Much has been written about what exactly caused World War I. As befits a true global war, the reality is that there isn't a single cause. There aren't even three causes. There are a vast array of causes. Today we'll get into just a few...

How did Britain feel after World War I? What was one of the reasons Hitler was elected in Germany? After being elected, what were his aims?<br/>
10 Steps to World War Two, Part 1

American soldiers who fought in the trenches of World War I were told they were going into a great adventure to fight for democracy. But new technology, from machine guns to poison gas, made this war more terrible than any previous war....

We're all familiar with the haunting images of the concentration camps of World War II. But the history of those concentration camps extends back to the late 19th. century and the invention of barbed wire and repeating rifle [see...

Where is Rhineland and was it of military interest? Why did Hitler want Austria and how did Britain feel about this?<br/>
10 Steps to World War Two, Part 3

World War I was very hard on the Russian Empire. So hard, in fact, that it led to the end of the Russian Empire. As the global conflict ground on, Tsar Nicholas II faced increasing unrest at home. Today we'll learn about the Revolutions...

What was the most iconic moment during the appeasement? What was the watershed moment when it came to the occupation of Czechoslovakia?<br/>
10 Steps to World War Two, Part 4

What did this pact mean for the two countries and how did this affect Poland? What did Hitler think of Britain and France? 10 Steps to World War Two, Part 5

Where is Saarland located and why was it important? As Germany started rearmament, why wasn't Hitler challenged for this?<br/>
10 Steps to World War Two, Part 2

When you think about World War One, you think of men fighting to death in the mud. All too often the immense contribution of women as nurses, medics, ammunition workers and so many more has been forgotten. This special episode salutes...

World War 1 saw several completely new technologies develop rapidly. The airplane itself was only a few years old but pioneering engineers soon saw its potential for military use. For recognisance and later as fighter or bomber, World...

France fell to Germany in June of 1940. The United States hadn’t yet entered World War 2, and while isolationism remained politically popular, the country was growing wary. The prospect of being drawn into the European conflict was...

In the heat of battle, knowledge is power. Messages must be sent and received quickly, accurately and if you plan on winning, they need to be encoded. October 1918 (World War I) France - Native American men from Oklahoma...

Omer Bartov is a professor of history at Brown University, where he holds the chair in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. A historian for more than four decades, he began his career by challenging the postwar German myth of a “clean”...

This photograph of young farmers on their way to a dance was taken in Germany in 1914 by August Sander. Except they weren't farmers. And the dance they were on their way to was World War I.

"Surrealism" has become shorthand for the bizarre, the irrational, the hallucinatory. But what IS it? Or what WAS it? Today we delve into the history of Surrealism, as it formed in post-World War I Europe and as it has infiltrated our...

Albert Camus grew up surrounded by violence. His homeland of Algeria was mired in conflict. He lost his father in World War I. Seeing World War II's devastation, Camus grew despondent. What was the meaning behind all this endless...

In which John Green teaches you about the Cold War, which was occasionally hot, but on average, it was just cool. In the sense of its temperature. It was by no means cool, man. After World War II, there were basically two big...

In which John Green teaches you about the Cold War, which was occasionally hot, but on average, it was just cool. In the sense of its temperature. It was by no means cool, man. After World War II, there were basically two big...

In which John Green teaches you about Kurt Vonnegut's most famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut wrote the book in the Vietnam era, and it closely mirrors his personal experiences in World War II, as long as you throw out the time...

When he was a child, George Takei and his family were forced into an internment camp for Japanese-Americans, as a "security" measure during World War II. 70 years later, Takei looks back at how the camp shaped his surprising, personal...

All soldiers feared poison gas but all sides developed deadlier and more perfidious kinds of chemical agents. Indy tells you everything about gas warfare in World War 1 in this special episode. » HOW CAN I SUPPORT YOUR CHANNEL? You can...

America treats the world like a board game. That's a problem. - Make no mistake, says Jeffrey Sachs, America is an empire. The end of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles put the United States on a trajectory to exercise political...

After World War I, some German soldiers who refused to disband formed a group called "Werewolf," which later became an elite recruiting source for the Nazi regime during World War II. Werewolves were integrated into Nazi propaganda,...