Culloden

However you view history, Culloden and its aftermath were a brutal human tragedy. The battle between the rebellious Jacobites (many of them Highlanders) and the government forces was actually over fairly quickly, but in the aftermath ‘Butcher’ Cumberland’s British troops slew the injured as they lay on Culloden Moor, a massacre of ostensibly British citizens by British troops. The ramifications of the defeat were seismic both for the Jacobite cause and the whole Highland way of life. The battlefield's new high-tech visitor centre sets the scene with a blast of audio-visual trickery, but just walking on the bleak moor, taking in the government and Jacobite lines and the clan graves, delivers the most memorable history lesson.