Chaco War
Bolivia and Paraguay fight three years for an arid plain
In 1932–1935 Bolivia and Paraguay fought over the northern Gran Chaco, thought to hold oil. It was South America's bloodiest war of the 20th century, with about 100,000 dead, many from thirst and disease; a 1938 treaty gave Paraguay three-quarters of the disputed land.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — 14 years earlier
- 1939–1945 World War II — 7 years later
- 1947–1991 Cold War — 15 years later
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — 16 years later
- 1949 Founding of NATO — 17 years later
Europe
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — 13 years earlier
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — 4 years earlier
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — 1 year later
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — 4 years later
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — 9 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — 3 years earlier
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — 4 years later
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — 9 years later
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — 10 years later
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — 13 years later
Middle East
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — 24 years earlier
- 1915–1917 Armenian genocide — 17 years earlier
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 16 years earlier
- 1923 Treaty of Lausanne — 9 years earlier
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — same year
Africa
- 1922 Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb — 10 years earlier
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — 3 years later
- 1948 Apartheid begins in South Africa — 16 years later
- 1952 Egyptian revolution of 1952 — 20 years later
- 1956 The Suez Crisis — 24 years later
Asia
- 1931 China floods — 1 year earlier
- 1931 Mukden Incident — 1 year earlier
- 1934–1935 Long March — 2 years later
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 13 years later
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 21 years later
Oceania
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 21 years earlier
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — 20 years earlier
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 4 years later
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — 9 years later
- 1942 The Battle of Midway — 10 years later
Alive at the time
- Nikola Tesla (aged 76)
- Marie Curie (aged 65)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 63)
- Ernest Rutherford (aged 61)
- Winston Churchill (aged 58)
- Joseph Stalin (aged 54)
- Albert Einstein (aged 53)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 51)
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (aged 51)
- Adolf Hitler (aged 43)