3rd Term Dates Flashcards
***1789-1848
Romantic Era
***1815
The forces of conservatism and reaction dominate the Congress of Vienna
***1815-1914
the “Long Peace” in Europe between the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of WWI.
***1776-1830
Era of Democratic Revolutions Sweep Across the New World and Western “Liberal” Europe
***1815-1848-
The Age of Metternich–Reactionary Repression
***1819
Peterloo Massacre in Britain and the repressive Carslbad Decrees in the German
1830
Revolutions in Europe
***19th Century
Post-Napoleonic Europe—Industrial Revolution
***1815-1846
Corn Laws In Effect
***1819
Peterloo Massacre represents repression even in England.
***1832
Great Reform Bill in Britain
***1838-1848-
Chartists in England call for universal suffrage
***1798–1848
Parson Malthus’s “Essay on Population” and David Ricardo’s “Iron Law of Wages” rule the day as the “Manchester School” of economics dominates the “dismal science.”
***1846
Repeal of the corn laws by Robert Peel
***1848
Chartists disband quietly considering it was the year of Revolutions. This shows the evolutionary nature of English society.
1867—The Reform Bill of 1867 becomes law in England and the franchise is increased by 124%.
1884
Reform bill- more men’s suffrage
1850’s and beyond
Scramble for Africa
***1848
Revolution sweeps across Europe and Failure of liberal nationalism.
***1848
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish their Communist Manifesto calling for “scientific socialism” and “dialectical materialism”.
***1890’s
Fabian Socialist and Evolutionary Socialists Parties grow
***June 28, 1914
Assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzigovina, Austrian-Hungarian Empire
***July 1914-
July diplomatic crisis; blank check, ultimatum, Russian mobilization, Schlieffen Plan, Belgian neutrality
***August 1914
WWI begins—“Guns of August”
***1917
USA enters WWI
***November 11, 1918
armistice is signed ended the fighting on the Western Front
***1919-
Versailles Peace Conference
1904-05
Russo—Japanese War
***1905
“Bloody Sunday” the First Russian Revolution in Response to the Russo-Japanese Defeat
***June 28, 1914
A member of the Pan-Serbian Gavrilo Princip of the “Black Hand” killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Habsburg Dynasty
***February 1917
Czar is overthrown and replaced by a provisional government.
***1917—1921
Civil War between the Reds and Whites in Russia. Trotsky organizes the Red Army and war communism puts all resources into fighting the war. The Whites are supported by the democracies of the world, but are hampered by disunity and long supply lines.
***On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918
the armistice ending hostilities is signed in a train car.
***1922-1928
The New Economic Policy was launched by Lenin (d. 1924) in the Soviet Union to help bring back prosperity to a nation devastated by eight years of WWI and the Civil War. This program allows for certain private enterprise while the “soaring heights” of industry remain in control of the government. This policy helps the kulak, or big peasant class. to develop which will eventually be labeled as capitalist and destroyed as a result of the forced collectivization in the early 1930’s.
***1924
Lenin dies. This begins the power struggle which Stalin eventually wins over Trotsky. This leads to Stalinism (remember to distinguish between Stalinism in practice and Marxism in theory).
***1928
First 5 Year Plan for heavy industry was launched by Stalin in the USSR.
***1929-1930
Great Depression hits Europe.
***1933
Hitler is appointed Chancellor by the aging Hindenburg in Germany.
***1935
Mussolini ordered the invasion of Ethiopia to “Avenge Adowa”. Bob Marley’s “War”
1936
Germany reoccupies the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. The French do nothing.
***1936
Leon Blum, a socialist, leads the Popular Front in France. This alliance of leftist parties works together to stop the rise of the French far right fascists led by a group known as Action Francaise (“Better Hitler, than Blum.”).
***1936-39
Spanish Civil War. Franco leads Fascists to victory in Spain with the help of the Germans and Italians. The democracies of Europe do not give the Republican government much help (read: appeasement). Pablo Picasso’s Guernica depicts the civilian bombing carried out by German planes.
***March 1938
Anschluss—German occupied Austria. How does CBS Radioman William Shirer feel?
***September of 1938
Munich Conference demonstrates British and French Appeasement Policy. Germany gains the Czech Sudetenland without a fight. He eventually occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia despite the piece of paper that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had called “peace in our time”. APPEASEMENT PERSONIFIED How does a Czech liberal democrat feel?
November 9, 1938
”Kristallnacht” two months after Munich. What does Leni Riefenstahl say?
***August of 1939
Nazi/Soviet Pact between Hitler and Stalin is negotiated to establish how the dictators will divide Poland. This allows Hitler to not worry about fighting a two front war.
***Sept. 1, !939
WWII begins with the invasion of Poland using “blitzkrieg” or lightning war tactics.
***1940
Norway, Holland, Belgium, and even France are crushed. Britain stands alone against the mighty Germans. Churchill addresses the British people and makes his famous, “We Shall Never Surrender” speech. The Battle of Britain begins over the skies of England. Despite horrendous damage from the Blitz, the British people characteristically retain their pride and the Spitfires and Hurricanes of the Royal Air Force prove victorious against the Germans handing Hitler his first setback and allowing Britain to remain alive to fight another day.
***1942
The “Final Solution” of the Jewish Question was reached by Nazi leaders at the Gross Wannsee Conference. The elimination of all European Jews using the ghettos, railroads, and scientific death factories became the policy of the Nazis.
***June 22, 1941
“Operation Barbarossa” is launched. The Nazis invade Russia and quickly penetrate deep into the Russian heartland. The Germans surrounded Leningrad (formerly St. Petersburg) and make it to within 50 miles of Moscow only to be stopped by the onset of the Russian winter and Russian reinforcements from Siberia.
***Dec. 7, 1941
Pearl Harbor brings America into the war although FDR had been helping both the British and Russians through loans and American equipment. American economic capacity will prove critical in the war.
***1942-43
The tide of war turns and the Allies go on the offensive. German forces are defeated in Africa and at Stalingrad. Japan is defeated at the Battle of Midway and at Guadalcanal.
***June 6, 1944
D-Day is launched and the western Allies (Brits, Americans, Free French under De Gaulle, Canadians) breach the Atlantic Wall and head for Germany.
February 1945—The Yalta Conference between Churchill, Stalin, and FDR was held to discuss post-war Europe. “War makes strange bedfellows” for certain in this situation!!!!! During the Russian Civil War between the “Reds” and the “Whites” in between 1918-1921, Brits and Americans attempted to crush the “Reds”.
***May 8, 1945
V-E Day.
***mid-1945
In the midst of the post V-E Day Potsdam Conference (outside of Berlin), Conservative Prime Minister Churchill is defeated by Labour Party Clement Attlee who begins to make demands for the creation of the welfare state. (The result of the earlier evolutionary Fabian Socialists of an earlier generation)
***1946-
George Kennan writes a 10,000 word memo outlining containment policy and Churchill makes his “Iron Curtain” speech.
***1947
Truman Doctrine
***1947-48
Marshall Plan—What is our Marshall Plan today? Our Truman Doctrine? Our “Containment” policy? Is there a Bush Doctrine? If so, what is it?
1948—Czechoslovakia becomes communist after Jan Masaryk “falls” out of a window. The Soviet “satellite” system (puppet governments controlled by grows stronger in Eastern Europe as Stalin works to create dominance.
***1948
The Berlin Airlift leads to the creation of NATO and demonstrates containment policy and the hatred of the appeasement policy of the 1930’s. Churchill was correct on both accounts regarding Hitler and Stalin. Why? He won a Nobel Prize for historical writing.
***1947
ndia gained independence from Britain. The period of decolonization begins as the European powers can no longer support the colonial administrations or necessarily believe in the Social Darwinistic themes associated with imperialism.
***1950’s and 1960’s
European Economic “miracle” in capitalistic Western Europe (democratic Western Europe never becomes state dominated top down management destruction of natural market socialism like in the USSR and satellites.)
***1954
The Vietnamese rebels defeat the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. This ended French colonialism in the former French IndoChina. An embarrassment for the French. American presence grows over time. Vietnam is placed within the context of the “domino theory” of communism expansion and the Cold War.
***1956
Imre Nagy, formerly labeled a Titoist, leads a movement in Hungary to become more independent from Moscow. The Soviets send in troops to crush the movement. Gomulka in Poland asks for reform, but clarifies his support of the Warsaw Pact. Gomulka gains Polish tolerance of the Catholic Church and a slower rate of forced collectivization of agriculture in exchange for Poland’s continuation as a member of the Warsaw Pact. The power of the Catholic Church would prove a powerful influence when a Pole became Pope. We saw him give mass in St. Peter’s on Sunday.
***1957
Treaty of Rome establishes the European Union or European Economic Community. England is absent from initial membership because of its “isolationist” tendencies.
***1958
The Algerian Crisis causes the French 4th Republic to crumble. DeGaulle returns from retirement to quell the army and to establish the 5th French Republic which has a stronger executive. He would rule for ten years, when he began to lose touch as shown during the riots of 1968 by the students. Do you remember Bob Dylan’s, “The Times They Are A Changin”? This song reminds me of the year of 1968 when young people rose up at once across the world. The lasting power of this movement of the young was lacking.
***1961
Berlin Wall is erected. When you begin building walls to keep people in your country—think: North Korea—your legitimacy must be called into question. The downfall of the Soviet Empire was “inevitable”,to steal a word from Marx, when carried out in a Stalinist fashion.
***1962
Cuban Missile Crisis. Thank goodness MAD was not realized. A red phone connecting the White House and the Soviet Union was established in the aftermath of this exceptionally close call at a nuclear exchange based on hubris. I am glad Khrushchev was a pig farmer.
***1968
“Prague Spring” is crushed by Russian tanks under the order of Leonid Brezhnev and the Brezhnev Doctrine. “The Times They Are A Changin” is symbolic of the spirit of ’68 as youth protest across the globe. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy are assassinated and the Chicago Police beat protesters outside of the Democratic National Convention. Dan Rather is manhandled by police on the floor of the Convention. American cities burn. London erupts in protest against the Vietnam War and the lack of social mobility. French youth protest the lack of higher education for all classes and DeGaulle seems out of touch. Within a year, the hero of WWII and the Algerian crisis retires from public life.
***1979
The Soviet invaded Afghanistan ending Détente and bringing the U.S. boycott of the Summer Olympics. The “Miracle on Ice” happened in the Winter Olympics in Lake Place, New York during 1980.
***1979
Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher is elected Prime Minister of Britain and begins a Conservative Revolution (Ronald Reagan does the same in the USA) against the welfare state and nationalization of industry. Thatcherism—modern Tories, anti-labor and pro-Hayekian
***1979
Solidarity Movement under Lech Walesa is launched. The irony of this situation is terrific. Within ten years, the Pope and the proletariat had overthrown Stalinism in Poland. During the early 1980’s, the Polish communist party officials attempted to crush the power of Solidarity by imposing martial law and arresting many leaders including Walesa under the urging of Moscow.
***1979-1989
Soviet disastrous invasion of Afghanistan causes Muslim community to launch a jihad against the ‘Godless” usurper. U.S. supplies “freedom fighting” mujahideen.
***1985
Gorbachev is elected premier of the Soviet Union and begins his policies of glasnot (openness) and perestroika (restructuring of industry, law, and government). The Gorbachev Doctrine establishes Soviet non-interference in Eastern European affairs.
***1988-89
The Velvet Revolutions lead to the overthrow of communist government in Eastern Europe. The revolutions are generally non-violent, save Romania.
november 1989
berlin wall is toppled
***1990
Germany reunified.
***1991
Fall of the Soviet Union; Boris Yeltsin stops a coup by hardline conservative Soviet communists and Yeltsin establishes a democratic Russian state.
***1994-95-
Ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. Balkanization Slobodan Milosevic is the Serbian leader on trial in international court for “crimes against humanity”—EU proves ineffective in dealing with this problem.
***1990’s
Russians fight against the former Islamic Republic of Azerbaijan resulting in a nasty war. Chechnyan rebels are nasty and so are the Russians.
***1990’s
former Soviet bloc countries begin to apply for membership in EU and in NATO
***1990’s
Eastern European states struggle to convert to free market capitalism and democracy
***September 11, 2001
terrorists combined with weapons of mass destruction become the new scourge of the twenty-first century.
***2008-2009-
Great Recession
***2009-2024
rise of right wing populist authoritarianism who oppose immigration, globalization, and want a return to “traditional values”.
