Another proof of the Semistable Reduction Theorem

Abstract

We give a new proof of the Semistable Reduction Theorem for curves. The main idea is to present a curve $Y$ over a local field $K$ as a finite cover of the projective line $X=\PP^1_K$. By successive blowups (and after replacing $K$ by a suitable finite extension) we construct a semistable model of $X$ whose normalization with respect to the cover is a semistable model of $Y$.