Some FREE revision podcasts for GCSE History are available HERE. Enjoy.

Mr F

Yesterday's featured document from the U.S. National Archives was President Wilson's address to Congress
calling for a declaration of war against Germany in 1917. Looking at the document got me to look at some of my bookmarks for World War I materials. In that search I came up with four short videos on the origins of WWI. Those videos are embedded below.

The first three videos above came from the channel History is Happening which contains some excellent videos for a wide range of topics in world history. The last video in the list came from All Histories which also
has a great collection of more than 300 history videos.

The BBC offers a virtual tour of a World War I trench that some of my former students showed me a few years back because they enjoyed it. The BBC also has some short films about WWI. There are six films that
show students artifacts and images of a British soldier's life during WWI. The films are sequenced beginning with recruitment continuing on to life in the trenches and ending with information about injuries and shell shock. The BBC also offers an animation of army movements from 1914 through 1918.

This lecture explores in broad terms the origins, of the First World War, both in terms of the aims and purposes of the main combatants, and by examining the influence of Social Darwinism and militarism, which led to a growing willingness of European states to engage in military conflict.  Technological changes in
warfare - notably the invention of barbed wire and the machine gun - gave the  advantage to defence over attack.