Great War

The Great War (大戦争, Dai Sensō), also referred to simply as The War (戦争, Sensō), is a war that took place eighty years prior or before the events in the beginning of Tales of RWBY. The war was a significant conflict that occurred and fought between the Kingdoms. It came to its conclusion eighty years later.

The Great War preceded the Faunus Rights Revolution, a conflict over racial politics, by several years. However, no specific time frame has been provided.

"On this day, nearly eighty years ago, the largest war in recorded history came to an end. It was a war of ignorance, of greed, and of oppression. A war that was about much more than where borders fell or who traded with whom, but about the very idea of individualism itself."
 * —Ozpin, on the War.

Notes & Trivia

 * The War provides an in-universe explanation for the "Color Naming Rule" of the Tales of RWBY universe. These guidelines, set by Monty Oum, state that all characters and team names in Tales of RWBY must have a name that is either a color, sounds like a color, means a color or is otherwise evocative of a color.