In the geographic case it seems that the common factor so far has been latitude, longitude, and elevation. Describing areas in common terms is difficult - it might be possible to describe the Vatican City with a single latitude/longitude at an appropriate scale, but it doesn't really make sense for Belgium or France. One useful approach is to adapt vocabularies for describing polygons, using a latitude/longitude based scale.
This can be created by using a mercator projection map of the world, which has a linear scale for latitude and longitude (but not for distance between two points), or plotted (after transforming the scale as appropriate) on almost any kind of map. Being able to work with partially overlapping areas is important. More.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.