1. Neville Chamberlain’s Appeasement of Hitler
In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed he could secure “peace for our time” by signing the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler. His policy of appeasement—conceding to Hitler’s territorial demands—proved disastrous. Rather than stopping aggression, it emboldened the Nazi leader and hastened the onset of World War II. Had Chamberlain chosen a firmer stance, history may have taken a different path. For more on Chamberlain’s fateful hesitation, see the Britannica biography.
