New Imperialism & the Scramble for Africa
The late 19th-century wave of European colonial expansion driven by economic competition, nationalist prestige, and "civilizing mission" rhetoric, formalized for Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884–85.
ImperialismThe Alliance System & Causes of WWI
Militarism, the rigid Triple Alliance and Triple Entente, nationalism, and imperial rivalry created the conditions in which the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 triggered a continent-wide war.
World War ITrench Warfare & Total War
A defensive stalemate on the Western Front fought from fortified trenches, while "total war" required full mobilization of national economies and populations, blurring the line between soldiers and civilians.
World War IThe Russian Revolution (1917)
The collapse of Tsarist Russia under the strain of World War I, leading to the Bolshevik seizure of power under Lenin and Russia's withdrawal from the war.
World War ITreaty of Versailles
The 1919 peace treaty that assigned Germany sole blame for World War I (the "war guilt clause"), imposed heavy reparations, stripped territory and military power, and created the League of Nations.
Aftermath of WWICollapse of Empires
World War I directly caused the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian, and German empires, fundamentally redrawing the political map of Europe and the Middle East.
Aftermath of WWIHyperinflation & the Great Depression
Germany's reparations burden caused catastrophic currency collapse in the early 1920s, while the global Great Depression after 1929 produced mass unemployment, together destabilizing interwar European democracies.
Interwar PeriodTotalitarianism
A political system in which the state seeks total control over public and private life, enforced through a single party, propaganda, and terror — exemplified by fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Stalinist USSR.
TotalitarianismFascism in Italy (Mussolini)
Benito Mussolini's totalitarian ideology, established in the 1920s, emphasizing extreme nationalism, a single-party state, and the supremacy of the nation over the individual.
TotalitarianismNazism in Germany (Hitler)
Adolf Hitler's totalitarian ideology, combining extreme nationalism with racist and antisemitic ideology and territorial expansion, which seized power in Germany in 1933.
TotalitarianismStalinism in the USSR
Joseph Stalin's totalitarian rule, marked by forced agricultural collectivization, rapid industrialization, the Great Purge, and pervasive use of secret police and terror.
TotalitarianismAppeasement
The policy of Britain and France in the 1930s of making concessions to Hitler's territorial demands, notably at the 1938 Munich Conference, to avoid war — a strategy that ultimately failed.
Causes of WWIIBlitzkrieg
Germany's "lightning war" strategy combining fast-moving tanks, motorized infantry, and air support to rapidly conquer enemy territory at the outset of World War II.
World War IIThe Holocaust
Nazi Germany's systematic, state-sponsored genocide of approximately six million European Jews, along with Roma, disabled people, and other targeted groups, carried out through ghettos, mass shootings, and death camps.
World War IIThe Eastern Front
The massive, brutally destructive conflict between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, marked by enormous casualties and atrocities against civilians, widely considered the most destructive theater of World War II.
World War IID-Day & the Atomic Bombs
The June 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy opened a decisive second front in Western Europe; the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the Pacific war to an end.
End of WWIIAftermath: Division & Decolonization
World War II's end left Germany and Europe divided between East and West, sparked the beginnings of decolonization across European empires, and led to the founding of the United Nations.
Aftermath of WWII