1. Long-term causes (militarism, alliances, imperialism, nationalism) build pressure across Europe

2. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo (June 1914) triggers WWI

3. WWI kills an unprecedented number, destroys empires, and creates revolutionary conditions

4. Russian Revolution (1917) produces the first communist state

5. Treaty of Versailles (1919) humiliates Germany and creates unstable successor states

6. League of Nations fails to prevent aggression

7. Great Depression (1929-) destroys faith in liberal democracy and capitalism

8. Totalitarian regimes rise in Italy (Mussolini, 1922), Germany (Hitler, 1933), and Japan (military government, 1930s); Stalin consolidates totalitarian rule in USSR

9. Appeasement (1930s) fails to stop Nazi expansion

10. WWII (1939-1945) in Europe and Pacific produces unprecedented destruction and the Holocaust

11. Atomic bombs end the war and inaugurate the nuclear age

II. World War I (1914-1918)