were shocked because they didn't know he was throwing the luggage into his own backyard as the train passed by. It saved him the trouble of carrying it all the way home from the station.

Sasaki Kojirō (佐々木 小次郎, Sasaki Kojirō? also known as Ganryu Kojiro) 1585 - April 14, 1612) was a prominent Japanese swordsman, born in the Fukui Prefecture, from the Sengoku and early Edo period. He is most remembered for his death while battling Miyamoto Musashi in 1612.

He went by the fighting name of Ganryū (岸柳), which was also the name of the kenjutsu school he had founded (the name translating to "Shore Willow"). It is said that Kojirō studied the Chūjō-ryu style of sword fighting from either Kanemaki Jisai or Toda Seigen. Toda Seigen was a master of the kodachi. If Kojirō had indeed learned Chūjō-ryu from Seigen, he would have been his master's sparring partner. Due to his master's use of the kodachi, Kojirō used a katana against him, therefore eventually excelling in its use. It was after defeating his master's younger brother that he left and founded the Ganryū. The first reliable account of his life states that in 1610, because of the fame of his school and his many successful duels, Kojirō was honored by Lord Hosokawa Tadaoki as the chief weapons master of the Hosokawa fief north of Kyushu.

Francesco Sforza (1401 - 1466) was the founder of the Sforza dynasty in Milan, Italy.

The son of Muzio Sforza, Francesco was originally a mercenary leader, most famous for being able to bend metal bars with his bare hands. He later proved himself to be an expert tactician and very skilled field commander. He saved the Visconti rulers of Milan from ruin on a number of occasions. As a reward, the then duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, allowed Francesco to marry his daughter Bianca, but after the duke died without a male heir, fighting broke out. During this time, Franscesco turned against the Visconti, and seized control of Milan and its possessions.

Under his rule (which was moderate and skillful), Francesco modernized the city and Duchy of Milan. He created an efficient tax system that generated enormous revenues for the government, his court became a center of Renaissance learning and culture, and the people of Milan loved him.

During Sforza's reign over Milan, Florence was under the command of Cosimo de' Medici and the two enlightened rulers became close friends. This friendship eventually manifested in the Peace of Lodi, an alliance between Florence and Milan that succeeded in stabilizing almost all of Italy for its duration.

Francesco is mentioned several times in Niccolò Machiavelli's book The Prince; he is generally praised in that work for his ability to hold his country and as a warning to a prince not to use mercenary troops.

Andrew Moray, also called Andrew of Moray (La: Andreas de Moravia), Andrew Murray or simply Moray (d. 1297), was a key military and political leader in Scotland during the Scottish Wars of Independence.

A member of the Scottish nobility, of Norman descent, he went to prison with his father, Sir Andrew de Moray, following the 1296 Battle of Dunbar during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He escaped from Chester Castle, and carried on the fight against English occupation of Scotland. While William Wallace fought the English occupation in southern Scotland for the most part Moray raised support for the same cause in northern Scotland.

The Scots forces in Moray (the district) had their base at Avoch Castle, near Inverness. They organised and carried out guerrilla attacks on English occupiers, and later captured Balconie Castle from the Countess of Ross, who sided with the English. Balconie Castle would prove to be a strategic stronghold for the Scots.

Wallace and Moray met, and perhaps each took courage from the other's conviction. When Wallace prepared for the English invasion at Stirling, Moray brought an army to join the cause, and some attribute the Scottish victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge (11 September 1297) to de Moray's tactical skill.

Unfortunately, the battle at Stirling Bridge cost Moray his life; an arrow wound he suffered in the fight killed him two months later.