Shangani Patrol

The Shangani Patrol (or Wilson's Patrol), comprising 34 soldiers in the service of the British South Africa Company, was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors during the First Matabele War in 1893. Headed by Major Allan Wilson, the patrol was attacked just north of the Shangani River in Matabeleland in Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe). Its dramatic last stand, sometimes called "Wilson's Last Stand", achieved a prominent place in the British public imagination and, subsequently, in Rhodesian history, mirroring events such as the Battle of Shiroyama in Japan, the Alamo massacre in Texas and the ancient Greeks' last stand at Thermopylae.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangani Patrol