Question: Which battle took place first, the Battle of Stones River or the Battle of the Bulge?
Context: The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II.  It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in eastern Belgium, northeast France, and Luxembourg, towards the end of World War II.  The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard.  American forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties of any operation during the war.  The battle also severely depleted Germany's armored forces, and they were largely unable to replace them.  German personnel and, later, Luftwaffe aircraft (in the concluding stages of the engagement) also sustained heavy losses. Stones River National Battlefield, a 570 acre park along the Stones River in Rutherford County, Tennessee, three miles (5 km) northwest of Murfreesboro and twenty-eight miles southeast of Nashville, memorializes the Battle of Stones River, a key battle of the American Civil War that took place on December 31, 1862 and January 2, 1863, which resulted in a strategic Union victory. The Battle of Ticinus was a battle of the Second Punic War fought between the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal and the Romans under Publius Cornelius Scipio in November 218 BC.  The battle took place in the flat country of Pavia county on the right bank of the Ticino River, not far north from its confluence (from the north) with the Po River.  The battle is named from the river, not the nearby contemporaneous settlement of Ticinum (today's Pavia).  Although the precise location is not known, it is generally accepted that a settlement known today as Vigevano is mentioned in Livy's text and that Scipio's camp was to the south at Gambolo, whose coordinates are given on the map.  The conflict would have been west of there.  It was the first battle of the war against the Romans that was fought on Italian soil and the first battle of the war to employ legion-sized forces.  Its loss by the Romans, and the temporary disablement of Scipio's command, set the stage for the Roman disaster at the Battle of Trebbia in December. The Battle of Clitheroe was a battle between a force of Scots and English knights and men at arms which took place on 10 June 1138 during the period of The Anarchy.  The battle was fought on the southern edge of the Bowland Fells, at Clitheroe, Lancashire.  It took place in the course of an invasion of England by King David I of Scotland.  In the summer of 1138, King David split his army into two forces.  One of them, commanded by William fitz Duncan, Mormaer of Moray, marched into Lancashire.  There he harried Furness and Craven.  On 10 June, William fitz Duncan was met by a force of knights and men-at-arms.  A pitched battle took place and the result was that the English army was routed.  The battle was a prelude to the Battle of the Standard later in the summer, where the result was reversed. The Battle of Cape Esperance, also known as the Second Battle of Savo Island and, in Japanese sources, as the Sea Battle of Savo Island (サボ島沖海戦 ) , took place on 11–12 October 1942 in the Pacific campaign of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and United States Navy.  The naval battle was the second of four major surface engagements during the Guadalcanal campaign and took place at the entrance to the strait between Savo Island and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.  Cape Esperance ( ) is the northernmost point on Guadalcanal, and the battle took its name from this point. The Battle of the Allia was fought between the Senones (one of the Gallic tribes which had invaded northern Italy) and the Romans.  It was fought at the confluence of the rivers Tiber and Allia, eleven Roman miles (16 km) north of Rome.  The Romans were routed and subsequently the Senones sacked Rome.  The common date given for the battle is 390 BC.  This is based on the account of the battle by the Roman historian Livy and the Varronian Chronology, a Roman dating system.  The ancient Greek historian Polybius, who used a Greek dating system, derived the date 387/6 BC.  Plutarch wrote that the battle took place just after the summer solstice when the moon was near the full, a little more than three hundred and sixty years from the foundation of Rome.  That would be shortly after 393 BC.  Tacitus said that the battle took place the 15 before the Kalends of August, which is 18 July. The Battle of Dalrigh, also known as the Battle of Dail Righ, Battle of Dalry or Battle of Strathfillan, was fought in the summer of 1306 between the army of King Robert I of Scotland against the Clan MacDougall of Argyll who were allies of Clan Comyn and the English.  It took place at the hamlet of Dalrigh (the "King's Field" in the Scottish Gaelic language) near Tyndrum in Perthshire, Scotland (not to be confused with Dalry, Ayrshire).  Bruce's army, reeling westwards after defeat by the English at the Battle of Methven, was intercepted and all but destroyed, with Bruce himself narrowly escaping capture.  The battle took place sometime between late July and early August, but the exact date is unknown. The Battle of Kuwait International Airport occurred on February 27, 1991 during the 1st Gulf War.  It was a tank battle between the United States and Ba'athist Iraq.  Despite being a very large battle it is often overlooked compared to the other battles which took place during the war.  No less than elements of 18 divisions total participated in this battle.  U.S. Army Special Forces units and multiple Iraqi Commando units were also in theatre.  In reality the battle took place over a span of three days despite the primary battle at Kuwait International Airport lasting only one day.  Much of the combat actually took place en route to the airport.  The battle featured the "Reveille Engagement" which went on to become the biggest and fastest tank battle in United States Marine Corps' entire history. The Battle of Stones River or Second Battle of Murfreesboro, was fought from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, in Middle Tennessee, as the culmination of the Stones River Campaign in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.  Of the major battles of the Civil War, Stones River had the highest percentage of casualties on both sides.  Although the battle itself was inconclusive, the Union Army's repulse of two Confederate attacks and the subsequent Confederate withdrawal were a much-needed boost to Union morale after the defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, and it dashed Confederate aspirations for control of Middle Tennessee. The Battle of Berestechko (Polish: "Bitwa pod Beresteczkiem" ; Ukrainian: Берестецька битва, Битва під Берестечком ) was fought between the Ukrainian Cossacks, led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, aided by their Crimean Tatar allies, and a Polish army under King John II Casimir.  It was a battle of a Cossack rebellion in Ukraine that took place in the years 1648–1657 after the expiration of a two-year truce.  Fought from 28 to 30 June 1651, the battle took place in the province of Volhynia, on the hilly plain south of the Styr River.  The Polish camp was on the river opposite Berestechko and faced south, towards the Cossack army about two kilometers away, whose right flank was against the River Pliashivka (Pliashova) and the Tatar army on their left flank.  It was probably the largest European land battle of the 17th century.
Answer: Battle of Stones River