Civil war

A civil war is a violent conflict in which the competing parties are segments of the same country or empire. Civil war is usually the final stage in an unresolved political struggle for national control of power. The conflict may be over matters such as religion, ethnicity, or distribution of wealth. Some civil wars are also categorized as revolutions when major societal restructuring is an outcome of the conflict.

Examples of civil wars include:

• The Anarchy, 1135-1153
• Wars of the Roses, ~1455-1485
• English Civil War, 1642-1649
• American Civil War, 1861-1865
• Russian Civil War, 1917-1921
• Finnish Civil War, 1918
• Irish Civil War, 1922-1923
• Chinese Civil War, 1928-1937, 1945-1949
• Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939
• Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970
• Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1991

See also

• List of contemporary civil wars

There were also several major civil wars in the Roman Empire.\n