The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict involving most of the European great powers, fought primarily in Europe and the Americas. One of the opposing alliances was led by Great Britain and Prussia. The other alliance was led by France, backed by Spain, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia. Related conflicts include the 1754 to 1763 French and Indian War, and 1762 to 1763 Anglo-Spanish War.
Clockwise from top left: The Battle of Plassey (23 June 1757) The Battle of Carillon (6–8 July 1758) The Battle of Zorndorf (25 August 1758) The Battle of Kunersdorf (12 August 1759)
Prussian Leibgarde battalion at Kolín, 1757
British raid on French settlement of Miramichi (later called Burnt Church, New Brunswick), 1758
The Battle of Kolín in 1757 in Bohemia (the site is now in the Czech Republic)
A world war is an international conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945), although some historians have also characterised other global conflicts as world wars, such as the Nine Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Cold War, and the War on Terror.
United States Army infantry supported by a M18 tank destroyer advancing through an enemy-occupied town during World War II, the most recent conflict to widely be considered a "world war"
French Army soldiers holding a position in the ruins of a church during the Second Battle of the Marne, part of World War I
A British Army mechanized infantry Churchill tank passing a destroyed Wehrmacht Panzer IV tank during Operation Overlord, part of World War II
U.S. Army paratroopers landing in a field in West Germany during Exercise Reforger 1984, a Cold War-era NATO military exercise used to prepare for potential conventional warfare against the Warsaw Pact; such a conflict was expected to be World War III.