>> Leonardo da Vinci is widely recognized as one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), was an Italian polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of paleontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, his genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.

Many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the "Universal Genius" or "Renaissance Man", an individual of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent in recorded history, and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci, however, notes that while there is much speculation regarding his life and personality, his view of the world was logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unorthodox for his time. 

Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I.

Mona Lisa or La Gioconda (1503–05/07)‍ —‌ Louvre, Paris, France

Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

Annunciation (1475–1480)‍—‌Uffizi, is thought to be Leonardo's earliest complete work

Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double hull, also outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. 

The Last Supper (1498)‍—‌Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy

A number of Leonardo's most practical inventions are nowadays displayed as working models at the Museum of Vinci. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science. Today, Leonardo is widely recognized as one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived.
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>> Vincent van Gogh produced more than 2,100 artworks

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work had far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. His output includes portraits, self portraits, landscapes, still lifes, olive trees and cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers. Critics largely ignored his work until after his presumed suicide in 1890. His short life, expressive and spontaneous use of vivid colours, broad oil brushstrokes and emotive subject matter, mean he is recognisable both in the modern public imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius.

Van Gogh was born to religious upper middle class parents. He was driven as an adult by a strong sense of purpose, but was also thoughtful and intellectual; he was equally aware of modernist currents in art, music and literature. He was well travelled and spent several years in his 20s working for a firm of art dealers in The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught in England at Isleworth and Ramsgate. 

He drew as a child, but spent years drifting in ill health and solitude, and did not paint until his late twenties. Most of his best-known works were completed during the last two years of his life. Deeply religious as a younger man, he worked from 1879 as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium where he sketched people from the local community. His first major work was 1885's The Potato Eaters, from a time when his palette mainly consisted of sombre earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid colouration that distinguished his later paintings. 

The Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnière, 1887

In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later, he moved to the south of France and was inspired by the region's strong sunlight. His paintings grew brighter in colour, and he developed the unique and highly recognisable style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in 1888. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings. After years of anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness he died aged 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The extent to which his mental health affected his painting has been widely debated.

The widespread and popular realisation of his significance in the history of modern art began after his adoption by the early 20th-century German Expressionists and Fauves. Despite a widespread tendency to romanticise his ill health, art historians see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence caused by frequent mental sickness. His posthumous reputation grew steadily; a romanticised version developed in the 20 years after his death when seen as an important but overlooked artist compared to other members of his generation. 

Still Life with Plaster Statuette, a Rose and Two Novels, December 1887

His reputation advanced with the emergence of the Fauvist movement in Europe and post WWII American respect for symbols of "heroic individualism" that was attractive to early US modernists and especially to the highly successful abstract expressionists of the 1950s; New York's MOMA launched major retrospectives early in the rehabilitation of his reputation, and made large acquisitions. By this stage his standing as a great artist and the romanticism of his life were firmly established.
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>> Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in every paintings

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, also known as Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973), was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the Bombing of Guernica by the German and Italian airforces at the behest of the Spanish nationalist government during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics. 

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period.

Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.
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>> " Women of Algiers " by Picasso breaks record for most expensive artwork sold at auction

A painting by Pablo Picasso has set a new world record for the most expensive artwork to be sold at auction after reaching $179m (£115m) in New York. Women of Algiers (Version O) had been expected to exceed $140m before the auction but the final price far exceeded those estimates in a sale at Christie’s auction house at a time when collectors’ appetite for masterpieces of impressionist, modern and contemporary art is increasing. 

On Monday night, several bidders competing via telephone drove the winning bid to $160m, for a final price of $179,365,000 including Christie’s commission of just over 12%.  Previously the most expensive work sold at auction was Francis Bacon’s triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which sold for $142.4m at Christie’s in November 2013. Experts say the prices are driven by artworks’ investment value and by wealthy new and established collectors seeking out the very best works. 

“I don’t really see an end to it, unless interest rates drop sharply, which I don’t see happening in the near future,” Manhattan dealer Richard Feigen said.

Picasso’s work is a vibrant, multi-hued painting featuring a scantily attired woman amid smaller nudes. The evening sale also featured Alberto Giacometti’s life-size sculpture Pointing Man which reached estimated $141.3m, earning it the title of most expensive sculpture sold at auction.

Impressionist and modern artworks continue to corner the market because “they are beautiful, accessible and a proven value,” said Sarah Lichtman, a professor of design history and curatorial studies at the New School. “Prices for works from these periods only seem to go up each auction cycle and the reputations of the artists become further enshrined,” she said. “Today the works epitomise the conservative, moneyed establishment.”

Women of Algiers, once owned by the American collectors Victor and Sally Ganz, was inspired by Picasso’s fascination with the 19th-century French artist Eugène Delacroix. It is part of a 15-work series Picasso created in 1954-1955 designated with the letters A to O. It has appeared in several major museum retrospectives of the artist.
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>> Top 10 Most Famous Paintings In The World

Between the millions of paintings that are created and shown in galleries and museums all around the world, a very small amount transcend time and make history. This select group of paintings is recognizable by people from all over the world and of all ages and will probably continue to echo and leave impressions in the minds of people in the centuries to come. Below is a list of some of the most famous paintings in the world.

 1. Mona Lisa – Leonardo da Vinci. 

The most famous painting in the world is the main attraction of the Louvre museum in Paris, where it is seen by six million people every year! Leonardo da Vinci painted it from the year 1503 or 1504 till shortly before he died in 1519


2. The Last Supper – Leonardo da Vinci. 

This world famous painting is not shown in a museum, but rather covers the back wall of the dining hall at Santa Maria delle Grazie monastery in Milan, Italy. It was painted by the most famous artist of all time, Leonardo da Vinci in the late 15th-century. The painting depicts the scene of The Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples. Seeing this masterpiece in the small monastery is truly one of the best attractions Milan has to offer


3. The Creation Of Adam – Michelangelo. 

Located on the ceiling of The Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, Rome. The Creation Of Adam was painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512 and it is just one of nine scenes from the book of Genesis that are painted on the center of the ceiling of the chapel


4. Starry Night – Vincent van Gogh. 

Painted by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in 1889, Starry Night is one of the most well known paintings in modern culture. The painting is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The painting was the inspiration for the song “Vincent” (also known as “starry starry night”) by Don McLean. McLean’s song reference the painting as well as other paintings by the famous artist


5. The Scream – Edvard Munch. 

The most famous piece by Edvard Munch, painted around 1893. It was painted using oil and pastel on cardboard. This frightening painting is on display at The National Gallery, Oslo, Norway


6. The Persistence Of Memory – Salvador Dali. 

Painted in 1931 by the Spanish artist Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory is one of the most recognizable pieces in art history. This work of art is known to make people ponder on their way of life and the way they spend their time, and it is also thought that this wonderful painting was inspired by Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity


7. Girl With A Pearl Earring – Johannes Vermeer. 

Considered by many to be “the Dutch Mona Lisa” or the “Mona Lisa of the North”, this beautiful painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer features, well… a girl with a pearl earring. The painting was completed around 1665 and is on display in the Mauritshuis Gallery in the Hague, the Netherlands


8. The Night Watch – Rembrandt van Rijn. 

Completed in 1642, this famous artwork is on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The painting depicts a city guard moving out, led by Captain Frans Banning Cocq, his lieutenant and the rest of the guard’s armed men.


9. Self-Portrait Without Beard – Vincent van Gogh. 

Even though Van Gogh painted many portraits of himself, this one is by far the most famous as it is his last self-portrait and one of the few that depicts him without a beard. It was given by him to his mother as a birthday gift. It is also one of the most expensive paintings of all times, as it was sold for $71.5 million in 1998, and is now part of a private collection


10. Guernica – Pablo Picasso. 

The most famous painting by Picasso, completed in 1937. The painting was painted in Paris and is Inspired by the bombing of Guernica in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The painting is on permanent display in Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

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>> 10 most expensive paintings in the world

Wealthy buyers in the Gulf and China have set a string of records as they have snapped up some of the world's most important artworks in recent years.

$300m When Will You Marry by Paul Gauguin

Gauguin's 1982 picture of two Tahitian girls smashed the record for the world's most expensive single work of art, when Qatar bought the canvas from a Swiss collector for almost $300 million in February. It was painted during Gauguin's first trip to Tahiti, where he said he travelled to escape "everything that is artificial and conventional" in Europe.



$274m The Card Players by Paul Cézanne

Qatar had previously held the record with this work, bought in 2011, one of dozens of major Western works its museums have snapped up in recent years. It featured two two stony-faced card players, models selected by Cézanne from his family’s estate outside Aix-en-Provence: the gardener and a farm hand.



$186m No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red) by Mark Rothko

Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian billionaire, paid $186 million, setting a record for a work by the American painter. However, it is now subject to a legal dispute with Mr Rybolovlev accusing Yves Bouvier, an art dealer, of misleaing him about the price.



$179.3m Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O) by Pablo Picasso

Picasso created a series of 15 variations of Les femmes d’Alger inspired by the French master Eugene Delacroix who in 1834 had painted The Women of Algiers in their Apartment. Version O marks the culmination of the series and has long been considered the most important Picasso in private hands.



$165.4m No 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock

A sale shrouded in secrecy and brokered by Sotheby's in 2006. David Martinez reportedly bough the 8-foot by 4-foot piece of fibreboard, covered in drips of brown and yellow paint from David Geffen, the Dreamworks co-founder and entertainment magnate. Mr Martinez's law firm later issued a statement saying he did not own it.



$162.4m Woman III by Willem de Kooning

Another painting sold by David Geffen in 2006, it was bought by Steven Cohen, a hedge fund billionaire. It was the third in a series of six paintings by de Kooning, an abstract expressionist, done between 1951 and 1953. It was part of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art collection, which meant it disappeared from view after strict rules on images of women introduced after the 1979 revolution



$158.5m Le Réve by Pablo Picasso

Another picture snapped up in 2013 by Steven Cohen, founder of SAC Capital and one of Wall Street's biggest art collectors. The deal had originally been agreed in 2006, but its owner Steve Wynn, the casino magnate, accidentally put his elbow through the canvas because of his failing eyesight. The deal went through after it had been repaired.


$158.4m Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt

Ronald Lauder, the cosmetics magnate, bought the gold-flecked portrait in 2006 for the Neue Galerie. At the time, it was a record paid for a painting. Its extraordinary story – seized by the Nazis during the Second World War and reclaimed by the rightful owner's niece only when she was in her eighties - is told in a recent film, Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren.



$152.0m Portrait of Dr Gachet by Vincent van Gogh

Van Gogh’s portrait of the medic who cared for him in the final months of his life broke records when it was sold in 1990. The portrait was bought by a Tokyo art dealer on behalf of Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito. However, when Saito died in debt, the painting disappeared into the international art market and its whereabouts remain unknown.



$145.0m Three studies of Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon

Holds the current auction record after selling at Christie's New York in 2013. It easily surpassed its estimate of $85m as frantic bidding between seven potential buyers pushed up the price for the six-foot triptych, which was painted in 1969, and shows Bacon's friend Lucian Freud, the British painter.
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>> Top 10 Most Famous Painters in the World

1. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 – 1519) Renaissance painter, scientist, inventor, and more. Da Vinci is one of most famous painters for his iconic Mona Lisa and Last Supper.

2. Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890). Dutch post-impressionist painter. Famous paintings include: Sunflowers, The Starry night, Cafe Terrace at Night.

3. Rembrandt (1606 – 1669) Dutch Master. One of greatest painters, admired for his vivid realism. Famous paintings include The Jewish Bride, The Storm of the sea of Galilee.

4. Michelangelo (1475 – 1564) Renaissance sculptor, painter and architect. Famous paintings include the epic work on the Sistine Chapel.

5. Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) – French impressionist painter. Famous paintings include, Waterlilies, Women in Garden, Impression Sunrise.

6. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973) Spanish, modern ‘cubist’ painter. Famous works include Guernica, Bird of Peace.

7. Raphael (1483 – 1520) Italian painter, with da Vinci and Michalengelo make up the high renaissance trinity. Famous paintings include, Mond Crucifixion, The Wedding of the Virgin.

8. August Renoir (1841–1919) French painter, one of the early pioneers of impressionism. Also influenced by Italian renaissance. Famous works include Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, On the Terrace.

9. Jan Vermeer (1632 – 1675) Dutch painter, who specialised in genre painting – vivid depictions of still life. Famous paintings include View of Delft, Girl With a Pearl Earring, and The Milkmaid.

10. Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) French post-impressionist painter. Famous paintings include, The Card Players, Still life with a curtain.
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>> 11 million people were killed in World War II ( 1939 to 1945 )

World War II also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of "total war", the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust (in which approximately 11 million people were killed) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres (in which approximately one million were killed, and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history. 

Japanese Imperial Army soldiers during the Battle of Shanghai, 1937

The Empire of Japan aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific and was already at war with the Republic of China in 1937, but the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939  with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. 

The bombing of Guernica in 1937, sparked Europe-wide fears that the next war would be based on bombing of cities with very high civilian casualties

The war continued primarily between the European Axis powers and the coalition of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth, with campaigns including the North Africa and East Africa campaigns, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz bombing campaign, the Balkan Campaign as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic. In June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history, which trapped the major part of the Axis' military forces into a war of attrition. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European territories in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific.

The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, and Germany was defeated in North Africa and then, decisively, at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. In 1943, with a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Allied invasion of Italy which brought about Italian surrender, and Allied victories in the Pacific, the Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.

German Panzer I tanks near the city of Bydgoszcz, during the Invasion of Poland, September 1939

The war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, and the Soviet Union's declaration of war on Japan and invasion of Manchuria, Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945. Thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies.

German Luftwaffe, Heinkel He 111 bombers during the Battle of Britain

World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, and France—became the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia and Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and to create a common identity. 
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>> World War-1 was one of the deadliest conflicts in history

World War I  also known as the First World War, or the Great War, was a global war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. Over 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians died as a result of the war (including the victims of a number of genocides), a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and the tactical stalemate caused by trench warfare, a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. 

Battleships of the Hochseeflotte, 1917.

The war drew in all the world's economic great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom/British Empire, France and the Russian Empire) versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Although Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary, it did not join the Central Powers, as Austria-Hungary had taken the offensive, against the terms of the alliance. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war: Italy, Japan and the United States joined the Allies, while the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers.

French soldiers making a gas and flame attack on German trenches in Flanders

The trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a diplomatic crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia, and entangled international alliances formed over the previous decades were invoked. Within weeks, the major powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world.

French 87th regiment near Verdun, 1916.

On 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia and subsequently invaded. As Russia mobilised in support of Serbia, Germany invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, leading the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany. After the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that would change little until 1917. Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, but was stopped in its invasion of East Prussia by the Germans. In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. Italy joined the Allies in 1915 and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in the same year, while Romania joined the Allies in 1916, followed by the United States in 1917.

Canadian troops advancing with a British Mark II tank at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 1917.

The Russian government collapsed in March 1917, and a subsequent revolution in November brought the Russians to terms with the Central Powers via the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, which constituted a massive German victory. After a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. On 4 November 1918, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to an armistice, and Germany, which had its own trouble with revolutionaries, agreed to an armistice on 11 November 1918, ending the war in victory for the Allies.

Bulgarian soldiers in a trench, preparing to fire against an incoming airplane.

By the end of the war, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire had ceased to exist. National borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germany's colonies were parceled out among the winners. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four (Britain, France, the United States and Italy) imposed their terms in a series of treaties. The League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed European nationalism, weakened member states, and the German feeling of humiliation contributed to the rise of Nazism. These conditions eventually contributed to World War II.
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