1918

1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter F) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday (dominical letter G) of the Julian calendar, the 1918th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 918th year of the 2nd millennium, the 18th year of the 20th century, and the 9th year of the 1910s decade. Note that the Julian day for 1918 is 13 calendar days difference, which continued to be used from 1582 until the complete conversion of the Gregorian calendar was entirely done in 1929.

Events

Below, events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix.

January

World War I

World War I (WWI or WW1), 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.

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.

First World

The concept of the First World originated during the Cold War and included countries that were generally aligned with or on friendly terms with the United States (including all NATO countries) and were generally identified as non-theocratic democracies with primarily market-based economies. While there is no current consensus on an exact definition of the term, in modern usage, "First World country" generally implies a relatively wealthy, stable and functional non-theocratic democracy with a reasonably well educated population, or just any developed country.

During the Cold War, relationships between the First World and the Second World of Communist states were typically competitive, ideological, and occasionally hostile. Relationships of both these "Worlds" with "Third World" countries (i.e. all the rest) were normally positive in theory, while some were quite negative in practice (such as proxy war between client states). Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and advances in communication technology, relations amongst the "Worlds" are not as rigid, although there are still marked disparities, with the First World generally having more influence, wealth, and access to information and technological innovations than the Second and Third Worlds.

The Tank Museum

The Tank Museum (previously The Bovington Tank Museum) is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. It is about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the village of Wool and 12 miles (19 km) west of the major port of Poole. The collection traces the history of the tank. With almost 300 vehicles on exhibition from 26 countries it is the largest collection of tanks and the third largest collection of armoured vehicles in the world. It includes Tiger 131, the only working example of a German Tiger I tank and a British First World War Mark I, the world's oldest surviving combat tank.

It is the museum of the Royal Tank Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps and a registered charity. Bovington Camp, in which the museum is located, trains most sections of the British Army in tracked-vehicle driving as well as repairing and maintaining the vehicles in its workshops.

History

In 1916 the British War Office established the Bovington camp as a tank crew training facility. At that time the Army was introducing tanks into the First World War in an attempt to break the stagnation of trench warfare. In 1919 the tanks returned to Bovington from France. Many of them were fit only for scrap. However, a small number of the least damaged vehicles were put to one side so that tank crews and designers could have an idea of the tank's early heritage.

Weimar Republic

The term Weimar Republic (German: Weimarer Republik [ˈvaɪmaʁɐ ʁepuˈbliːk]) is a name used to describe the nation state which existed between 1919 and 1933 as a successor to the German Empire. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place, although the official name of the state was the German Reich (Deutsches Reich), continuing the name from the pre-1918 Imperial period.

The republic was a semi-presidential representative democracy, and emerged in the aftermath of the German Revolution of 1918–19. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the German Reich was written, and adopted on 11 August 1919. In its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremists (with paramilitaries – both left and right wing) and contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. The Weimar Republic successfully reformed the currency, and unified tax policies and the railway system. Germany eliminated most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles and never completely met its disarmament requirements, and eventually only paid a small portion of the war reparations by twice restructuring its debt through the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan. Under the Locarno Treaties, the western borders of the republic were accepted by Germany, but the Eastern border remained debatable for the Weimar German governments.