The Salton Sea is one of mankind's greatest accidents. For decades it was built up as a beautiful lakeside resort community, and then overtime was promptly abandoned. Today it's a collection of ghost towns in the middle of the desert in California. Let's explore.
There's a lot of messy and complicated borders in the world. But all of them pale in comparison to the world's most controversial border situation: the boundary between Israel and Palestine. In this video, I attempt to explain the whole situation with as little bias as possible. Thank you for watching
For 6 weeks in 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The war saw the use of advanced technology and modern tactics, the intervention of several foreign powers and ended with a decisive victory for Azerbaijan. This is how the war unfolded
For the past 7 years, the deadliest war in Europe of the 21st century century has been raging in Eastern Ukraine. The war has killed thousands, displaced millions, and brought economic devastation to both Ukraine and Russia. This is the war explained from beginning to end in under 30 minutes.
For the past 14 years, Israel has maintained a complete land, air and sea blockade over the Gaza Strip and the 2 million Palestinians who live inside. This is the Israel-Gaza conflict explained.
The modern war in Afghanistan didn't begin with the American and allied invasion of 2001. Its origins are significantly more complex and date back to the 1970's. This is the War in Afghanistan before the American part of the story.
The conflict between North and South Korea has been raging for more than 7 decades now. The Korean War fought in the 1950's led to the deaths of millions and changed very little geopolitically. The most severe escalations in the conflict since then, have all happened in the 21st century. This is a full overview of the combat operations fought between North and South Korea since the year 2000.
The United States and Iran have one of the most controversial, important and dangerous relationships in the world. The 2 nations have come dangerously close to war in the past on multiple occasions and in order to understand why, you've got to understand the history of American-Iranian relations. This video attempts to condense this enormous subject into a mere 23 minutes.
Greece and Turkey have one of the world's most ancient and bitter geopolitical rivalries that stretches back nearly 1,000 years. The modern conflict between the two is familiar, but also quite different than it's been at any time before in the past.
For 4 long years, the largest city in Syria was torn apart in one of the largest and most ferocious battles of the 21st century. This is the story of how and why Aleppo was so fiercely fought over between the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his allies on the one side, and various rebel factions and their allies on the other.
In 2008, the Russian Armed Forces initiated a full-scale land, sea and air invasion into the country of Georgia in what would ultimately become the first European war of the 21st century.
Original Title: What Lands Did Europeans Actually Discover? During the Age of Discovery, the Europeans mostly just found a bunch of places that had already inhabited by other humans for thousands of years. So what places did they actually, genuinely discover that nobody else previously had?
Pirates, rebels, insurgents and partisans across the world don't exactly have the easiest access to conventional sources of capital. So, how do they raise money then?
The Empty Diagonal is a region of France that demographers have long identified within the country as being very low in population density when compared to the rest of France and Europe. So, why?
On the 24th of February 2022, Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Armed Forces to invade Ukraine, sparking the largest conflict seen on the European continent since World War 2. These are all of the myriad ways in which our world has rapidly changed ever since.
Across the 1990's and early 2000's, the Republic of Chechnya attempted to secede from Russia and achieve independence. What followed was more than a decade of brutal warfare and violence that saw no real winners. This is the tragic story of the two wars fought between Russia and Chechnya.
A group of 4 islands in the northern Pacific are hotly contested between Russia and Japan, with each claiming the islands for themselves. The issue has been going on for decades and is so serious that neither side has ever signed a formal peace treaty ending World War 2 between them over it. This video attempts to explain why.
Throughout Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there have been demands from many for NATO and the United States to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine to help the Ukrainian people and nation survive the onslaught. But that's not likely to ever happen, and here is why.
The largest man-made lake in the world is in Ghana, created after the country created a dam and flooded more than 3.5% of their available land on purpose. But why?
In March of 2003, the United States and its allies invaded the country of Iraq under the pretext of dismantling Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and ending his regime's sponsorship of terror. But the US did so with no UN approval, the invasion was widely condemned as an act of aggression abroad, and no weapons of mass destruction were ever discovered. This is the tragic and dark story of America's invasion of Iraq.
The island of Taiwan looms large in the minds of foreign policy experts in both Beijing and Washington. This little island is perhaps the most valuable and essential part of the world to control by the superpowers of the 21st century, and there is a severe risk of conflict over it that should not be underestimated. This is the story behind why Taiwan is so valuable to both America and China.
Spain is one of Europe's largest countries, but it's also one of Europe's most sparsely populated, with some areas that are more comparable to the northernmost fringes of Scandinavia. Why?
The Mekong River is the primary source of fresh water in Southeast Asia and the 3rd longest river on the Asian continent. And China is heavily contributing to the river's destruction.
When it was initially proposed, the California High Speed Rail was supposed to only cost $40 billion and link San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2029. However, the costs have now ballooned to nearly $100 billion, and the target completion date has been pushed out to at least 2033. What went wrong for California's construction efforts?
Oil & gas define nearly every aspect of the Russian Federation. These resources determine Russia's global strategy, and her aggressive actions in places like Ukraine, Georgia, and Chechnya. Russia is a gas station that happens to control one of the world's most powerful nations, and this is why that's a problem for everyone.
Beginning in 2015, the Russian Armed Forces began a large-scale military intervention in the Syrian Civil War on behalf of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It ended up turning into a triumph of geopolitics for the Kremlin, and here's how.
Australia is an entire continent with a lower population than Texas. Why is that the case?
When finished, the California High Speed Rail will take passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in as little as 2 hours and 40 minutes. But as it stands today, the project is years behind schedule and tens of billions of dollars over budget. What happened? For those who have noticed, yes, this is a re-upload. The older version of this video had a LOT that was wrong, and it was not something I was proud about or comfortable having up on this channel. This new version has fixed all those errors, and I'm much happier with this one. Thank you so much to everyone who left comments on the old video pointing out the many problems with it and to everyone who reached out to me directly to voice their concerns. I'm always listening to y'all and value your thoughts. Cheers :)
The city and Oblast of Kaliningrad is a separated exclave of the Russian Federation deep in the heart of the European Union. And for nearly seven centuries before it was Russian, it was German and better known as Konigsberg. How did this ancient piece of Germany become a part of Russia today?
California is a state in the center of one of the world's greatest water shortages. But why is this all happening now?
In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed into 15 newly independent states. Among these 15 was the Republic of Moldova. However, not everyone within the republic wanted to be independent. 470,000 people in the breakaway republic of Transnistria declared independence from Moldova, desiring to remain a part of the Soviet Union. The first war in Europe fought after the Cold War began as a result.
How the war in Ukraine is generating the worst global food crisis seen in the 21st century.
Greenland is the largest island in the world, but nearly all of it is hidden beneath the 2nd largest body of ice in the world. So what's hiding beneath it?
Canada and Denmark just became two countries who officially border each other by land, meaning that the distance between them is technically 0. At least, in theory.
Las Vegas is a city of more than 2.2 million people, and yet just 70 years ago it was a small town of less than 100,000. How did this rapid acceleration of growth happen, and happen within the driest desert anywhere in the world outside of the Sahara and the Middle East?
China is emerging onto the world stage as a global superpower rivaling the United States. But China has one very critical, and very dangerous weakness that this video will explain in depth.
Since 2017, the People's Republic of China has been carrying out the largest genocide of the 21st century, targeted against the Uyghur people of Xinjiang, or East Turkestan.
Java is only the world's 13th largest island by landmass, and yet it is by far the world's most populous island. With more than 148 million people, there are more humans who live on Java than within the entirety of Russia. So how did this island get so populated?
Original Title: Cape Town's Catastrophic Water Problem. In 2017 and early 2018, the city of Cape Town in South Africa was at a severe risk of becoming the first major city in the world to officially run out of water. Here's how it happened, and how it just narrowly avoided happening.
Pine Gap is a major US-Australian military base partially run by the American CIA and NSA, and it's located near the geographic center of Australia deep inside the Outback. Why?
The United States is the most powerful civilization that has ever existed in human history. The source of that power lies within the unique geography and geology of the North American continent itself.
The longest war in American history was the one fought for nearly 20 years in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. It was so long, it lasted for nearly 8% of all American history from 1776 to the present day. This is the story of that conflict.
The Senkaku Islands are specs of rocks no larger than a city airport administered by Japan in the East China Sea. Despite their small size, they are at the epicenter of the greatest territorial clash between two of the world's most powerful nations: China and Japan. These are the reasons why.
Why 80% of the US Population lives roughly east of the 98th meridian of longitude
Ireland today has about 1 million fewer people than it had nearly 200 years ago. On top of that, the Irish population today should actually be around 30 million or so had the historical growth rate been more comparable to England or Wales. This video attempts to explain why this is the case.
Germany is facing what is perhaps its greatest energy crisis since the Second World War, a crisis that is largely the result of Europe's geography and Germany's own poor and misguided energy policies over the past three decades.
On the 24th of February 2022, nearly 200,000 Russian soldiers under direct orders from Moscow invaded Ukraine, sparking the largest war seen in Europe since 1945. During this first phase of the invasion, the Russians seemed intent on capturing the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and toppling the Ukrainian government. But this objective would fail, and their planned blitzkrieg would gradually transform into a brutal war of attrition.
Original Title: Will Washington DC Become America's 51st State? Washington DC has been fighting for centuries to gain representation in the US Congress, and the fight has recently shifted towards transforming it into America's newest and 51st state. But why has this effort still not been successful? Let's find out.
In September, Azerbaijani forces attacked Armenian positions across their mutual border and occupied a small chunk of Armenia's internationally recognized territory. It won't be the last time they do.
Across the late 20th century, the Gadhafi-regime in Libya carried out the largest and the most ambitious irrigation project in human history. They built new rivers across the Sahara Desert. This is how.
How Russia' Invasion of Ukraine is leading to a worsening situation in both countries demography.
After Russia failed to capture the Ukrainian capital by April, their army began to refocus everything on the eastern front and the battle for the Donbas: the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk. This episode covers the invasion of Ukraine between April and September of 2022.
The Aral Sea used to be the 4th largest lake in the world. Today, it no longer exists because of decisions taken by the Russians decades ago. And its destruction is now pushing the nations of Central Asia into one of the 21st-century's most significant brewing conflicts.
Why is the most heavily populated part of India in the north of the country?
For more than 200 years, Finland has either been dominated by Russia or been neutral. Next year, those centuries of tradition will finally come to an end, and the geopolitical consequences will be disastrous for Russia.
How the state of Qatar became the most overpowered country in the 21st-century world.
Yemen is one of the largest and most important countries in the Middle East. In 2014, the country descended into an initially two-sided civil war between the Shia-adjacent Houthis allegedly supported by Iran, and the largely Sunni government supported by Saudi Arabia. The Saudis eventually intervened in the war alongside an international coalition that is still ongoing today, and which has generated one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the 21st-century.
North Sentinel Island is the world's most forbidden island, and for good reason. There is no guarantee that you will survive if you arrive there.
NATO has a fundamental hidden problem: the risk of Scotland leaving the UK as an independent nation.
It is impossible to precisely measure the exact length of the British coastline, a phenomenon known as the Coastline Paradox. Watch and learn why
Turkey has already invaded Syria on multiple occasions over the past 5 years, and they already occupy large amounts of Syrian territory. But the invasion that they're planning next has the potential to be the largest and most ambitious one yet.
Libya was once among Africa's wealthiest and most prosperous nations. But for the past 12 years, ever since 2011, the country has known almost nothing but warfare, chaos, and instability. There have been two civil wars fought across Libya, and a third is looming going into 2023. This is the story of how Libya shattered during the 2010's.
Namibia is the world's second most sparsely populated country, and its coastline is about as empty of people as Greenland. Why is that the case?
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been going on for nearly an entire year. Yet, the Kremlin's most loyal ally on the international stage, Belarus, has continually refused to join the war officially. Why have they taken so long, and why might that be changing in the future?
2022 was a record-breaking year for North Korea. The Kim regime spent it by firing more missiles than in any previous year and setting new records for both altitude and distance. It ultimately begs a question; why hasn't anyone ever stopped North Korea, and is it now too late?
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been ongoing for a full year now. Over those past 12 months, commercial satellites have captured thousands of images depicting the events that have been going on from above. Never before in human history has a conflict of this scale ever been so thoroughly documented from space. And in this video, we'll explore a few harrowing examples.
The majority of Mexico's population lives within just 18% of Mexico's land. This video explains why that's the case.
For the first 6 months of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainians were entirely on the defensive, holding the lines against Russian attacks. But beginning in September of 2022, the Ukrainians shocked the world by going on the offensive themselves. This is the story of the largest counteroffensive seen in Europe since the Second World War, and how the momentum of the war in Ukraine suddenly and decisively shifted in Ukraine's favor.
Why one of Russia's greatest long-term threats is China, despite their temporary partnership at the moment.
Why Crimea is so important to both sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Egypt and Ethiopia are countries that each exist on the Nile River. Ethiopia's recent construction of Africa's largest hydroelectric dam on their portion of the Nile could spell conflict in the future, and this is why.
By loss of life, the worst human conflict that began in the 21st century was the so-called Tigray War in Ethiopia, which lasted between 2020 and 2022. This video attempts to explain this terrible conflict's causes and why it went as badly as it did.
Why 80% of New Zealand's landmass is uninhabited by humans.
North and South America may be connected by land, but they have never been connected by road. These are the reasons why.
Wyoming and Colorado are two very similar-looking states that are about the same size and directly next to each other. And yet, Colorado has more than 10 times Wyoming's population. Why?
The civil war in Syria has been one of the most tragic, largest and consequential conflicts of the 21st-century. What initially began as protests against the country's long-standing regime steadily morphed into a full-blown civil war that has lasted for more than a decade and become one of the world's most complicated proxy-battlegrounds, as outside powers like the US, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia all directly intervened supporting various different factions.
Djibouti has, per capita, the largest number of foreign military bases on its soil. Why is that the case?
There is a growing sense of an alliance being established between Russia and Iran, which historically speaking is a rather strange development. Why has this been happening? Let's find out.
Texas is America's fastest-growing state and is quickly becoming America's most geopolitically valuable state as well. These are all of the many reasons why.
Mongolia is the most sparely populated country on the planet, and for many fascinating reasons that this video explores in depth.
Over the summer of 2014, a previously obscure organization in Iraq suddenly catapulted itself to worldwide attention and infamy through a series of lightning-fast military conquests across Iraq and Syria. That organization would quickly become known around the world as ISIS, and by 2015 they had carved out a de-facto state ruling over as many as 12 million people. But ISIS didn't just come out of nowhere, and this video attempts to explain how circumstances and opportunities aligned in the 2010s to provide them with a rapid rise.
The Middle East has long been one of the most geopolitically turbulent regions in the world, but it has been this way for nearly the entirety of the past century. This video attempts to explain the root causes of this turbulence and provide a general overview of the forces that shaped the modern Middle East and made it the way it is.
In early June of 2023, the Russian Armed Forces destroyed the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine; the largest dam holding back the largest water reservoir in the country behind it. The destruction ultimately resulted in what has been called the worst industrial disaster seen in Europe in decades, and this video attempts to analyze why it all took place.
China's population is entering into a terminal state of decline, which will have profound geopolitical implications over the coming years and decades.
By August of 2014, the group calling itself ISIS had exploded onto the world stage and rapidly conquered about half of Syria and a third of Iraq. But that same month, the United States decided to militarily intervene against the group. It would be the beginning of ISIS’s undoing, as this video covers how the growing coalition of nations and organizations aimed at destroying ISIS grew between 2014 and 2016, ultimately resulting in ISIS losing all of its territory and its leader just a few years later in 2019.
Saudi Arabia faces numerous challenges ahead of itself in order to survive the 21st century. These are many of them.
Since the war in Ukraine began, the country has been placed under a very strict naval blockade by the Russian Navy. This video covers Ukraine's strategy to get through it.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began in early 2020, North Korea has seized on the opportunity by clamping down on their society harder than any other, and in doing so, made escape out of the country effectively impossible for the very first time.
Why the vast majority of Saudi Arabia's landmass is completely empty, and why do its people live in such a peculiar population pattern?
For over a year, the Russian and Ukrainian armies threw just about everything they had into a massive battle for control over the small city of Bakhmut in the east of Ukraine. The fight for the city gradually evolved into the most significant and most catastrophic battle fought in Europe since the Second World War, with tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks committed by both sides.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, the Western World reacted by unleashing an unprecedented number of financial sanctions on the Kremlin that would supposedly lead to the financial armageddon for Russia. More than 19 months into the war now though, Russia's economy has barely even noticed, so what happened?
Original Title: Why 91% of Hawaii’s Land is EMPTY The island of Oahu in Hawaii makes up only 9% of Hawaii's surface area, but is home to roughly 70% of the state's population. Here's why.
For nearly 200 years, the Kurdish people have never had a truly independent state of their own. At a population of around 45 million today, that makes the Kurds one of the largest nations that does not have their own country. They are currently divided between the borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and about 15 million Kurds live within Turkey. From time to time over the centuries, there have been demands and calls from among the Kurds to establish their own separate country, but that call has perhaps been the loudest from within Turkey, where ever since the 1980's into the present day, the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, has waged a violent campaign of insurgency and terrorism against the Turkish state for independence that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands since it began. This is the story of Turkey's most horrible, enduring, and tragic modern conflict.
Turkey has been a member of the NATO alliance ever since 1952, and yet recently that very membership has come under question. The Turkish government maintains a very high number of disputes with the rest of NATO, and this video attempts to explain what it is about Turkey that sets it apart from the rest of the alliance.
Why North Korea is suddenly helping the Russians invade Ukraine.
How Taiwan is preventing a Chinese invasion from happening, and why it might not last for long.
Myanmar is a country located in Southeast Asia that has been locked in some form of civil war or another ever since its independence decades ago back in 1948. For most of the country's history since 1962, its government has been directly ruled by the country's military in one of the world's most heavily authoritarian regimes. This military regime engaged in one of the worst genocides of the 21st-century against Myanmar's Rohingya people from 2016 to the present, and overthrew the once-in-a-generation democratically elected civilian government in a coup d'etat in 2021, which has led to the latest chapter in the country's long-running civil war that has since in fewer than 3 years claimed the lives of tens of thousands. This episode in Modern Conflicts explains how Myanmar became the only failed-state in Southeast Asia.
Ever since 2016, the US and China have been gradually positioning their pieces across the Indo-Pacific board preparing for the possibility of a cataclysmic war erupting between them. This is how both sides have positioned their pieces so far, and how they might continue in the future.
Why the US states of Montana and North Dakota have such a lower density of people than the Canadian provinces further to their north do like Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
How the International Date Line ended up looking the way that it does today.
The modern conflict between Israel and Gaza has a decades-long history that stretches back at least to 1967, and arguably even before that. This episode of Modern Conflicts attempts to cover the events between Israel and Gaza that have transpired between the period of the First Intifada in the 1980's to the beginning of the most recent war in 2023.
All of the events that up to Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7th, and the dramatic escalation of the Israel-Hamas war that has followed.
Ethiopia is appearing increasingly likely to be considering an invasion of neighboring Eritrea. Here are the reasons why.
For 15 years between 1975 and 1990, Lebanon, a small but extremely diverse country in the Eastern Mediterranean, collapsed into one of the most violent civil wars of the entire 20th-century. This complex conflict would see the direct foreign interventions of both Syria and Israel who each invaded Lebanon and occupied different parts of the country for decades, while the conflict also saw the original rise to power of Hezbollah—a militant organization backed by Iran that continues to remain the most powerful force in Lebanon to this day.
How the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza could escalate to a wider Middle-Eastern conflict.
Haiti has collapsed into the status of being the only failed-state in the Western Hemisphere, while its direct geographic neighbor on the same island is on the path towards becoming a fully developed economy by the end of the 2020's. What happened to make these two countries on the same island so different?
In early December of 2023, Venezuela hosted a nationwide referendum on whether or not the country should annex 2/3 of their neighbor's territory, Guyana. Will the referendum and Venezuela's demands lead to war in South America?
How Yemen is managing to severely disrupt the entire global economy.
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the most cataclysmic war that rocked Europe took place in the Western Balkans across the 1990's as the former state of Yugoslavia collapsed. Now, 30 years later after those devastating wars, there are risks of another. This video attempts to explain what contributes to modern instability in the Western Balkans, and what the risks of conflict in the future are.
Throughout the 1990s, a devastating series of separate but connected wars were waged across the territory of the Western Balkans as the former state of Yugoslavia collapsed. The subsequent wars that were fought in the chaos of Yugoslavia's collapse were waged across Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Kosovo. More than 140,000 people were killed throughout these wars and millions more were forcibly displaced by the violence, which made them the most violent conflict fought in Europe since World War II at the time. This is the story of how Yugoslavia was created, why Yugoslavia collapsed in the early 1990s, and why the wars that followed were so monstrously catastrophic.
The Panama Canal is running dry and is currently at half capacity, while emerging competitors stand to seriously disrupt the canal's future market share.
How Norway is adopting strategic policies and taking advantage of its geographic advantages to become the world's wealthiest country.
Since Sudan's independence in 1956, the country has been trapped in various civil wars for most of its history that have collectively killed millions of people - making Sudan's civil wars among the bloodiest conflicts fought worldwide since WW2. And in 2023, Sudan entered into its 3rd civil war since independence. This is why.
From 2003 through 2005, the first legally defined genocide of the 21st-century took place in the Darfur region of Sudan. Compared in brutality and scale to the Rwandan Genocide a decade earlier, the genocide in Darfur was carried out under the regime of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan and perpetrated against Darfur's non-Arab, African communities. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost as a consequence, and the echoes of the genocide in Darfur have reverberated through to the present day, and continue to influence events in the country and in Africa at large today.
How Phoenix, the hottest major city in America by far, managed to become America's 5th-largest city.
Monthly updates of the major news and developments from ongoing wars and conflicts from around the world that will keep you up to date and informed on what's happening and why.
Recap of all the major geopolitical developments from February 2024. Ukraine’s top general is replaced, Alexei Navalny dies in prison, Avdiivka falls to the Russians, and Israeli forces continue advances into Gaza.
How Ukraine, a country that doesn't even have a navy, managed to checkmate the Russian Navy in the Black Sea.
In January of 2013, rebel factions in Mali backed by al-Qaeda had overrun the entire northern half of the country—an area larger than the entire country of France. Working on expanding their area of control, the rebels began marching on the Malian capital itself and seemed poised to overrun the entire country - which would have transformed Mali into a Jihadist-run state directly on Europe's doorstep. Unwilling to let that happen, France decided to militarily intervene with more than 5,000 troops, and this is what happened next.
For the last few years, the French and the Russians have been fighting a proxy war against each other across the Sahel region of Africa - a quiet war that has attracted little global attention in comparison to other major conflicts. This is an explanation into what has been going on here.
In 2015, Egypt announced that it would be constructing a brand new capital city for itself in the empty desert due east of Cairo. Nearly a decade later, the project is far behind schedule and far over budget, and there are concerns that the project is contributing to the bankruptcy of the country. Here's what's going on.
The recap of major geopolitical developments for March, 2024. Ukrainian missile strikes hit Russian oil refineries. Russia launches its largest bombing campaign of Ukraine of the year. A mass civilian shooting near Moscow perpetrated by ISIS kills more than 140. Ceasefire proposals continue to fail in Gaza. Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping escalate in lethality and destruction. The government of Haiti collapses, leaving the country's future deeply uncertain.
Yemen and Oman appear to be almost twin-like countries in many ways, and yet they are among the most wildly different countries on the face of the planet. These are the reasons why.
In the summer of 2023, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a major military counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces across the eastern front in Ukraine. It was one of the biggest military operations to have taken place in Europe since the Second World War and involved the participation of hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides. Ukraine's forces were heavily equipped and trained by Western and NATO militaries for the offensive, while the Russians spent months heavily digging in and fortifying their lines with thousands of miles of trenches, minefields, and artillery dugouts. For months the Ukrainian forces battered against the Russian frontline to little avail, and after months worth of extremely heavy fighting, little ground was gained. This video attempts to explore the reasons why.
How NATO and Russia are each preparing to fight a potential conflict between them within the next decade.
The 12 most likely new countries that might exist soon in your lifetime.
Kazakhstan is one of the emptiest countries in the world, and here's why.
Across the month of April, 2024, Israel and Iran exchanged missile and drone fire against one another directly, with Iran firing missiles at Israel directly for the first time in history. Iran's consulate in Damascus was destroyed, 7 aid workers in the Gaza Strip were killed by Israeli drone fire, America passed a $92 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Israel, & Taiwan, small Russian advances in Ukraine continued, while Ecuadorian security forces raided the Mexican embassy in Quito, sending relations between the two Latin American countries into a tailspin.
Between May of 2020 and January of 2021, thousands of Indian and Chinese troops engaged each other in aggressive melee fights along their disputed border in the former princely state of Jammu & Kashmir. Due to an agreed-upon restriction on firearms and explosives along the border area, both sides fought the other with more primitive melee weapons instead like spiked clubs, metal bars, rocks, and riot gear - making the clashes between them appear like something more from the medieval era than the 21st-century. This is the story of why these events happened, and what exactly took place.
The China-India border is the longest disputed border in the world. There is no single part of it that is legally agreed upon by both sides, and this video seeks to explore why.
Throughout history, Russia has always sought to control Georgia. These are the reasons why.
Saudi Arabia has spent years attempting to build a linear city through their desert. These are the many, many reasons why they are struggling.
May of 2024 was unfortunately an eventful month for global conflicts. Israel's long-anticipated offensive on the Gazan city of Rafah began, where more than a million displaced Palestinians have been sheltering. Russian forces opened up a new military offensive of their own in Ukraine by initiating a renewed assault on the Kharkiv province with tens of thousands of troops. Deadly riots erupted in France's overseas Pacific territory of New Caledonia. A coup d'etat attempt was made in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Iran's President and foreign minister were both killed in a helicopter crash. A major assassination attempt was made on the Prime Minister of Slovakia. And the UN issued a warning that genocide is likely taking place in Sudan's Darfur region again.
There are so many potential conflicts emanating out from Afghanistan today, any one of them could potentially trigger a major conflict with any of the country's neighbors. Here's what's going on in Afghanistan today in 2024, 3 years after the Taliban took back control of the country.
Over the summer of 2021, the US began pulling out the last of its troops present in Afghanistan after occupying the country for nearly 20 years. The Taliban then launched a renewed assault against the US-backed government in the country that Washington had installed, and against the expectations of virtually everyone, it only took the Taliban a matter of months to completely overrun the entire country again and destroy the US-installed government in the process. This was despite the fact that the Taliban was both significantly outnumbered and significantly less-well equipped. This is how the Taliban shocked America and the World over the summer of 2021.
In 2013, South Korea's fertility rate became the lowest in the entire world when it reached 1.3 children per woman in the country, and then it got even worse. Today in 2024, South Korea's fertility rate is only 0.68 children per woman - the lowest ever measured in a human society outside of major wars/genocides/plagues/famines. What's going on in South Korea, and what might the country's future look like?
For centuries, human eyes have never been able to observe the real Antarctica beneath the multi-kilometer thick ice sheet that lies above it. Using modern technology however, we've begun to be able to peer beneath the ice and see some of Antarctica for what it truly is. This is what we so far know is hidden beneath the ice on the frozen continent.
The month of June in 2024 saw several major geopolitical developments around the world. For the first time since the War in Ukraine began, American-made weapons were used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to attack targets within Russia-proper - marking the first time in history that US-weapons were used to attack a nuclear-armed power. Russia and North Korea signed a landmark mutual-defense-pact, cementing their alliance further with North Korea vowing to support Russia militarily in Ukraine. Putin offered his peace terms in Ukraine for the first time since the war began. The IDF launched a major raid in central Gaza that successfully rescued 4 hostages and reportedly killed hundreds of Palestinians. The Houthis sank a second cargo ship in the Red Sea with an anti-ship missile, and tensions rose sharply between Israel and Hezbollah.
How al-Qaeda began as an organization in the late 1980's, and how al-Qaeda's early strategy waging war against the US evolved over time leading up the infamous 9/11 attacks.
How the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on July 13, 2024, played out.
How the Netherlands spent centuries carefully crafting itself to become the most overpowered country in Europe.
Israel assassinates high-profile targets across Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. Houthi drone strikes Tel Aviv, Israel retaliates by bombing Yemen for the first time. Russia launches one of the largest missile attacks on Ukraine since the war began, resulting in the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians in months. Russian troops gain modest ground and push Ukrainians from the east bank of the Dnipro in Kherson. Bangladesh explodes in a revolution. Mali, Burkina Faso, & Niger form a new military alliance and confederation. Donald Trump is nearly assassinated by a gunman in Pennsylvania.
On September 11, 2001, the organization known as al-Qaeda carried out the deadliest attack on US soil in the country's entire history that killed nearly 3,000 people. In response, the US launched the Global War on Terror, a worldwide conflict aimed at combatting terrorism and especially aimed at combatting al-Qaeda, with the primary goal to kill or capture all of al-Qaeda's leadership. The war included some of the biggest and most extensive manhunts in human history as al-Qaeda's leadership was relentlessly pursued by the US for decades after the attacks, and eventually culminated with the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003, and the killing of Osama bin-Laden himself during a raid by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011.
How the US made itself the most difficult country in the world to invade.
Why the Ukrainian Army decided to launch an unexpected invasion into Russia-proper.
Ukrainian forces launch a major new offensive into Russia's Kursk province, Israel launches a major pre-emptive strike on Hezbollah and the two exchange very heavy fire, the Houthis destroy another oil tanker in the Red Sea, and the Prime Minister of Bangladesh resigns and flees the country aboard a helicopter.
Since 2020, no other state in America has lost a larger amount of its population since New York. In this video, we'll be exploring why and what's been going on here.
On October 7, 2023, the organization that runs the Gaza Strip known as Hamas launched a massive attack on Israel from air, land and sea, killing 1,139 people and taking another 251 hostage back to Gaza, in what would be the most devastating attack of its kind in Israel’s history. Hamas gunmen targeted military bases, as well as dozens of agricultural communities in Israel’s south, as well as an outdoor music festival. Israel’s inadequate response time to the attacks called into question their invincibility, intelligence capabilities, and threw the status quo of the region into chaos. Israel’s retaliatory attack would be the deadliest and most destructive for Gaza, and claim tens of thousands of lives.
How Russia is attempting to build up a new coalition of anti-western states like Iran, North Korea, and potentially China.
The IDF recovered the bodies of six hostages executed by Hamas, revealing the organization’s shift in tactics to execute hostages close to being rescued. In Ukraine, Russia makes one of the deadliest single attacks on Ukraine, and Israel detonates thousands of Hezbollah pagers, bringing months of escalating conflict to a boil, and pointing to all-out war.
Modern Europe is home to dozens of active border disputes, ranging from minor squabbles to massive swaths of territory home to millions of people. Here in this video, we'll cover through every single one of them.
In the late 60s, Irish Catholic residents of Northern Ireland began a civil rights campaign in protest of the deeply entrenched discrimination against them and in favor of British Protestants that had defined the region for hundreds of years. After explosive reactions in response from British nationalists and British security, from then until the 1990s, Northern Ireland was the site of a prolonged, bloody conflict between its residents in the name of defining the region’s contentious status: as a part of Ireland, or the United Kingdom. After decades of bombings and shootings between paramilitaries that mostly claimed the lives of civilians, a tentative peace was brought on by the Good Friday Agreement, a groundbreaking step that allowed Northern Ireland’s residents to define themselves as they pleased, along with a soft border with Ireland. But with Brexit, the UK’s exit from the European Union, many of those nationalist tensions were reignited, throwing the region’s status in the futu
An analysis into the recent heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and the elevated risk of a major North Korean attack on the South in the not-too distant future.
Where there aren't any ferry services between any of the main Hawaiian Islands.
Hamas confirmed Israel’s killing of their leader, Yahya Sinwar, the Israeli parliament voted to ban UNRWA, and Iran attacked Israel with 180 ballistic missiles. Russia recaptured about half of the territory in Kursk that they had previously lost to Ukraine, and some 10,000 North Korean soldiers were reportedly training in Russia to be deployed in the war with Ukraine. Finally, the UK announced its return of the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius.
Rwanda was historically home to three ethnic groups: the majority Hutu, the minority Tutsi, and a small population of Twa. Historically, these groups coexisted in a hierarchy, with a ruling Tutsi class, but with mobility between groups. However, under the German and Belgian colonial administrations, these ethnic divisions were politicized and racialized. After Rwanda gained independence, the Hutu became the ruling class and began mass discriminating against the formerly powerful Tutsi.
How geography has kept the African continent nerfed.
Approximately 12,000 North Korean troops arrived in Russia’s Kursk province to go into battle with the Ukrainians. After authorization from the US and UK, Ukraine fired their first ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles into Russia-proper. Russia deployed their first nuclear-capable, but conventionally armed medium-range hypersonic missile, in Ukraine so far. Benjamin Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and replaced him with the former Foreign Minister, Israel Katz. The ICC also formally issued arrest warrants for both Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gollant, making Netanyahu the 3rd acting head-of-state to ever be issued an arrest warrant by the ICC. Israel and Hezbollah also finally agreed to a ceasefire, after more with both sides accusing the other of violating it almost immediately. HTS, a Sunni-Islamist militia with links to al-Qaeda, launched a major surprise offensive against the Bashar al-Assad regime - the largest military offensive in Syria since 2019.
In an astounding lightning offensive in Syria, a coalition of rebel forces led by the Islamist HTS seized control over all of Syria’s major cities and decisively overthrew the 53-yearlong Assad regime. HTS then established a new temporary interim government in the country, Bashar al-Assad himself fled in exile to Moscow, while fighting in the north of Syria between the Turkish-backed SNA faction and the US-backed SDF faction continued. Meanwhile, Israeli forces seized control over a UN buffer zone in Syria and areas adjacent to the Golan Heights, marking the first Israeli ground invasion of Syrian territory in decades. Amnesty International also released a landmark report, concluding Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza as amounting to genocide. The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza reported by the Gazan Health Ministry also exceeded 45,000 people since the war began in October of 2023. In South Korea, the country’s president declared martial law, sparking hours of chaos, before being quick
How Singapore became the most overpowered country in Asia, and arguably the world.
For 53 years, the Assad family ruled Syria with an iron fist. In the civil war that erupted against them in 2011, the Assad regime responded by brutally killing at least 500,000 people, and imprisoning and torturing thousands alongside numerous other human rights violations. On November 27, 2024, to the surprise of the entire world, an offensive would begin that would bring the Assad regime to a stunning end in just eleven days. For the Islamist HTS and its anti-Assad allies, this was an opportunity like no other. The Syrian government was already weakened thanks to demoralized soldiers, and Assad’s allies were otherwise preccupied in their own conflicts: Hezbollah with Israel, Russia in Ukraine, and Iran, demonstrably incapable and unwilling to intervene on behalf of its proxies. With this unprecedented opening, a coalition of rebel forces led by the Islamist faction HTS, which had controlled Syria’s Idlib province for years, seized control over all of Syria’s major cities and decisi
