But then came the Easter Rising, Sinn Fein's victories in the 1918 election, the formation of the First Dail and the War of Irish Independence.

BBC: Home Rule and the Ulster Covenant

The first skirmishes in America's war of independence were at Concord and Lexington in 1775 and the decisive battle was fought at Yorktown in 1781, six years later (though the articles of peace were not signed until 1783).

ECONOMIST: Past and present dangers

Within months, Nigeria was engulfed in independent Africa's first humanitarian catastrophe: a war for the independence of Mr. Achebe's Igbo homeland that left one million people dead, most of them children who starved.

WSJ: Chinua Achebe, Famed Nigerian Writer, Dies