The British and Soviets invaded Iran in 1941 in order to secure Iranian oil fields and make sure that the Allies would have supply lines for the Soviets fighting the Axis powers on the Eastern front. The USA was not involved in planning or carrying out the invasion. Iran was officially neutral at the time, though the British suspected Iran's leader Reza Shah of being pro-German.

With major voices such as Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, and Wilfred Owen, the group of poets largely referred to as The War Poets became the voice of the "Lost Generation." Their works chronicled the general feelings of soldiers over the course of the four-year conflict. From jingoistic to apathetic and 'shell-shocked,' they capture the brutality and hopelessness symptomatic of the battlefields stretching from France to the subcontinent.

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Czar Nicholas II of Russia, and King George V of Britain were all cousins and grandsons of Queen Victoria. Their relationships were strained to say the very least. \

After the initial wave of independence for African countries from Europe, Eritrea remained a part of Ethiopia. Armed groups in the Eritrean region fought a protracted secessionist war until gaining independent sovereignty after a UN supported referendum in 1993. 

The Qajar Dynasty ruled Persia (which would become Iran) from 1785 to 1925.

The German and British navies met in the only full-scale clash of steel battleships in the war off the coast of Denmark in the summer of 1916. Over 250 combat ships fought over 2 days in this inconclusive battle. England lost 3 battleships and Germany lost 1. This was only the third time two steel battleships had fought, the first two during the Russo-Japanese War.

On July 1st 1916 57,470 soldiers of the British were wounded or killed in the first day of the Battle of the Somme in France. This four month long British and French fronted offensive against the German armies on the Western Front caused over 1 million causalities and did little to further the stalemate of trench warfare. Only 6 miles of ground had been taken before the armies set up for winter.

When the Provisional Government came to power in Russia, following the February/March Revolution, it kept Russia involved in the First World War. Lenin and the Bolsheviks used this to their advantage, promising to withdraw Russia from the war when they came to power. Lenin took control following the October/November Revolution and subsequently kept his promise by ending Russian involvement in World War I.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in 1968 with the stated goal of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to new countries. Since its inception a few states have confirmed their construction of nuclear weapons - India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Israel almost certainly has also created nuclear weapons, but has never officially confirmed this.

The Iran-Iraq War began in 1980, in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ushered Ayatollah Khomeini into power. It began when the forces of Saddam Hussein invaded Iran for fear that the Iranian Revolution would inspire resistance among the Shia majority population living in Sunni-controlled Iraq.