Europe Test Part 2 Flashcards
Test Tuesday, February 12!
What were the immediate effects of WWll?
- Deaths: both military and civilian was 52,199,262
- Destruction: many countries need to rebuild from war and bombings
- Debt: lots of deficit spending during WWll
- Desire for Peace: led to creation of United Nations
- Decolonization: many countries gain their independence
What came from the former League of Nations and ideas expressed by FDR, when was it established, how many countries signed the charter and where was it signed?
United Nations was established in 1945. 50 countries originally signed the UN Charter in San Francisco. (It has 191 countries today.)
What was the state of Europe after the war?
- Germany was in a state of collapse
- Europe lay in ruins
- What remained of western civilization was haunted by the Jewish Holocaust
- Millions left homeless / jobless
- Germany divided into “zones” occupied by France, England, the USSR, and the USA.
What was the purpose and reasoning behind the Marshall Plan?
Purpose: To help rebuild the countries
Reasoning: Countries that were prosperous would not want to fight another war.
The Marshall Plan lasted from _____ to _____.
1948; 1952
How did the Marshall Plan affect the economic divide between the democratic west and the communist east?
It created a divide between rich democrats (west) and poor communists (east) as clear as the political one.
Cold War
A decades-long struggle for global supremacy that pitted the capitalist US against the communist Soviet Union. Believed to have started in the mid- to late- 1945 when the relations between Moscow and Washington began deteriorating.
Mutually Assured Destruction
(MAD) - a doctrine of military strategy
and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of both the attacker and the defender; assumes that each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the other side; and that either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate without fail with equal or greater force.
Perestroika
The policy of economic and governmental reform instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union during the mid-1980s
Boris Yelton
Was chosen in the first free election. While Gorbachev was on vacation in the Crimea during August 1991, a group of right-wing military and KGB leaders staged a coup in Moscow. Yelton gained international recognition during the coup attempt by facing down the coup leaders.
Hitler’s Final Solution
To kill everyone he deemed undesirable, or that “tainted” his idea of the perfect race (asocials, Jews, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, people with mental and/or physical disabilities, etc.)
President Kennedy
Pres of US
Glasnost
Soviet policy permitting open discussion of political ans social issues and freer dissemination of news and information.
Coup
A sudden appropriation of leadership or power; a takeover
Venice
An Italian city that is slowly sinking underwater.
Mikhail Gorbachev
Became general secretary and leader of the USSR on March 11, 1985.
Meseta
The central plateau of Spain
Warsaw Pact
An organization formed in Warsaw, Poland (1955), comprising Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the U.S.S.R., for collective defense under a joint military command. Formed by the Soviet Union in answer to NATO’s formation.
“Two Plus Four Treaty”
The GDR (East) and FDR (West) and four occupying powers [US, Great Britain, France, & Russia (Soviet Union)] produced this treaty, granting full independence to a unified German state. This treaty (A.K.A. the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany) was signed on September 12, 1990.
Milosevic
The president of the Serbian League of Communists which leads a movement to reestablish Communist rule and Serbian dominance in Bosnia. During his leadership, more than 1 million people were thrown into prison or forced to flee throughout the Balkans and thousands more were killed or injured during 3 conflicts; whole cities were reduced to rubble. He died during his trial in 2000.
Khrushchev
.
Kohl
.
Molotov Plan
The ERP invited the Soviet Union to participate, but Stalin refused. Stalin forbade his satellites in Eastern Europe to accept the American invitation to join the ERP. He instead imposed the Molotov Plan that integrated Eastern Europe into the Soviet economy.
Winston Churchill
.
ERP
The European Recovery Program was a solution found by Will Clayton, a state department official. Envisioned American gifts and loans of billions of dollars combined with specific European initiatives that would put the continent’s industry, transportation, finance, and farming on a sound basis. Such aid would promote free trade and a healthy environment for economic and political freedoms, and in the long run, lead to peace and unity within Europe.
ERP projects increased agricultural and mining output, repaired Europe’s shattered railroad network, and modernized factories, usually with new machines purchased from American companies.
Tundra
One of the vast, nearly level, treeless plains of the arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America.
Peat
Partially decayed plant matter found in bogs and used for fuel in Ireland
Euro
Currency in Europe (EU)
Berlin Air Lift
.
Why was NATO established?
It was aimed at safeguarding the freedom of the North Atlantic community. The treaty was also designed to encourage political, economic, and social cooperation. International peacekeeping organization - resolves conflicts between countries, peacefully if possible. Western powers were afraid of Soviet aggression.
Was Mikhail Gorbachev sucessful in his reforms for the USSR? Why or why not?
After coming into power, he became aware that youth showed apathy and indifference towards communism and recognized that Soviet economy needed fundamental reforms. He then introduced perestroika and glasnost. Perestroika was unable to reserve the collapsing Soviet economy because corruption ans bureaucracy was too far entrenched. Glasnost was more successful, but not in the ways that Gorbachev envisioned. The first free elections took place (which hadn’t n over 70 years) in 1989.
What were some problems faced by West Germany when it reunited with East Germany?
West Germany was faced with a heavy cost burden, and despite their big investments, lots of East German businesses collapsed. Many highly skilled workers form East Germany also left to go to the West in hope of finding a job, which resulted in loss of significant parts of the eastern work force.
What is ethic cleaning? What group committed most of the “ethic cleansing” in the Balkans?
Ethnic cleaning is the systematic elimination of an unwanted ethnic group or groups from a region or society, as by deportation, forced emigration, or genocide. The Serbians did most of the ethnic cleansing.
What is the most current purpose of NATO?
NATO has increasingly concentrated on extending security and stability throughout Europe, and on peacekeeping efforts in Europe and elsewhere.
What Serbian leader did the UN for his leadership in Serbia try for “crimes against humanity”?
Slobodan Milosevic
How would you describe the post - WWll economics of Europe and the US?
Europe’s economic output was overall 13% lower and Germany’s was 55% lower. Only the US emerged without domestic damage and stronger economically that before the war, about 65% higher economic output. Every industrial area and transportation center in Europe was damaged or diminished from the armadas of huge bombers that came, day and night.
The seizure of which country in Europe by the USSR convinced The US to support the Marshall Plan?
Czechoslovakia
How did Tito keep Yugoslavia together even with the hatred of the ethnic groups in the country?
He divided Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia into 6 republics.
What was the Holocaust death toll?
Approximately 12 million people
What caused friction between the USSR and the USA?
.
What did the Marshall Plan accomplish in post-war Europe?
- Jump-started European economy, stopped spread of Communism
- Restored European agricultural and industrial productivity
- Credited with preventing famine and political chaos
- Repaired Europe’s shattered railroad network
- Modernized factories, usually w/ new machines purchased from American companies
What is grown on the European Plain?
.
What are the boundaries of the European Peninsulas?
.
What is the famous statement President Kennedy made in Berlin?
In 1963 he says “Ich bin ein Berliner!” He means to say “I am a Berliner” but actually ends up saying “I am a jelly pastry (doughnut)!”
