5674–5679 AM · 1914 CE — 1919 CE · world history
The First World War
Four years of trenches kill some ten million people and destroy four empires.
A shot in Sarajevo triggers a chain of alliances, and within a month all Europe is at war. Hopes of a short campaign collapse into trenches running from the Channel to Switzerland. Machine guns, artillery, gas, tanks and aircraft make war industrial. Four empires fall, and the Versailles settlement leaves Germany humiliated.