INTRO Right, so you've probably heard a lot about World War II from movies and books, the History Channel before it decided that swamp people were history, the incessant droning of your grandparents, etc. We're not going to try to give you a detailed synopsis of the war today. Instead, we're going to try to give a bit of perspective on how the most destructive war in human history happened, and why it still matters globally. So one of the reasons history classes tend to be really into wars is that they're easy to put on tests. They start on one day and they end on another day, and they're caused by social, political, and economic conditions that can be examined in a multiple-choice kind of manner. Except, not really. Like, when did World War II start?