Zelenskyy is a guy rallying his people to defend their home turf and pleading for outside assistance to expel an invading foreign power.
One of George Washington's early engagements as a British Colonial officer is widely considered to have kicked off the French & Indian / Seven Years War - - thought by some to be the REAL first world war. Later on, he, along with Ben Franklin and John Adams sought to engage the assistance of the other world superpower (France) to repel the British from the American continent. That ultimately upset the global applecart greatly.
Napoleon?
Intertwining alliances of the inbred monarchs of Europe?
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao?
Biden pulling out of Afghanistan (is it possible for a blithering idiot to be the AC?)
We've had plenty of harbingers that have told the current generation that The End Is Nigh. Millions dead in the process, to be sure, but the planet's still turnin'.