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.
World War I or the First World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting took place throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. One of the deadliest wars in history, it resulted in an estimated 9 million soldiers dead and 23 million wounded, plus up to 8 million civilian deaths from numerous causes including genocide. The movement of large numbers of troops and civilians during the war was a major factor in spreading the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
Image: Bataille de Verdun 1916
Image: The Royal Flying Corps on the Western Front, 1914 1918 Q12059
Image: Przemysl Fortress Bain LOC 19648
Image: Arab Camel Corps
