The Far East Incident

The most unusual war of the 20th century took place in 1969. El Salvador and Honduras faced one another in a qualifying set for the 1970 World Cup. Tensions were already boiling over in the two countries over the issue of Salvadoran workers in Honduras. But soccer sometimes brings out the worst in people, and the games turned from friendly competition into a full-scale military invasion by El Salvador on its neighbor. Although the fighting lasted only four days, the combat damaged two nations already teetering on the brink of economic collapse. And it all started over a soccer game.

And you will find few war stories this potentially interesting in The Century of Warfare, an interminable series from the History Channel. A low-budget 1993 British production that relies on public domain footage, library music, and a monotonous British narrator with a soporific voice, this 26-episode series somehow manages to make one of the most inherently interesting subjects stunningly pedestrian and dull.

Documentary producer Alan Landsburg Productions created this series of 16 programs, with post-production at Neiman-Tillar Associates, about the history of diplomacy from 1919 - 1941 and how the world failed to learn the lessons of World War I which inevitably led to World War II. This classic series follows the events that sparked the greatest conflict of the century, capturing the drama, the excitement and the ideological juxtapositions of these crucial years.