Stupendous burdens of national debts had been built up.  Poisoned springs of political instability lay in the treaties which closed the war.  Fears and hates held armaments to double those before the war.  Governments were fallaciously seeking to build back by enlarged borrowing, by subsidizing industry and employment with taxes that slowly sapped the savings upon which industry must be rejuvenated and commerce solidly built.  Under these strains the financial systems of many foreign countries crashed one by one.

On April 2, 2005, John Paul II, history’s most well-traveled pope and the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century, dies at his home in the Vatican. Six days later, two million people packed Vatican City for his funeral, said to be one of the biggest in history.