World War II: Did you mean...?

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? We've all learned the facts about World War II many times over, thanks to repeated classroom...

Germany started the First World War (1914-18) with the belief its armed forces could win a quick and decisive victory over France and then Russia. The reality turned out to be much more complicated as more countries became involved in a global...

The First World War (1914-18) saw fighting on an unprecedented scale but also involved civilians as never before. For the first time, people hundreds of miles from the fighting front were vulnerable to air attacks. The war at sea dramatically...

Only a couple of decades after the end of the First World War—which was supposed to be the War that Ended All Wars—another, bigger, farther-flung, more destructive, and deadlier war began. Today, you'll learn about how the war in Europe progressed...

Our look at World War II continues with a closer examination of just how the war impacted soldiers in the field, and the people at home. For many of the combatants, the homefront and the warfront were one and the same. The war disrupted life...

Superior weapons can win wars, and during the First World War (1914-18) all sides attempted to gain an advantage over the enemy by producing more and more destructive devices that could be used effectively on land, at sea, and in the air...

In 1846, graduates of West Point Military Academy were deployed to fight in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Less than 20 years later, many now wearing different uniforms, they would meet again as adversaries in the American Civil War...

The First World War (1914-18) stimulated a great wave of literary output, not least in the field of poetry. In an era when photography and film were still in their infancy, poems, especially those written by direct participants, were regularly...

The First World War (1914-18) witnessed an arsenal of new weapons as all sides were desperate to gain an advantage, particularly in the static trench warfare of the Western Front. There were some old tried-and-tested weapons like the Lee-Enfield...

WWI saw the birth of an entirely new form of combat: lone men engaging the enemy in aerial dogfights. The victors became heroes back home, but this was as deadly an occupation as it was an exhilarating one. One bullet, an engine or structural...