1882 — The Battle of Tel el-Kebir

On September 13, 1882, British forces under Sir Garnet Wolseley crushed the Egyptian army of Ahmed Urabi at Tel el-Kebir, about 110 kilometers northeast of Cairo. Wolseley's 13,000 men advanced under cover of darkness and stormed Urabi's entrenched positions at dawn; the battle was over in about an hour.

Around 2,000 Egyptian soldiers were killed against 57 British dead, ending the Urabi Revolt — Egypt's first great nationalist uprising against foreign control. Cairo fell the next day, and Britain began a military occupation of Egypt that would last 70 years, securing British control of the Suez Canal, the vital artery of the empire's trade with India.