Source The island of New Guinea was a target for Japanese aggression at the start of World War II because it is located directly north of Australia, not because of any inherent importance. The Japanese

Source On August 7, 1942, American forces launched their first offensive against Japan against the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Because the Japanese were not ready for the landings, the

Source Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, invaded Kuwait, a neighboring country on the Persian Gulf, in 1990. He argued that as Kuwait had once been a part of Baghdad's domain during the Ottoman era,

Source Burma looked an improbable location for battle in the months before hostilities in the Pacific began. According to the British, the terrain was too difficult and jungle-covered for soldiers to advance

Source Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy, believed his nation needed some straightforward glory as well after witnessing his buddy Adolf Hitler effortlessly win in both eastern and western Europe.

Source When the Spanish viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata was abolished in South America in the 1820s, Paraguay rejected Argentine dominance by announcing its independence. Francia and Lopez, two dictators

Source Adolf Hitler advocated for the unification of all German-speaking peoples in his book Mein Kampf, and this viewpoint dominated his pre-World War II foreign policy. Despite the fact that the Versailles

Source The British thought they were in a great position to put an end to the American Revolution when General William Howe took New York City in the second part of 1776. They controlled a wide area of

Source The native Americans, or American Indians, have been the target of attempts by Europeans to impose their will ever since they first arrived on the American continent. Land was the main cause of

Source Napoleon Buonaparte became a national hero in France by 1798 as a result of his conquest of Toulon and his successful campaign in Italy. Due to the probable political threat that his celebrity could

Source In the seventeenth century, the Netherlands consisted of a jumbled collection of provinces. The Spanish Habsburg monarchy, which had previously ruled over all of the Netherlands before the Dutch

Source After the collapse of the Mauryan Empire, northern India was in a state of turmoil for a very long period, passing sporadically under the power of the Bactrians and the Scythian Kushans. When the

Source The T'ang, one of the opposing factions vying for supremacy, finally rose to the top with the fall of the Sui dynasty in the early 600s C.E. Kaotsou was the first in the T'ang line. His principal

Source The enormous gold-producing country of Ghana had fallen from power by the start of the thirteenth century. Following a devastating Islamic onslaught by nomadic Almoravids from the Sahara, tribes

Source In 1700, Charles II of Spain died without an heir and named his distant relative Philip of Anjou as his successor. However, Philip was the grandson of the powerful King Louis XIV of France, which

Source The major European countries were still wary of one another following the War of the Austrian Succession, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was actually more of a ceasefire than a formal peace agreement.

Source The French Revolution's triumph in July 1789 had a profoundly depressing impact on the monarchs throughout Europe. What may that mean for the rest of Europe if the notion of a successful revolution

Source Up to their collapse around 1200 C.E., the Toltec peoples controlled a large portion of Central America. The resulting power vacuum occurred at the same time as the northern nomadic tribes arrived.

Source The United States has seen itself as a sort of Western Hemisphere police officer ever since the 1820s. The Monroe Doctrine was developed by President James Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy

Source King Sebastian of Portugal was murdered in 1578 while engaged in combat with Muslim armies in Morocco. The house of Aviz was destroyed when Sebastian passed away without leaving an heir. The nearest