Battle of Salamis: Freedom defeats Tyranny

The battle of Salamis has been described by many historians (among them Victor Davis Hanson, Donald Kagan and John Keegan) as the single most significant battle in human history.

The Greek victory over the Persian Empire protected the nascent and singular traditions of democracy and individual rights, as well as guarding Greek philosophy and culture. This meant the eventual flowering of Western culture, which would likely have been snuffed out completely, had the Persians overrun Greece.

Due to the enormous and wide-ranging influence of Western culture on all of human civilization, as well as the huge success of Western culture in its own right, it is literally possible that the world today would be utterly and basically different had the Greeks lost at Salamis. (from Wikipedia)

Read more about this significant turning point in history

Ω, παίδες Ελλήνων, ίτε
Ελευθερούτε πατρίδ' ελευθερούτε δε
παίδας, γυναίκας, θεών τε πατρώων έδη,
θήκας τε προγόνων,
νύν υπέρ παντών αγών

Children of the Greeks go on
Free the motherland, also free
Children, women, and the altars of the gods
And the graves of your ancestors,
Now above all is the fight.

"One day I want my children to say, '...my father chose to die in blood, rather than to live in shit.' -- Greek anti-Nazi resistance fighter slogan