On Queen Victoria's death, her son Edward VII (1901-10) . The Edwardian Age saw the widespread industrialization, the growth of urban areas, an increase in population and the extension of the transport network. On Edward VII's death, his son George V (1910-36) came to the throne. Life in the Georgian Age (1910-14) was in many ways the British counterpart of the Continental Belle époque: British upper class still thought of themselves as the centre of the civilized world.
World War I (1914-18). In June 1914 the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo; Austria and Germany declared war on Serbia in July of the same year. Britain, France and Russia sided wirh Serbia. In 1915 Italy entered the war on the side of the allies France and Britain. In 1917 Russia withdrew from World War I, after the Bolshevik Revolution (1917-20). In 1917 The Usa entered the war on Bristish's side and this brought to the victory in 1918.
When George V died, in 1936, he was succeeded by his son, Edward VIII who abdicated to marry an American divorcee,. He‘was succeeded by his brother, George VI (1936-52), who ruled Britain in the difficult years of World War Il.
Gemany underwent a terrible economic crisis in the late 1920s, which helped the Nazi Party and Hitler to rise to power. In 1938 Hitler annexed Austria, and Czechoslovakia. When Germany invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939 France and Britain declared war on Germany.
In the first phase of the conflict Germany, occupied France and most of Europe. Fascist Italy entered the war on Germany's side in June 1940. In the summer the Royal Air Force won the Battle of Britain in the air against German planes, In these difficult times Britain found in Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1940-45) an ideal leader. In 1941 the Soviet Union entered the war after the German attack in June of the same year. In December 1941, following a Japanese air attack on Pear Harbor, Hawai, the USA entered the war on British's side.
The Allied Forces (British and American) landed in Sicily, causing the fall of Mussolini's Fascist regime. On June 6, 1944 the Allies occupied Normandy and invaded Germany. Meanwhile the Russians occupied the nations of Eastern Europe. In May 1945, Germany surrendered. Japan still fought on until two atomic bombs were dropped by the Americans on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending World War Il.