Two hundred and forty years ago, the Battles of Concord and Lexington kicked off the Revolutionary War; a war that would end eight years later with American independence.

Two hundred years ago, in January 1815, Gen. Andrew Jackson and his men defeated the British in New Orleans. Unbeknownst to the combatants, the war that secured U.S. independence had ended a couple weeks before with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.

One hundred and fifty years ago, the guns fell silent after four years of Civil War, this nation’s bloodiest conflict. Roughly 2 percent of the young nation’s population, some 620,000 men, lost their lives.

One hundred years ago, the second year of the “War to End All Wars” raged across Europe and the Turkish peninsula. Two years later, that war would draw in more than 4 million U.S. troops and result in over 320,000 American casualties.

Seventy years ago, in May 1945, American troops were celebrating the allied victory in Europe over the forc...