The History of the Twentieth Century

The Great War started as a conflict between Austria and Serbia. Now, amid all the other conflicts emerging as the war goes continental, Austria makes its bid to punish Serbia for the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand.

The French plan to respond to a German offensive was a counteroffensive into the German center. The French attempted this on August 21-23; it was an utter failure.

The outbreak of the Great War saw one of the German Navy's newest and most powerful battlecruisers in the Mediterranean. She was a threat to the Entente and had to be stopped. Only...what exactly is she trying to do?

The German war plan called for a massive offensive against France that would pass through Belgium, but one of the big unknowns in German war planning was whether the Belgians would resist, and if so, how fiercely.

French strategists emphasized the importance of offense and planned to respond to a German invasion with an offensive of their own. British strategy increasingly revolved around joining with France in a ground war.

A look at how Germany and Russia planned to fight the Great War.

A survey of the most important reasons why the Great War happened and why the international order failed to prevent it.

Germany mobilizes and declares war on Russia and France. As German troops move into Luxembourg and Belgium, the British Cabinet comes around and joins the war.

Russia finds the Austrian ultimatum unacceptable. Austria, egged on by Germany, pursues war with Serbia anyway.

In the four weeks following the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Austrian government slowly pondered its response. Meanwhile, in the rest of Europe, the murders were already being forgotten.

In the final days of peace, many European leaders were preoccupied with domestic problems as others debated whether war was inevitable, or obsolete.

Despite warnings of possible violence, the Austrian Crown Prince travels to Bosnia to observe military maneuvers. During a visit to Sarajevo, he and his wife are assassinated.

In 1914, with victory against the Turks secured, Serb nationalist extremists look north toward Austria.

The airplane means that the English Channel may no longer be all the defense Britain needs. Women's suffrage and Irish Home Rule remain contentious issues in British politics.

Just weeks after the First Balkan War ended, the Second Balkan War broke out over the spoils. When it was over, Serbia was Russia's only remaining diplomatic asset in the Balkans, and was spoiling for a fight with Austria.

As the small Balkan states redraw the map of their region, Austria-Hungary is largely a spectator, tied up in her own scandals.

The small Balkan states have been coming together in alliance. Originally defensive, the allies came to a secret agreement to attack the Ottoman Empire together, while it was preoccupied by the war with Italy.

After the difficult 1912 US Presidential election, Woodrow Wilson takes office, but the women's suffrage movement upstages him with a huge demonstration the day before.

Alfred Binet invents IQ testing, Picasso cheers up, the Mona Lisa is stolen, and Jim Thorpe wins two gold medals at the 1912 Olympics.

Italy has been angling to secure Libya as a colonial possession for some time now. But war fever broke out in 1911, partly because of the Agadir crisis, prompting Italy to declare war on the Ottoman Empire over control of the province.

The year 1910 was relatively quiet in Europe, except in the turbulent Ottoman Empire. But 1911 saw another crisis in Morocco, and renewed tensions.

One of the greatest, and certainly the most famous, of disasters at sea occurred the night of April 14, 1912, when the passenger liner Titanic sank, taking with her about 2/3 of those aboard.

1912 saw a Presidential election campaign unlike anything Americans had known before or since. It was America's only true three-way race, with the added drama of a grudge match between two men who had recently been friends and allies.

Following Scott's acclaimed Discovery Expedition, he and Ernest Shackleton plan competing expeditions to the South Pole, along with a surprise appearance by Roald Amundsen.

The early twentieth century saw the exploration of the remotest land on Earth: Antarctica.