Extra Credit: Investigate one factor in one country that helped start World War I

The key event that sparked World War I was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. However, most historians only consider this to be the 'immediate' cause. There are many other long term explanations to the cause of WWI, such as imperialism. Many European nations were already fighting each other in Africa and the Americas over various territories. As empires and nations began to grow, they had to import massive amounts of resources to support their people and army. Most of these resources didn't come from Europe, as it is a fairly resource dry area, so the nations had to go abroad to find cheap/free labor and resources. Because of this competition for resources, tension began to build amongst European nations, eventually leading up to World War 1.