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560 Timelines<br />

USA, which demanded the creation of the country of<br />

Panama, out of former Colombian territory<br />

1914 Beginning of the First World War in Europe. This was<br />

started by the assassination of the Bosnian king in<br />

Sarajevo, which led to the collapse of the Entente<br />

Cordiale. Britain opposed Germany’s territorial<br />

ambitions. The bloodiest battles were in Northern<br />

France, after Germany’s takeover of the Benelux<br />

countries (BElgium, NEtherlands, LUXembourg)<br />

1916 US President Wilson sent American forces to Europe,<br />

to help British and French forces to fight German<br />

aggression. American intervention was vital to the<br />

eventual defeat of Germany. While war continued on<br />

the Western European continent, the political climate<br />

changed elsewhere in Europe<br />

1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, in protest at continued British<br />

presence. Several Irish rebels were executed by the<br />

English<br />

1917 The Russian Revolution, led by so-called ‘Bolsheviks’,<br />

the majority of Communist sympathisers, led by Lenin.<br />

Execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Lenin<br />

became head of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics<br />

(to his death in 1924, when he was replaced by Stalin)<br />

1918 End of the First World War (11 November)<br />

1919 The Peace of Versailles. In the redrawing of boundaries<br />

in Europe, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires<br />

were dismantled. New states in Eastern Europe included<br />

Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Many monarchies,<br />

including that of Germany, were replaced by republics.<br />

The League of Nations was created, in an attempt to<br />

secure future world peace<br />

1922 Ireland finally achieved self-government, with the<br />

establishment of the Irish Free State (‘Eire’). Six of the<br />

nine counties in the North (‘Ulster’) chose to remain<br />

within the United Kingdom<br />

1929 The collapse of the New York Stock Exchange led to<br />

economic depression in the Western democracies. Party<br />

politics were abandoned in Britain in 1931, until 1945.<br />

Ramsay Macdonald, the Labour leader, led the first<br />

National government<br />

1933 Adolf Hitler, the leader of the largest single political<br />

party in Germany, the National Socialists (Nazis) took

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