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PATRICK J. KIGER
\nHistory.com<\/p>\n
World War I<\/a>, which lasted from 1914 until 1918, introduced the world to the horrors of\u00a0trench warfare<\/a>\u00a0and lethal new technologies such as\u00a0poison gas<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0tanks<\/a>. The result was some of the most horrific carnage the world had ever seen, with more than\u00a016 million<\/a>\u00a0military personnel and civilians losing their lives.<\/p>\n It also radically altered the map, leading to the collapse of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires that had existed for centuries, and the formation of new nations to take their place. Long after the last shot had been fired, the political turmoil and social upheaval continued, and ultimately led to another, even bigger and bloodier global conflict two decades later.<\/p>\n The event that sparked the conflagration was the\u00a0assassination<\/a>\u00a0of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in 1914. But historians say that World War I actually was the culmination of a long series of events, stretching back to the late 1800s. The path to war included plenty of miscalculations and actions that turned out to have unforeseen consequences.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one can say precisely why it happened,\u201d explains the narration to a film at the\u00a0National World War I Museum and Memorial<\/a>\u00a0in Kansas City. \u201cWhich may be, in the end, the best explanation for why it did.\u201d<\/p>\n Here are eight of the events that led to the war.<\/p>\n