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from Dutch settlers) of South Africa against British rule. The first, in which the Boers were led by Paul Kruger, gained a degree of independence for Transvaal, which became known as the South African Republic. The second involved lengthy Boer sieges of Ladysmith and Mafeking. Lord Horatio Kitchener was one of the leaders of the British forces; Robert Baden-Powell, who went on to found the Boy Scouts, distinguished himself in the siege of Mafeking. British public and political opinion was polarized by the second Boer War, and it led to a lot of rising and falling of governments.

☞ 1914-18: WORLD WAR I

The principal players were an alliance of Britain, France, Russia, and others (the Allied Powers, united by the Entente Cordiale and later the Triple Entente), against Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Turkey (the Central Powers); the United States joined in 1917. The complicated causes included the Allies’ fear of German expansion in Europe and various colonies, particularly in Africa; and a conflict of interest between Russia and Austro-Hungary in the Balkans.

Although war was looming for years, it was sparked by the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a Serb nationalist, Gabriel Princip. Austro-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia backed the Serbs, and you can guess the rest. Much of “The Great War” took place on what is known as the Western Front in the trenches of northeastern France and Belgium after Germany’s thwarted attempt to invade France and take over Paris. It is most notable for the horrific loss of life: over a million men in the Battle of the Somme alone, with Ypres and Passchendaele not much better. On the Eastern Front the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey killed many Australians and New Zealanders. The Central powers not only suffered great loss of life but were losing resources and support on the homefront, which led them to agree to the armistice treaty and subsequently the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the fighting.

Some of the provisions of the treaty required Germany and its allies take full responsibility for the war, pay reparations, and essentially redraw the map of Europe. Austria-Hungary was sliced into Austria, Hungary, Czechoslavakia, and Yugoslavia. The Ottoman Empire was distributed among the Allied Powers (with the Turkish core remaining as the Republic of Turkey). The western frontier of the Russian Empire became Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. As a result of the treaty, the League of Nations (later replaced by the United Nations) was founded to help countries settle disputes through negotiation, diplomacy, and the global improvement of the quality of life.

☞ 1917: RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Actually two revolutions—one in February and one in October of the same year. The first, sparked by a shortage of food, led to the abdication of the Romanov czar Nicholas II; the second involved the Bolsheviks (led by Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky) seizing power, executing most of the royal family, and establishing the first communist state. A civil war between the “Red” Bolsheviks and the anticommunist “White” Russians lasted until 1921. After Lenin died in 1924, Trotsky lost a power struggle with Stalin, went into exile in Mexico, and was murdered there.

☞ 1939-45: WORLD WAR II

Hitler rose to power in Germany in the early 1930s and proceeded to take over various parts of Europe. Britain and France had promised to protect Polish neutrality, so they were forced to declare war when Germany invaded Poland. The Berlin, Rome, Tokyo pact bound Germany, Italy, and Japan together, known as the Axis powers.

Hitler’s invasion of France led to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Allied forces, many of them in small boats, from Dunkirk, in 1940; Britain now faced the threat of invasion and months of bombing (the Blitz). The war in the air that followed (1940-41) is known as the Battle of Britain. The previously neutral United States began selling arms and goods to Great Britain, provided it sent its own ships to U.S. ports for