Curated playlist
States and territories disestablished in 1918
- Kingdom of PrussiaThe Kingdom of Prussia was proclaimed on the 18th of January 1701, when Frederick III of Brandenburg crowned himself "King in Prussia" in an act that sidestepped the rules of the Holy Roman Empire. Legally, kingdoms could exist inside the…
- Kingdom of SerbiaThe Kingdom of Serbia lasted only thirty-six years, from 1882 to 1918, yet in that brief span it fought four wars, doubled its population, and dissolved itself into a larger state that would shape the twentieth century. When Milan I had…
- Kingdom of WürttembergThe Kingdom of Württemberg sent 16,000 soldiers into Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, and only a few hundred returned home. That campaign shows how tightly this small German state had tied itself to a foreign emperor. Its ruler had…
- Austria-HungaryAustria-Hungary was, for roughly half a century, the second-largest country in Europe by area, surpassed only by Russia. From 1867 to 1918, it held together a patchwork of a dozen or more distinct peoples under a single emperor who wore…
- German EmpireOn the 18th of January 1871, while German armies still besieged Paris, William I of Prussia was proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The German Empire was born inside the palace of the enemy it had just…
- Habsburg monarchyThe Habsburg monarchy began with a single castle in present-day Switzerland, built by a man named Radbot of Klettgau in the late 10th century. From that modest origin, a family would go on to rule an empire spanning Italy, Spain, the…
- Archduchy of AustriaCharles V ruled over an inheritance described as one 'on which the sun never sets,' and the Archduchy of Austria was its heart. That inheritance was assembled over centuries through battlefield victories, a disputed forgery, and marriages…
- Kingdom of HungaryThe Kingdom of Hungary endured for nearly a thousand years, from 1000 to 1946. That span covers crusades, Ottoman sieges, Habsburg wars, a communist revolution that lasted just a few months, and a regency that had no king. How does a state…
- Russian RepublicThe Russian Republic was proclaimed on the 1st of September 1917, when Alexander Kerensky and Alexander Zarudny signed a founding decree. Kerensky held the title of Minister-Chairman; Zarudny served as Minister of Justice. The state they…
- German colonial empireThe German colonial empire entered history not with a plan, but with a reversal. Otto von Bismarck, the man who built unified Germany, spent decades telling anyone who would listen that he wanted nothing to do with overseas colonies. "I am…