The History of the Twentieth Century

When the Great War began, Russian political factions mostly united in a common front to support the war effort, as political parties did in the other belligerent nations. But when Russia's military reversals and shortcomings in leadership became too obvious to ignore, opponents of the government began to speak up.

With the Mexican Revolution winding down and the prospects of war between Mexico and the USA seeming increasingly remote, the German Foreign Secretary explores the idea of inviting Mexico to declare war on the United States.

Germany was already rationing food when the bad harvests of 1916 made the situation far worse. Running out of options, the German military decides to resume unrestricted U-boat warfare.

The European powers refused to negotiate, but private groups, including women's groups, socialists, and Henry Ford, pressed ahead with campaigns to bring the belligerents to the negotiating table.

The automobile and the airplane, both recent inventions that make use of the internal combustion engine, become weapons of war.

With four years of peace and progressive reform and a booming economy (due to the strong French and UK wartime demand for US imports), you would think Woodrow Wilson would cruise to an easy re-election. You would be wrong.

In the wake of Pancho Villa's attack on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, the US Army sends an expeditionary force into Mexico in pursuit of Villa and his fighters, commanded by Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing.

German East Africa was the last holdout among German colonial possessions. Neighboring Portuguese and Belgian soldiers, as well as South Africans, joined in to help the British, although the British were not always happy to accept their assistance.

The Rising begins.

Irish nationalist extremist plot an armed uprising against British rule and reach out to Germany for assistance.

We take a break from the historical narrative this week as listener Brent asks the questions that (hopefully) you wanted answered.

We conclude the four-part series on military moves in 1916 in the Great War with Brusilov's Offensive and the Battle of the Somme.

Austria begins an offensive against Italy, Russia gears up a counteroffensive in Galicia, and the British and German Navies have it out in the Skagerrak.

The fighting continued at Verdun as the Russians prepare an offensive of their own to relieve the pressure on France. A German U-boat mistakenly sinks a passenger ferry in the English Channel, triggering another controversy over submarine rules of engagement.

The third year of the war opens with Britain and Germany as the mainstays of their respective alliances. The German Chief of Staff tries a bank shot: cripple Britain by wounding France.

Turkish forces defeat a British force attempting to take Baghdad, but that doesn't stop the British and the French from divvying up the postwar Middle East. Also, the Russians advance, the Italians don't.

Venustiano Carranza is gaining momentum in the struggle over the future of Mexico, but Pancho Villa is not ready to give up. The Germans hope to lure the US into intervening, then Pancho Villa decides provoking the US is also in his interests.

In the neutral United States, the economy is booming and so is the motion picture business. And the most famous name in pictures is Charles Chaplin.

Allied commanders on the Western Front spent 1915 developing new strategies for the Great War, and attempted to implement them in their autumn offensive.

With numbers of new volunteers declining every month, the British government wrestles with the issue of conscription. Across Europe, all the Great Powers are feeling the manpower and other shortages created by the war.

After the overthrow of Victoriano Huerta, the revolutionary forces in Mexico begin fighting among themselves, and Huerta himself conspires with the Germans to return to power.

Albert Einstein needed ten years to flesh out his special theory of relativity into a general theory of relativity, but when he finished, he changed our understanding of the nature of reality itself.

German East Africa stood strong against British attempts to capture the territory. The key to capturing the German colony was to contest German control of Lake Tanganyika.

Political instability and mounting foreign debts lead to US military intervention on the island of Hispaniola.

By the summer of 1915, both the Central Powers and the Allies were keen to get Bulgaria to join the war on their side. The Central Powers won the bidding war, and Bulgaria became the fourth (and last) member of the Central Powers.