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[Robert Vermaat]

Greece's fight for freedom was much like America's fight for freedom. We had slaves at the time too. I have always seen the story of Thermopylae as a story of a few fighting the many. The few where willing to die for what they believed.

I can see some similarities, but a direct comparison is totally out of order. America's fight for freedom from the English and Greece's fight for freedom against the Turks I can can compare, but the ancient attitude to slaves is totally incomparable with the attituide to slaves in the 19th century. There was no thought in ancient Greece whatsoever about abolition of slavery. None. Individual freedom and basic human rights of the individual did not exist. At all.

Therefore, I think a comparison between America and Greece in the time of Thermopylae is wrong - one would pull both periods out of context.
I agree with Jona about the battle, it was most probably not for freedom (why does Mel Gibson keep bellowing this word at the top of his lungs in my brain), and we should stop misusing and distorting real history for modern propaganda.