Events Leading to WWII List, Italian Colonialism in Africa & Current Events Libya

Gol (gol = river) Noticed the list of events leading to WWII while I was reading about the Russians fighting off the Japanese invaders of Soviet Russian/Mongolian territory. Came across the Khalkhin Gol battles while reading about Russia's Georgy Zhukov, who is said to have excelled at operational and strategic command (wikipedia). Was interested in him because I'd seen him in the WWII Germany footage. Source: Wikipedia Khalkhin Gol doesn't get a mention in the list, maybe because it was an undeclared war.  It would be part of Japan's expansionism attempts, which would have started with the invasion of Manchuria 1931 (above).  No, scratch that.  It looks like the Japanese were at it in 1918-22 when they invaded Siberia while Russia was in revolutionary turmoil (but maybe historians aren't counting Japanese expansionist attempts from there).  Scrap that as well.  The Japanese in Siberia scenario appears to have been spurred on by the West (British-US sending warships to Vladivostok) to counter the communist revolutionaries, and the Japanese wanted the action.  The 'international coalition' withdrew its forces but the amassed Japanese troops (and thousands of civilian settlers) moved inland and stayed on).  Looks the Japanese pulled out because (a) the Bolsheviks got the upper hand in Russia and (b) the occupation came at a high cost for Japan (over half the national budget for 2 years).  The following were also players in the Khalkhin Gol battles: Grigori Shtern (shot/executed after confessing under torture that he had been German spy).  Shtern was in charge of the front line & in command of Zhukov, if I understand correctly. Yakov Smushkevich (in charge of aviation, shot/executed 1941) Khorloogiin Choibalsan (Mongolian nationalist) source:  wikipedia Grigori Shtern (shot/executed 1941, left) and Georgy Zhukov (right). Khorloogiin Choibalsan (centre). Wikipedia on Smushkevich and Shtern indicates they were both executed and both subsequently 'rehabilitated' in the early 1950s, so I guess that means their honour was restored. Smushkevich's daughter recalled the arrest in an interview with Moscow News, concluding that maybe Nazi intelligence services had the Soviet Russians convinced that 'faithful fighters are enemies' (here). Finding the who's who hard to follow.  Problem with remembering the names.  Find it hard to keep the names straight.  Some of the histories are quite involved as well.   The list of WWII lead-up events will keep me busy with look-ups, but I'll only be skimming the surface.  Even though it's only surface information, the embarrassing part is I'll probably not take a great deal of this in.  But something's better than nothing (and it's interesting information), so I'll keep checking things out. Italian colonialism in Africa struck me as extremely brutal: Italian Somaliland Colony 1889-1936 from 1936 > = Italian East Africa colony ie Italian Somaliland + Italian Eritrea + Ethiopian Empire No probs killing monks & nuns at monastery, plus 30,000 Ethiopians in 3 days. [see wikipedia] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_East_Africa Right now the Italians are agitating for military intervention in Libya, so the guess is Italian industrialists have investments there and their politicians are pushing for intervention to protect Italian corporate interests.  So it's like colonialism has never ended. The push for intervention comes after an alleged ISIS execution of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya, which is quite a convenient event for the Western backed Tobruk government (yes, there's two Libya governments:  Tripoli (not recognised by West) and Tobruk), and convenient for those in the West that seek to intervene in the region. Having a hard time believing this event is genuine (rather than staged).  On the other hand, maybe it is genuine.  I don't know.  It's just weird that it plays into the hands of those who seek Western military intervention. The video is said to have come out of the Al Hayat Media Center (HMC), which is supposed to be Islamic State controlled.   Back in June 2014, Daily Mail reported that IS were publishing an English language propaganda magazine via "AlHayat Media Center - the propaganda wing of ISIS".   So maybe the Libya report is genuine.