What battles, operations, individual actions, casualties, etc. should everyone know about?

For what audience?  What grade level?

What will be said in this thread

Washington's Retreat from New York
Defense of Baltimore
The Vicksburg Campaign
Pattons Breakout
etc

To actually study:
The battle of the Wilderness
The attempt to take Quebec
The fall of the Phillipines
Katherine Pass
Most of the Union Leadership in the first years of the War in the East
Failures of civilian leadership during Vietnam and how the military exacerbated the problems.  

You can see where this is going.

French & Indian War

Bushy Run.  Bouquet's use of Indian tactics against the Indians.  

American Revolution

Battle of Long Island.   Brilliant maneuvering by Howe
Bennington.   Irregulars (militia) defeat regulars (Hessians)
King's Mountain.   Militia defeats British trained Tory units
Cowpens.   Morgan uses every weakness as a strength.  
Siege of Ft Sackville.  Psyops perfected by George Rogers Clark
Southern Campaign of Greene.  Greene lost every battle but still won the campaign.  
Siege of Boston.   Indirect approach thanks to Knox.  

Civil War

Grants Bruinsberg Campaign.  Maneuver, use of center position, mislead opponent.  
Siege of Battery Wagner.  Fixation doesn't work.  Be flexible.  
Tullahoma Campaign by Rosecrans.  Brilliant almost bloodless victory
Glorietta Campaign.  Logistic?  Who needs that Sh-t?!  
Jackson's Valley Campaign.  One of the brilliant in the war.  
Chancellorsville.   Dividing your outnumbered forces in the presence of the enemy.  
Yorktown.   Magruder pulls a Rommel and bluffs Little Mac.  
Monocacy.  You can still lose but win anyway (and write a great novel, Ben Hur).

Indian Wars

Three Seminole Wars.  Handful of N-D-Ns bankrupt a nation
Nez Pierce.  Brilliant fighting withdraw by Chief Joseph.  
Little Big Horn.  Study in ego driven leadership gone wrong.

Good list. I'd include Crook's Indian campaigns as COIN done right, to include conflict termination.

Lots and lots.

The Battle (and subsequent massacre) at Fort Pillow is all I'm going to mention right now.

Battle of Midway - good use of intelligence in combat operations
Anzio - WTF were they thinking?  Study your defeats (or near disasters) to avoid future ones
Inchon Landing (actually suggested by a subordinate).  To quote Mahan's book, "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History"

There are plenty of examples in the Mexican American War.  Some of the battles fought by Scott and Taylor were brilliant.

All Marines go through mandatory history classes and testing already.

I'd like to see schools teach more about the Korean War.

Spion Kop

The number one battle I'd have folks study is that goat-screw Hurtgen Forest, NW Europe, Fall 1944.

Command fucked that one up totally beyond any human comprehension. I weep tears of rage every time I read about it.

The ass-whoopings should start with Bradley and work it's way down.

The battle of Katherine Pass?  Tell me about that one...

Africa. WWII. America found out this wasn't going to be their Daddy's war.

You do know it is Kasserine Pass, not Katherine Pass, right???

Not cool to make fun of his lithp, man.  Not cool.

Here's just a few lesser known US operations that have a lot of relevance to the modern era:

War against the Barbary Pirates - our first big steps out of isolationism, confirmation of the role of the Navy and Marine Corps as expeditionary forces able to conduct operations far home.
Mexican-American War - or why the Mexicans don't trust us.
Little Big Horn - failure to use intelligence when you expect conditions and numbers to be the same as usual; followed by many examples of good and bad leadership - not just Custer.  Plus a successful and desperate defense after Custer's detachment was massacred.
The Small Wars in Latin America - why South America doesn't trust us, the shaping of the Marines as a small, elite, expeditionary land force, and the practical application of the Monroe Doctrine. (The Savage Wars of Peace)
The Spanish-American War - how the media creates and manipulates events for financial gain.  Why automatically assuming the worst about the other guy, i.e. assuming the Maine was attacked, is dangerous.
The Philippine Insurrection - successful US counterinsurgency.
Formation and initial employment of the Army into WWI: Growth of a huge bureaucracy and it's initial inefficiencies; the precedent for massive centralization of power and control of industry in a crisis; how the government squashed dissent and suppressed anti-war protestors; how Pershing fought to keep the Army independent of Europe, thus ensuring us a voice in the aftermath; how Mitchell fought for independence of the Army Air Corps and how the rise of airpower shaped the modern Air Force. (The Last Days Of Innocence)
Korean War - the relief of McArthur and its implications for the return to limited conflict, and civilian control of the military; how a conventional large scale war was fought in the nuclear era.

I just did a Staff Ride to Cowpens on Saturday.  A small, one day (one hour, actually) battle is perfect for study.

Lets not forget the  TWO runs of Torpedo 8 during Midway and I would say the low level raid at Ploesti and maybe the second Shewienfurt raid would rank up there with risk vs courage.

General population, so about eighth grade level.  I'm thinking stuff that I can digest down into a couple paragraphs and a hotlink or two and put on Facebook.  

Good stuff so far, and while much of it will require me reading and simplifying it somewhat, I'm alright with that.  

I'm also interested in names like Michael Monsoor, Sal Giunta, Robert Miller...names people should know but don't.

Wake Island

Landing at Inchon, and the "train robbery"

Dong Xoai



I guess I'm biased.

Examination of Vietnam and comparing/contrasting our strategy against Sun Tzu's

Logistics - Like Rumsfeld said, and got mocked for, you go to war with what you got.  You don't get to wait (usually).  Which shows why the South really had no realistic chance when they started the war when they did.  They really didn't have enough of anything to fight with at the time.  Only a major lack of leadership in the North kept them barely in the game.  Lincoln didn't have the political support to go after the South until after Ft. Sumter.  Had the south waited and built up supplies and relations with overseas suppliers, they might have had a chance, but then had minimal capability to make what they needed,   They couldn't make RR rail, they only had Tredegar to make big engines, they only had a few places that could make artillery.  They couldn't make small arms in quantities, they couldn't make or adequately ocean going shipping, Their capability to make "modern" riverine craft was marginal, little steamboats, yeah, but not ironclads that could go up against Union craft (no ability to make and/or replace decent plate/bars, stock or rail) for armor

Grant's Campaign to take Vicksburg - Both the first phase - getting down there up to and including the river crossing, the Second phase blocking forces, hitting Jackson (city) and then turning on Pemberton and stuffing him back into V'Burg, opening up his acees to a river supply line above the city, and setting Sherman as a blocking force against Johnston.  Also a great illustration of divided command/chain of command issues.  Jeff Davis was telling Pemberton his biggest duty was to hold the city.  Johnston, who was his actual military superior was telling him to get out and save the Army while he could, rather than lose Army and City.

The Siege of Petersburg - Grant anchored his line at the James River, allowing him to build up a tremendous amount of stores over the winter.  Then moving to his left gradually cutting off Lees supply lines.  Lee had a finite number of men, to man an elongating defensive line, Grant was also making it harder to get out , if Lee needed to breakout to join up with Johnston, who was getting pushed north by Sherman.  Lee was caught with an un-winnable predicament.  He could save his Army (maybe) or protect Richmond.  Politically the loss of Richmond would guarantee that no help would come from Europe (a faint hope still expected by Southern political leaders).  Grant just kept pressing until Lee could not save his Army or the City and tried to save his Army when it was too late.  One of the studies here would be to explore the political ramifications of a confederation based on individual states and a weak central government leading to an inability for the central government to compel the states to send needed supplies to the Army.

Vietnam - The strategy employed by McNamara, Kennedy and Johnson of limiting responses, not going after supplies in the north and supply routes, not hitting the dikes and harbors.

Counterinsurgency wars in Malaya, Argentina, Chile, various African countries, Algeria.

Yes, chrome out completed it for me and I guess I missed it when I posted.