Scorched earth
Origin of the term: The term was found in English in a 1937 report on the Second Sino-Japanese War. The retreating Chinese forces burned crops and destroyed infrastructure including cities to sabotage the logistics of the advancing Japanese forces.

Military theory: Clausewitz wrote in Principles of War:

In defensive just as in offensive warfare, it is necessary to pursue a great aim: the destruction of the enemy army, either by battle or by rendering its subsistence extremely difficult. Thus we shall disorganize it and force it into a retreat, during which it will necessarily suffer great losses. Wellington's campaign in 1810 and 1811 is a good example.
Clausewitz wrote in On War:

All that the country yields will be taken for the benefit of the retreating army first, and will be mostly consumed. Nothing remains but wasted villages and towns, fields from which the crops have been gathered, or which are trampled down, empty wells, and muddy brooks.The pursuing army, therefore, from the very first day, has frequently to contend with the most pressing wants.

Historic examples: Notable historic examples of successful scorched-earth tactics include the failed Swedish, French and German invasion of Russia, Sherman's march to the sea during the American Civil War, Kit Carson's campaign during the Navajo Wars in 1863 and Lord Kitchener's methods in the Anglo-Boer War.

6th century BCE: 

European Scythian campaign: The Scythians used scorched-earth methods against the Persian Achaemenid Empire, led by King Darius the Great, during his European Scythian campaign. The Scythians, who were nomadic herders, evaded the Persian invaders and retreated into the depths of the steppes after they had destroyed food supplies and poisoned wells.

4th century BCE: 

March of the Ten Thousand: The Greek general Xenophon recorded in his Anabasis that the withdrawing enemy burnt up the grass and everything else that was good for use in front of the Ten Thousand.

3rd century BCE: 

Second Punic War: During the Second Punic War in 218–202 BCE, both Carthaginians and Romans used the method selectively during Hannibal's invasion of Italy. After the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene, Quintus Fabius Maximus instructed those living in the path of the invading Carthaginians to burn their houses and grain.

2nd century BCE: 

Third Punic War: After the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BCE, the Roman Senate also elected to use this method to permanently destroy the Carthaginian capital city, Carthage (near modern-day Tunis). The buildings were torn down, their stones scattered so not even rubble remained, and the fields were burned. However, the story that they salted the earth is apocryphal.

1st century BCE: 

Gallic Wars: The system of punitive destruction of property and subjugation of people when accompanying a military campaign was known as vastatio. Two of the first uses of scorched earth recorded happened in the Gallic Wars. The first was used when the Celtic Helvetii were forced to evacuate their homes in Southern Germany and Switzerland because of incursions of unfriendly Germanic tribes: to add incentive to the march, the Helvetii destroyed everything they could not bring.
The second case shows actual military value: during the Great Gallic War the Gauls under Vercingetorix planned to lure the Roman armies into Gaul and then trap and obliterate them. They thus ravaged the countryside of what are now the Benelux countries and France. This caused immense problems for the Romans, but the Roman military triumphs over the Gallic alliance showed that the ravaging alone was not to be enough to save Gaul from subjugation by Rome.

4th century CE: 

Roman invasion of Persia: In the year CE 363, the Emperor Julian's invasion of Persia was turned back by a scorched-earth policy:

The extensive region that lies between the River Tigris and the mountains of Media ...was in a very improved state of cultivation. Julian might expect, that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives. But, on the approach of the Romans, the rich and smiling prospect was instantly blasted. Wherever they moved ... the cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were consumed with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which interrupted the march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of a smoking and naked desert. This desperate but effectual method of defence can only be executed by the enthusiasm of a people who prefer their independence to their property; or by the rigor of an arbitrary government, which consults the public safety without submitting to their inclinations the liberty of choice.

7th century CE: 

First Fitna: During the First Fitna (656–661), Muawiyah I sent Busr ibn Abi Artat to a campaign in the Hejaz and Yemen to ravage territory loyal to Muawiyah's opponent Ali ibn Abi Talib. According to Tabari, 30,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed during that campaign of the civil war. Muawiyah also sent Sufyan ibn Awf to Iraq to burn the crops and homes of Ali's supporters.

9th century CE: 

Viking invasion of England: During the Viking invasion of England, the Viking chieftain Hastein tried to occupy the ruined Roman fortress of Chester in late summer 893, planning to raid northern Mercia from the refortified fortress. But the Mercians destroyed all crops and livestock in the surrounding countryside and expelled the Vikings successfully.

11th century: 

Harrying of the North: In the Harrying of the North, William the Conqueror's solution to stop a rebellion in 1069 was the brutal conquest and subjugation of northern England. William's men burnt whole villages from the Humber to Tees and slaughtered the inhabitants. Food stores and livestock were destroyed so that anyone surviving the initial massacre would soon succumb to starvation over the winter. The destruction is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. The survivors were reduced to cannibalism, with one report stating that the skulls of the dead were cracked open so that their brains could be eaten. Between 100,000 and 150,000 perished, and the area took centuries to recover from the damage.

14th century: 

Hundred Years' War: During the Hundred Years' War, both the English and the French conducted chevauchée raids over the enemy territory to damage its infrastructure.
Robert the Bruce counselled using scorched earth to frustrate the invasion of Scotland by Edward I of England, according to an anonymous 14th-century poem:

Wars of Scottish Independence: A slighting is the deliberate destruction, whether partial or complete, of a fortification without opposition. Sometimes, such as during the Wars of Scottish Independence and the English Civil War, it was done to render the structure unusable as a fortress. In England, adulterine (unauthorised) castles would usually be slighted if captured by a king. During the Wars of Scottish Independence, Robert the Bruce adopted a strategy of slighting Scottish castles to prevent them from being occupied by the invading English.

Crusades: A strategy of slighting castles in Palestine was also adopted by the Mamlukes during their wars with the Crusaders.

15th century: 

Moldavian–Ottoman Wars: Stephen the Great used scorched earth in the Carpathians against the Ottoman Army in 1475 and 1476.

Wallachian–Ottoman Wars: In 1462, a massive Ottoman army, led by Sultan Mehmed II, marched into Wallachia. Vlad the Impaler retreated to Transylvania. During his departure, he conducted scorched-earth tactics to ward off Mehmed's approach. When the Ottoman forces approached Tirgoviste, they encountered over 20,000 people impaled by the forces of Vlad the Impaler, creating a "forest" of dead or dying bodies on stakes. The atrocious, gut-wrenching sight caused Mehmed to withdraw from battle and send instead Radu, Vlad's brother, to fight Vlad the Impaler.

16th century: 

Anglicisation of the Irish: Further use of scorched-earth policies in war was seen during the 16th century in Ireland, where it was used by English commanders such as Walter Devereux and Richard Bingham.
The Desmond Rebellions were a famous case in Ireland. Much of the province of Munster was laid waste. The poet Edmund Spenser left an account of it:

In those late wars in Munster; for not withstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they could have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued the same.