Freedom House, people take those spooks seriously?

I just looked on the wiki to see the rating, don't know what they stand for. The page also said they were charged with anti-Marxist bias during the 80s while simultaneously being charged for a left-wing bias. I'm not really interested in finding out who was more right then, though, these ratings are not really my cup of tea.

...and cajamarca?

I regard it more as a success of subterfuge and ensuing massacre than a proper battle. Basically unarmed Incas facing a steel ladden conquistadors with cannons, firearms and horses.

So our criteria for a battle includes how fair it was?

@Sicarius - the criteria doesn't have much to do with fairness, but there is a correlation. Say one side is virtually guaranteed to win. What's the big point if they won? They would have sooner or later. That's why I don't see the fall of Constantinople as a big deal, favoring the battles or Yarmouk and Manzikert that occured hundreds of years earlier and were battle which, had they gone a different way, would have changed history. If the Byzantines survived the siege in 1453, they would have been put under siege 20 years later and the city would fall then, etc.

That's a valid point, we don't. I meant the fact that the battle was won before it even began since Pizzaro made sure Incas wouldn't have weapons. From all the battles mentioned, this one was simply impossible to lose, heck the only wound Spaniards suffered was when Pizzaro guarded Atahualpa from his soldier's blade. But I guess that doesn't disqualify it as a battle so yep, that was an important one. Still wouldn't rate it as a top 10, though.

And the reason why it isn't in the top is what goldfinger wrote. Some battles were decisive moments, others were a inevitable result of some forces. This one is somewhere between. If Pizzaro managed to screw up and die (almost impossible) Incas could overcome their crisis and could hold on for much longer. The probability of not being colonized in the long term would be still slim though.

I dont think pizzaro had anything at all to do with the incas not having weapons at the battle when atahuallpa. As I recall It was a poor descision on the part of atahuallpa and having nothing to do with pizzaro (a show of force I beleive). ah here it is

"Pizarro gathered his officers on the evening of November 15 and outlined a scheme that recalled memories of Cortés' exploits in Mexico in its audacity: he would capture the emperor from within the midst of his own armies. Since this could not realistically be accomplished in an open field, Pizarro invited the Inca to Cajamarca. According to the chroniclers, no one slept that night and some even "wet themselves in their terror".

Atahualpa accepted this invitation. Leading a procession of over eighty thousand men, he advanced down the hillside very slowly the next day. Pizarro's fortunes changed dramatically in the late afternoon when Atahualpa announced that the greater part of his host would set up camp outside the walls of the city. He requested that accommodations be provided only for himself and his retinue, which would forsake its weapons in a sign of amity and absolute confidence."

If this is a thread about almosts and so closes then I think this fits the bill amazingly well.
It basically boils down to pizzaro and his band of... urine soaked men lol, lucking the fuck out, atahuallpa being overconfident. Lets just say atahuallpa decided not to make his soldiers wear ceremonial woven armor and carry no weapons. one single decision by one single man. does anyone here belive that 160 odd men (even with horses and primitive firearms) could defeat 80,000 well trained soldiers from a trans-continental empire, fresh from a civil war victory?
If this battle had gone differently, I think the history of S. America would have played out very differently indeed.

Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon - while not a battle - deserves an honorable mention.

In Asia, Admiral Yi Sun-Sin beating the Toyotomi Naval Forces stopped Japan from conquering Korea and China... you might have had a pan-Japanese East Asia if not, and the world would have looked very different. It also triggered the decline of Toyotomi and led to Tokugawa Ieyasu being able to wrest wrest power decisively away at Sekigahara 3 years later, and the Tokugawa government had Japan go isolationist for the next 250 years. Very, very different world if Admiral Yi doesn't cut the Japanese supply lines at sea, since they had dominance on land in Korea.

Also, nobody realized quite how important it was at the time, but Muhammad's conquest of Mecca from the Quraysh turned out to be a really big deal.

Lionhearted, I thought I was the only one on here who recognized the importance of that event.