The World Wars

World War 1 was a military conflict lasting from 1914-1918 which involved nearly all the biggest powers of the world. Click for more interesting WW1 facts!

Hitler. Churchill. Roosevelt. De Gaulle. MacArthur. Patton. Stalin. Mussolini. Before they were giants, they were infantrymen and privates in the "war to end all wars." This Emmy nominated series tells the story of a generation of men forged in the trenches who came to command a world on the brink of disaster.

Find out more about The World Wars, a mini-series event about the biggest wars the world has ever seen. Get series information, videos and more on History.com.

In late June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia. An escalation of threats and mobilization orders followed the incident, leading by mid-August to the outbreak of World War I, which pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire (the so-called Central Powers) against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan (the Allied Powers).

Like all wars, human suffering stands out as the key legacy of WW2, but the degree of human suffering experienced in WW2 was unmatched in history.

John will teach you how the assassination of an Austrian Archduke kicked off a new kind of war that involved more nations and more people than any war that came before. New technology like machine guns, airplanes, tanks, and poison gas made the killing more efficient than ever.

The short version: Japan's actions from 1852 to 1945 were motivated by a deep desire to avoid the fate of 19th-century China and to become a great power.

The great war may have been destructive, but it also generated so many startling developments - in medicine, warfare, geopolitics and social relations - that its influence still resonates today. Here are 15 lasting legacies of the war. If you think we've missed anything, add it in the comment thread.

The aftermath of World War II was the beginning of a new era. It was defined by the decline of the old great powers and the rise of two superpowers: the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States of America (US), creating a bipolar world. Allied during World War II, the US and the USSR became competitors on the world stage and engaged in what became known as the Cold War.

In this lesson, we will explore the consequences of World War I. We will learn about the political, economic, and social impact the war had on the United States and Europe.

A recent list of the hundred most important news stories of the twentieth century ranked the onset of World War I eighth. This is a great error. Just about everything that happened in the remainder of the century was in one way or another a result of World War I, including the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, World War II, the Holocaust, and the development of the atomic bomb.

In which John Green teaches you about World War II, aka The Great Patriotic War, aka The Big One. So how did this war happen? And what does it mean?

The First World War (WWI) was fought from 1914 to 1918 and the Second World War (or WWII) was fought from 1939 to 1945. They were the largest military conflicts in human history. Both wars involved military alliances between different groups of countries.

The World Wars is a miniseries event that takes viewers on an epic and groundbreaking ride through the bloodiest century in history.

World War I destroyed kings, kaisers, czars and sultans; it demolished empires; it introduced chemical weapons; it brought millions of women into the work force.