Is it true that, the morning after Germany invaded Poland, Time magazine wrote a story that contained the first use of the term World War II (and, I guess, changed “The Great War” into WWI)?
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Tom (tomndebb) answered this in another thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001665.html
That’s crazy. It might be true, but it’s crazy. What crystal ball were Time magazine people looking into in 1939? Sure, there were a lot of countries theoretically involved, but most of them were Commonwealth countries not really in the clinches yet. In 1939, the war was really between Germany and Poland, the UK, and France. Fighting had occurred in Spain, Ethiopia and China before that, but that fighting occurs before the traditional beginning of WWII.
I say the “traditional beginning” of World War II because it seems like any beginning point is going to be pretty arbitrary. The 1939 date is the date Britain, France and Poland became directly involved - certainly an important event, just not an event covering a big portion of the world.
The USA and USSR were not involved until later; Spanish loyalists, Chinese nationalists, and pro-Selassie Ethiopians had been involved much earlier. The German Condor legion had been directly involved in fighting during the Spanish Civil War, as had volunteers on the other side from several future Allied nations.
pssst…Boris. This was Time. They were the original illuminati. Hell, they might even have engineered WWII.
Actually, the countries involved in Sept. 1939 were similar enough to those in THE World War that it might have seemed natural to assume that this (another Germany vs France/Britain war) was a sequel, thus World War (part) II.
Wasn’t it Churchill who spoke of a “world war” before it really started? Somebody like that.
Hey, I’m outta my league here. 
Peace,
mangeorge