The History of the Twentieth Century

The world reacts to the Fall of France.

After the Dunkirk evacuation, the next stage of the Western offensive began, aimed at capturing Paris and defeating France.

After German armor cut off the Allied First Army Group in Belgium, the Royal Navy attempts an evacuation of the trapped forces from the port of Dunkirk.

After months of delays and a diversion into Denmark and Norway, Hitler finally gets his Western offensive.

The Allied debacle in Norway sparked a revolt in the British Parliament against the Chamberlain government's conduct of the war.

Improbably, the nation of Norway finds itself the front line of the Second World War.

In the final year before the war began, Winston Churchill's denunciations of Nazi Germany began to seem prescient, but Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain fiercely resisted calls to invite Churchill into the Cabinet until war came. Then Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, for the second time in his career.

Adolf Hitler wanted to attack in the west immediately after the fall of Poland, but unfavorable weather kept postponing the offensive. Then a copy of the plan fell into Allied hands.

With the other Great Powers involved in their own wars, Stalin and the USSR are now free to claim the territories Germany granted to their "sphere of influence."

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it freed the Nazis from having to worry about international opinion. Hitler and his followers could now do as they pleased.

With the narrative at the beginning of the Second World War, we pause to consider what lessons can be learned from the past twenty years.

Adolf Hitler believed that the leaders of France and Britain would be too cowardly to go to war to defend Poland, but even if they did, he was willing to take them on. Here we go again...

As Germany was ratcheting up the pressure against Poland, it and the USSR signed a non-aggression agreement. No one knew it at the time, but this agreement contained secret protocols that, among other things, divided Poland between them.

Electronic amplification allowed singers and musicians to perform in a softer, more intimate way. The new styles became very popular, especially in the USA.

By 1938, it was clear the Spanish Republic was in trouble. British and French efforts to maintain peace with Germany and Italy had the side effect eliminating whatever hope remained.

Roosevelt was re-elected in 1936 by an historic margin, but the years 1937-38 saw him stumble.

Over the course of the 1930s, entertainment on radio evolved into a mix of drama, situation comedy, soap opera, and kids' programming that would serve as the model for broadcast entertainment for the rest of the century.

Advertising agencies as we know them today came into existence at the dawn of the twentieth century. These agencies were reluctant to move into radio advertising, but in the US, the medium was soon dominated by them.

In Germany in the 1930s, modern science was exploring the limits of what can be known, at the same time the Nazi political movement was claiming absolute knowledge.

Just weeks after the Munich Agreement avoided a war, Germany was wracked by a spasm of internal anti-Semitic violence.

Adolf Hitler was gearing up for an invasion of Czechoslovakia. Then Neville Chamberlain intervened.

Hitler's first step on his plan to expand Germany to the east was to annex Austria.

Hitler wanted closer relations with both Britain and Italy. He got half his wish.

Fairy tales date back at least to medieval Europe, and probably further back than that. The 19th century demoted them to children's entertainment, but the twentieth century will find new uses for them.

Chiang Kai-shek has had enough. When the Japanese provoke a confrontation, Chiang and his new Communist allies do not back down, and the result is war.