20 Century World

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World War I, World War II, Cold War, Post-Cold War
• World War I began in 1914 after the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and lasted until 1918.

Assassination of Franz
Ferdinand
• Tensions rise across Europe. Franz Ferdinand,
heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is shot dead
in Sarajevo, capital of the Austrian province of
Bosnia.

• Franz Ferdinand’s killer, Gavrilo Princip, is

backed by Serbian terrorist group ‘the Black
Hand’
 CENTRAL POWERS ALLIED POWERS
• Germany • Great Britain
• Austria-Hungary • France
• Bulgaria vs. • Russia
• Ottoman Empire • Italy
• Romania
• Japan
⮚ Princip and other nationalists were • United States
struggling to end Austro-
Hungarian rule over Bosnia and
Herzegovina and create Yugoslavia
 World War I Begins
• Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying
for war, the Serbian government ordered the
Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia
for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary
declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace
between Europe’s great powers quickly
collapsed.
• Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great
Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-
Hungary and Germany, and World War I had
begun.
 Lost and surrendered resulting to the agreement or
Treaty of Versailles (1919)

European leaders sign the treaty to end

World War I in the Hall of Mirrors at the
Palace of Versailles.
 Treaty of Versailles (1919)
After four years of devastating fighting, the First World War came to an end in 1919 in Versailles. The
treaty, which represented “peace” for some and a “diktat” for others, also sowed the seeds of the
Second World War, which would break out twenty years later.

• Germany accepted responsibility for the war and

lost 68,000 km² of territory, including Alsace and
Lorraine.
• Part of western Prussia was given to a revived
Poland, which gained access to the sea through the
famous “Polish Corridor”
• Germany agreed to pay the crushing sum of 20
billion gold marks in reparations claimed by
France.
• It lost most of its ore and agricultural production.
• Its colonies were confiscated, and its military
strength was crippled.
 World War II
The biggest and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, the war dragged on for
six bloody years until the Allies defeated Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945.

• World War II grew out of issues left

unresolved by that earlier conflict. In
particular, political and economic
instability in Germany, and lingering
resentment over the harsh terms
imposed by the Versailles Treaty,
fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler
and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party.
• Aryan – pure German race (the word Aryan
may mean a noble one.)
• Hitler believed that war was the only way
to gain the necessary “Lebensraum,” or
living space, for that race to expand.

In late August 1939, Hitler and

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed
the German-Soviet Nonaggression
Pact, which incited a frenzy of
worry in London and Paris.
• On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the
west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on
Germany, beginning World War II.
On May 10, 1940 German forces swept through
Belgium and the Netherlands in what became known as
“Blitzkrieg,” or lightning war.
With France on the verge of collapse, Benito Mussolini of
Italy put his Pact of Steel with Hitler into action, and Italy
declared war against France and Britain on June 10.

Let’s have
war!

German planes bombed Britain extensively

throughout the summer of 1940
 LEADERS of WWII

Emperor Adolf Benito

Showa/ Hideki Hitler Mussolini
Tojo
World War II Ends (1945)
The Potsdam Conference (July 17-August 2, 1945)
was the last of the World War II meetings held by the
“Big Three” heads of state. Featuring American
President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill (and his successor, Clement Attlee)
and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.

• Truman authorized the use of devastating weapon, they

developed during a top secret operation code-named The
Manhattan Project, the atomic bomb was unleashed on the
Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Little Boy) and Nagasaki (Fat
Man) in early August.
World War II Casualties and Legacy

• World War II proved to be the

deadliest international conflict
in history, taking the lives of 60
to 80 million people, including
6 million Jews who died at the
hands of the Nazis during the
Holocaust.
 The Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union
lasted for decades and resulted in anti-communist suspicions and
international incidents that led the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear
disaster.
 Cold War
• Americans had long been wary of Soviet
communism and concerned about Russian
leader Joseph Stalin’s tyrannical, blood-
thirsty rule of his own country.
• The Soviets resented the Americans’
decades-long refusal to treat the USSR as
a legitimate part of the international
community as well as their delayed entry
into World War II, which resulted in the
deaths of tens of millions of Russians.
The Cold War: Containment
• By the time World War II ended, most
American officials agreed that the best
defense against the Soviet threat was a
strategy called “containment.”

• It is a policy devised by George Kennan

to prevent the spread of communism.
The Cold War: The Atomic Age

• The containment strategy also provided the rationale for an unprecedented

arms buildup in the United States.
• American officials encouraged the development of atomic weapons like the
ones that had ended World War II. Thus began a deadly “arms race.”
• In 1949, the Soviets tested an atom bomb of their own. In response, President
Truman announced that the United States would build an even more
destructive atomic weapon: the hydrogen bomb, or “superbomb.”
Countries who develop
Atomic Bomb
The Cold War Extends to Space
• Space exploration served as another dramatic
arena for Cold War competition.
• On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7
intercontinental ballistic missile launched
Sputnik (Russian for “traveling companion”),
the world’s first artificial satellite and the first
man-made object to be placed into the Earth’s
orbit.
• One month later, Sputnik 2 sends the first
living being (Laika the dog) into space. Sadly,
she didn’t make it back.
The Cold War Extends to Space
• On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin becomes the
first man in space (Vostok 1).
• On June 16, 1964, Valentina Tereshkova
becomes the first woman in space (Vostok 6).
• On March 18, 1965, Alexei Leonov conducts
the first-ever spacewalk (Voskhod 2).
• Soviets take the lead.
● They make plans to land a man on the
moon with Soyuz, but it didn’t work out.
The Cold War Extends to Space
• In 1958, the U.S. launched its own
satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S.
• Alan Shepard becomes the first American
man in space.
• July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong of NASA’s
Apollo 11 mission, became the first man
to set foot on the moon, effectively
winning the Space Race for the
Americans.
• Apollo 17: Final lunar mission
The Cold War: The Red Scare
• Meanwhile, beginning in 1947, the House Un-
American Activities Committee (HUAC) brought
the Cold War home in another way. The committee
began a series of hearings designed to show that
communist subversion in the United States was
alive and well.
• Thousands of federal employees were investigated,
fired and even prosecuted. As this anticommunist
hysteria spread throughout the 1950s, liberal
college professors lost their jobs, people were
asked to testify against colleagues and “loyalty
oaths” became commonplace.
The Close of the Cold War

• Almost as soon as he took office, President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) began to

implement a new approach to international relations.
• In 1972, President Richard Nixon and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev (1906-
1982) signed the SALT I.
• Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) prohibited the manufacture of
nuclear missiles by both sides and took a step toward reducing the decades-old
threat of nuclear war.
• Despite Nixon’s efforts, the Cold War heated
up again under President Ronald Reagan
(1911-2004). Reagan believed that the spread
of communism anywhere threatened freedom
everywhere.

• Reagan doctrine - provide financial

and military aid to anticommunist governments
and insurgencies around the world.
● Unfortunately, this funded dictators too.
• Premier Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-
2022) took office in 1985 and
introduced two policies that redefined
Russia’s relationship to the rest of the
world:
• “glasnost,” or political openness,
• “perestroika,” or economic reform.
POST
WAR
3 things defined the post-Cold War world

• 1. US Power
• 2. Rise of China as the center of
global industrial growth based
on low wages
• 3. Re-emergence of Europe as a
massive, integrated economic
power
The initial phase of the post-Cold War
world was built on two assumptions
• (1) The United States was the dominant political and
military power but that such power was less significant
than before, since economics was the new focus.

• (2) Revolved around the three Great Powers — the

United States, China and Europe.
…then GLOBALIZATION
officially emerged
• https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history

• https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history

• https://www.slideshare.net/MrsBrownMEH/causes-of-world-war-ii-presentation-a-e-
embed-version

• https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cold-war-history

• https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/beyond-post-cold-war-world