Today I Discovered The World At World War: Distilled Into 20 Minutes

The Second World War swallowed up the years between 1939 and 1945, affecting people across the globe and ending as the deadliest conflict in human history. As some of humanity’s darkest days, it’s origins and legacy are taught in schools across the world. It may be easy to understand who attacked who – but it isn’t easy to fully comprehend the scale until it’s laid out for you in simple, easy to understand terms.

Just like this two-part video series does.

Courtesy of YouTube channel ‘OverSimplified‘, this two part video series uses low-fi graphics, cheek and simple explanations to explain how World War II came to be, its major players and powers and its many conflicts. Though you’ve no doubt learnt about World War II in your life – you’ve never seen it presented like this.

Okay, so it’s called OverSimplified, but the detail that goes into this high-quality content is astounding. The channel uploaded a World War I explainer about a year ago and continued with content around The Falklands into last year.

Just last week, OverSimplified uploaded their two-part series on World War II.

I’ve seen plenty of official World War II documentaries, but the way that this particular explainer is laid out makes it one of the more easy to follow and learn how the Second World War unfolded. It traces it all the way back to Mussolini in Italy, through Hitler and Nazi Germany’s rise and the Allies assaults on Europe. The detailed world map that constantly appears on the screen, the way that territories are highlighted in Axis Red and Allied Blue and the fact that, though it does add in some humour, it still tries to lend a real weight to the conflict makes it must-see YouTube content.

In a world of Logan Pauls and video game Let’s Plays, this is the type of content YouTube should be championing and people should be watching.

It also features a cartoon Hitler shooting himself in the foot… three times.

If you’ve ever needed to brush up on your history or have a big test on WWII coming – this video series is perfect.

Part 1 is below:

Part 2 is here:


Today I Discovered is a daily dose of fact for Lifehacker readers – the weird, wonderful and sometimes worrying. Most of the time, it’s just mind-blowing. Let us know if you discovered anything that blew your mind in the comments!


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