The World Wars Before the “World Wars”

When we think of World Wars, we tend to think of the two global conflicts from the early twentieth century. World War I, sometimes called the Great War, lasted from 1914-1918, and World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. These two conflicts changed the world, and in some ways, we still can feel the results of the wars today in how various countries interact with each other.

However, some historians argue that these are not the first two global conflicts. There have been several such conflicts in world history that could be termed “World Wars.” Multiple countries were involved in these instances, and warfare stretched over a wide geographic area. We’ll look at the World Wars before the World Wars on Today’s History Under the Radar.