The Battle of Thermopylae
Darius, the ruler of the Persians, decided that Greece should be added to the Persian Empire. In 490 B.C., he landed an army at Marathon; but the invasion became an embarrassing defeat when he was turned back the city-state of Athens.
Darius’s son, Xerxes, assembled an invasion force of 200,000 men to attack Greece in 480 B.C. In one of the most famous battles of the ancient world, the Spartan king Leonidas led a vastly outnumbered force against the invaders. Three hundred Spartans detained the Persians in the narrow pass at Thermopylae. The Spartans were ultimately defeated, and fought heroically to the last man. But their sacrifice inspired a united Greek effort against Persia. Within two years, the Greeks scored two decisive victories against Persia. The Athenian navy defeated the Persians at Salamis, and a Spartan-led Greek Army turned the Persians back at Platea. Persian designs on Greece were effectively thwarted forever.
Thermopylae in popular culture
The Spartan defenders at Thermopylae have long captured the imaginations of historians and writers---and for good reasons. By inspiring the Greeks with their sacrifice, these men may have saved Western Civilization. If Xerxes had succeeded in his campaign to take Greece, then the history of the West would have taken a very different path. The cultural and philosophical legacies of the ancient Greeks might never have reached the modern cultures of Europe.
Most recently, the Spartans of Thermopylae were remembered in the 2007 Warner Brothers film 300. 300 tells the story of the long-ago battle (with a generous dose of Hollywood embellishment, of course). The film is based on the popular graphic novel written by Frank Miller.