1775
Battle of Bunker Hill
The setting
Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill, Charlestown, Massachusetts
Fortified hilltop redoubt overlooking Boston Harbor; open pasture on the approach slopes
Reveal the outcome
Recorded sideAmerican colonists
Recorded resultTactical defeat; forced to withdraw after ammunition ran out
British Pyrrhic victory
How the atlas explains it
Entrenched colonists held disciplined fire until the British were at close range, twice repulsing frontal assaults with devastating volleys before being overrun only when powder was exhausted.
What followed
The bloody cost of dislodging untrained militia shattered British assumptions of an easy war and proved the colonists would stand against regulars.