The Major Wars and Conflicts of the 20th Century

The 20th century was dominated by wars and conflicts. Some of these, like World War I and World War II, were large enough to encompass nearly the entire world. Others, like the Chinese Civil War, remained local yet still caused the death of millions of people.

All of these wars, conflicts, revolutions, civil wars, and genocides shaped the 20th century. Below is a chronological list of the major wars of the 20th century.

1898-1901 Boxer Rebellion
1899-1902 Boer War
1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War
1910-1920 Mexican Revolution
1912-1913 First and Second Balkan Wars
1914-1918 World War I
1915-1918 Armenian Genocide
1917 Russian Revolution
1918-1921 Russian Civil War
1919-1921 Irish War of Independence
1927-1937 Chinese Civil War
1933-1945 Holocaust
1935-1936 Second Italo-Abyssinian War (also known as the Second Italo-Ethiopian War or the Abyssinian War)
1936-1939 Spanish Civil War
1939-1945 World War II
1945-1990 Cold War
1946-1949 Chinese Civil War resumes
1946-1954 First Indochina War (also known as the French Indochina War)
1948 Israel War of Independence (also known as the Arab-Israeli War)
1950-1953 Korean War
1954-1962 French-Algerian War
1955-1972 First Sudanese Civil War
1956 Suez Crisis
1959 Cuban Revolution
1959-1973 Vietnam War
1967 Six-Day War
1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan War
1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War
1990-1991 Persian Gulf War
1991-1995 Third Balkan War
1994 Rwandan Genocide