The events of these latter times actually began with The Edict of Toleration in 1844, which ended the legal exclusion of the Jews from Israel (a part of what is called the Diaspora). Thirty-five years after the time of Jesus, with the Roman destruction of The Second Temple and most of Jerusalem (70 AD), by Hadrian, who changed the country's name from Judea to Syria Palaestina, and who forbade any Jews to live there. While the legal exclusion of the Jews from Palestine ended in 1844, extra-legal exclusion continued as becomes very evident in Part IV of this presentation.
The Jews in Diaspora (and in fact the Jews in Israel today, who are still excluded from the Temple Mount) still recite at each annual Celebration of the Passover (Pesach) (yet another story) the formal declaration of Aliyah, "Next year in Israel". The thought/desire burning in the hearts of Jews all those many years/centuries/millenia, finally began to take practical shape in the concept of Zionism, a term coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum, and the Movement established by Theodor Herzl in 1896. Such, until the early 1900s, were the expressed aspirations/interests of the Jews in Eretz Israel (a much expanded version of Israel than the current boundaries) while other "interests" were expressing themselves in the Middle East and Holy Land and what is called the Levant.
In the present paradigm, based upon the explanations of whatare some of the century's greatest thinkers, the start of Armageddon was on July 28th in 1914 with the beginning of World War One fought between the Central Powers (Germany/Austria-Hungary) and the Allies (United Kingdom/France/Russia). The United States was a late-comer to the war.
In 1910 in California, Abdu'l-Baha, who Himself enters the thread later, stated: "We are on the eve of the Battle of Armageddon referred to in the sixteenth chapter of Revelation. The time is two years hence, when only a spark will set aflame the whole of Europe."
In demonstration of how these threads are all interwoven, let it be interjected here that Abdu'l-Baha also set down a list of principles that would be necessary for removing the cause of such conflicts in the world. His list of principles was in the possession of Wilson's daughter while she lived in the White House, and three quarters of them ended up in approximately their same original order in Wilson's 14 point speech to the US Congress in 1918. These principles must eventually be implemented.
President Woodrow Wilson was re-elected in November 1916 on the slogan that "He kept us out of war", and the US did not enter the war until April 1917 to "make the world safe for democracy", by borrowing billions from the US Federal Reserve Bank which Wilson started (or at least agreed to its formation in 1913), perhaps for that reason and purpose.
Wilson also created the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, still in force today and the beginning basis of the current US Surveillance State. Additionally, while not a great defender of racial rights - he was also the foil of the women's liberation movement. Even with all these mis-steps, history may yet look back upon him as America's greatest president, the reasons for which are intimated below, but must play out in the Divine Destiny of history.
In any case, the US was not long in the war as the First World War ended nineteen months later with 117,000 US casualties out of the over 37 million total. Less than one percent of the total number of casualties and a fraction of a percent of the US population. For the US this was nothing compared to the percentage losses in the US Civil War, or in World War Three, yet to come.
World War One was truly world-wide and devastating to many nations. A recounting of details of the conflict is, however, outside the present theme - which is concerned with how that war helped shaped current events as a part of the Divine Destiny of what is happening right now. The single greatest determining factor in the failure to establish world peace was the US refusal, after the war, to participate in President Wilson's main Fourteen Point project of the League of Nations. That failure, the causes of which were replicated further down the road for the same reasons, determined the faulty structure of the United Nations, contributing to the present situation.
As a result of WW1, major geopolitical structures were shifted, including of course the role of Germany, the lines between Russia and the US/Japan (after the failed US/Japanese attack on Russia in the Allied Intervention), the establishing of the US as a global power, and particularly of interest to us here, the restructuring of the Middle East and destruction of the Ottoman Empire.
France, the UK, and Russia all sought to enhance their positions in the Middle East, recognizing already its importance as a source for oil and as a strategic bridge to the developing world inter-relatedness.