Although this period is clearly defined, events leading up to the world war years began long before. The desire for warfare originally was for acquisition of land and power. As time went on desires for personal freedom and a growth of religious intolerance began to cause conflict. The Crusades is one of the best examples. State sponsorship of religion can be a deadly weapon, expecially when the ruler has the power to give religious authority to supporters who then declare that royalty rules by divine right. The king or Emperor now has the ability to declare war against others to be the will of God. This assumption of absolute power enables warfare for land acquisition and to justify genocide. Crusaders made sure that the streets of Jerusalem and the near-east ran red with the blood of Muslims, Jews and Orthodox Christians. Unfortunately the excesses of the Crusades, have affected relations between religions and nations even today. The total number of deaths in the Crusades is not know for sure, but it exceeded several hundred thousand. 

This concept of Divine Right justified the killing of Quakers, Separatists and Puritans by the English Crown. My Puritan ancestor, John Penry was murdered by the Church of England because of his desire to have the gospel preached in Welsh instead of Latin. Had he lived, he would have been on the Mayflower along with his congregation that had fled to Holland. 

Desires for personal freedom led to rebellion against the English King in the American Revolution. This was followed by French, Irish and Welsh uprisings in the 19th and 20th centuries.  As the industrial revolution grew around the world, workers soon demanded higher wages and better working conditions. In Russia, peasants began to resent the absolute conrol the Czar.  Border disputes in the Balkans and anger against the control of the Austria-Hunger Empire caused uprisings.  These problems kept getting worse and worse until the outbreak of the 1st World War by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo in 1914.  Some historians believe that war was inevitable and the assassination was the excuse belligerents needed.  Causes of WWI

Wars always cause a rise in production of materials to support the war effort.  When the war ends, production demands falls causing a recession and a lower demand for consumer goods. This happened across the world, but especially in industrial nations. Due to mismanagment in industry, bad political decisions, followed by financial panic because of abandonment of the gold standard followed by wild speculation and rapid change of monetary values, caused a great depression beginning in 1929.  This caused great unemployment with rates at 20%, hunger, and loss of housing followed. Production fell by 47%.  Prices fell rapidly, but few had money to buy. But some men made great fortunes in preying on others misfortunes. A local banker made millions foreclosing mortgages and acquiring land at very low prices, eventually building an empire in both Ohio and Kentucky. See Great Depression – Stock Market Crash, Unemployment, Poverty | Britannica  Recovery started in 1933 and jobs and incomes rose.

World War II started with Hitler’s Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. There are many events that have affected how the world lives such as the holocaust, the use of atomic bombs, rationing, foreign brides. As it was with World War I, prior events foretold the probabilities of war.  Hitlers rise to power in Germany, Japanese invasion of Manchuria, Italian treatment of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War, Germany’s hatred of reparations from the Treaty of Versailles, rise of Bolshevism, Facism and Nazism along with anti-semitic propaganda were some of the root causes.  Causes of WWII