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The Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), and it's leader Sun Yixian, overthrow the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. The conservative Qing Dynasty opposed the modernizing naiton around them, letting them be overthrown easily. Sun Yixian then became president, but lacked the necessary authority and military support to secure national unity.
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As Europe divided itself into allied groups, and Austria delcares war on Serbia, the Serbian allies step in, making the Austrian allies step in, and eventually every major power in Europe is a part of an extremely bloody war.
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When Germany enforced unrestricted submarine warfare, and sank a British passenger ship, the Lusitania, with many US citizens on board, the US gets angry. After the US later intercepted a telegram to Mexico from Germany stating that Germany could help Mexico gain back some land they lost to the US, it pushed the US over the edge. The US entered the war on the side of the Allies.
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After the US and the Allies defeated the Germans and the Central Powers, the Central Powers collapsed. WWI came to an end as a representative of the new German government (Kaiser stepped down and Germany declared itself a republic) met with French Commander Marshal Foch in a railway car outside of Paris to sign an armistice, or agreement to stop fighting.
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After the Amritsar massacre, where a British commander ordered his troops to fire upon a crowd without warning, killing about 400 Indians, and wounding about 1,200, Mohandas K. Gandhi lead an independence movement in India. He urged his followers and the Indian National Congress to follow a policy of civil disobedience (the deliberate and public refusal to obey an unjust law via nonviolence) with the British government. He wanted to weaken British authority and economic power over India.
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After the Ottoman Empire was forced to give up all its territories after WWI, Turkey still remained Ottoman. Greeks invaded, but a brilliant commander named Mustafa Kemal fought back and won. After that, Kemal and his team of nationalists overthrew the last Ottoman sultan. Kemal became president of the new Republic of Turkey. He despreately wanted to modernize. He issued reforms, mostly separating church and state, and giving women rights. Turkey had a new sense of nationalism.
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Nationalists and Communists in China were fighting a bloody civil war. Mao and the Communists recruited peasants to join his army, and established themselves in the hills of south-central China. The Nationalist army of at least 700,000 men surrounded the Communist stronghold. The Communists fled, and began a 6,000 mile journey called the Long March. Thousands died from hunger, cold, exposure, and battle wounds. After about a year, Mao's troops settled in the caves of northwest China.
