The document summarizes the political and military events in the 1930s that led to the outbreak of World War 2. Key factors included the punitive Treaty of Versailles which created resentment, the rise of totalitarian regimes in Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, and the Soviet Union under Stalin. Japan also grew increasingly expansionist. Despite actions by the League of Nations and efforts at appeasement by Britain and France, Germany remilitarized, annexed Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia, signaling that another major war in Europe had become inevitable.