Final Flashcards
League of Nations
International organization founded after the First World War to solve international disputes through arbitration; it was dissolved in 1946 and it assets were transferred to the United States. (Glossary)
World War II
Worldwide war that began in September 1939 in Europe, and even earlier in Aisa (the Japanese invasion of Manchuria began in 1931), putting Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union (the Allies) against Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan (the Axis). The war ended in 1945 with Germany and Japan’s defeat. (Glossary)
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a 1949 military agreement between the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and eight Western European nations, which declared that an armed attack against any on e of the members would be regarded as an attack against all. Created during the Cold War in the face of the Soviet Union’s control of Eastern Europe, NATO continues to exist today and the membership of twenty-eight states includes former members of the Warsaw Pact as well as Albania and Turkey. (Glossary)
Warsaw Pact
(1955-1991) Military alliance between the USSR and other communist states that was established as a response to the creation of the NATO alliance. (Glossary)
First World War
A total war from August 1914 to November 1918, involving the armies of Britain, France, and Russia (the Allies) against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers). Italy joined the Allies in 1915, and the United States joined them in 1917, helping to tip the balance in favor of the Allies, who also drew upon the populations and raw materials of their colonial possessions. Also known as the Great War. (Glossary)
Joseph Stalin
(1879-1953) The Bolshevik leader who succeeded Lenin as the leader of the Soviet Union and ruled until his death in 1953. (Glossary)
Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points
President Woodrow Wilson proposed these points are the foundation on which to build peace in the world after the First World War. They called for an end to secret treaties, “open covenants, openly arrived at”, freedom of the seas, the removal of international tariffs, the reduction of arms, the “self-determination of peoples”, and the establishment of a league of nations to settle international conflicts. (Glossary)
Benito Mussolini
(1883-1945) The Italian founder of the Fascist party who came to power in Italy in 1922 and allied himself with Hitler and the Nazis during the Second World War. (Glossary)
Adolf Hitler
(1889-1945) The author of Mein Kampf and leader of the Nazis who became chancellor of Germany in 1933. Hitler and his Nazi regime started the Second World War and orchestrated the systematic murders of over five million Jews. (Glossary)
Stalingrad
(1942-1943) The turning point on the Eastern Front during the Second World War came when the German army tried to take the city of Stalingrad in an effort to break the back of Soviet industry. The Germany and Soviet armies fought a bitter battle, in which more than half a million Germany, Italian, and Romanian soldiers were killed and the Soviets suffered over a million casualties. The German army surrendered after over five months of fighting. After Stalingrad, the Soviet army launched a series of attacks that pushed the Germans back. (Glossary).
Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism refers to hostility toward Jewish people. Religious forms of anti-Semitism have a long history in Europe, but in the nineteenth century anti-semitism emerged as a potent ideology for mobilizing new constituencies in the era of mass politics. Playing on popular conspiracy theories about alleged Jewish influence in society, Anti-Semites effectively rallied large boides of supporters in France during the rise of National Socialism in Germany after the First World War. The Holocaust would not have been possible without the acquiescence or cooperation of many thousands of people who shared anti-Semitic views. (Glossary)
Trench Warfare
Weapons such as barbed wire and the machine gun gave tremendous advantage to defensive positions in World War I, leading to prolonged battles between entrenched armies in fixed positions.The trenches eventually consisted of twenty five thousand miles of holes and ditches that stretched across the Western Front in northern France, from the Atlantic cost to the Swiss border during the First World War, on the eastern front, the large express of territories made trench warfare less significant. (Glossary)
Yalta Accords
Meeting between Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin that occurred in the Crimea in 1945 shortly before the end of the Second World War to plan for the postwar order. (Glossary).
Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi
(1869-1948) The Indian leader who advocated nonviolent noncooperation to protest colonial rule and helped win home rule for India in 1947. (Glossary).
Berlin Wall
The wall built in 1961 by East German Communists to prevent citizens of East Germany from fleeting to West Germany; it was torn down in 1989. (Glossary)
Cuban Missile Crisis
(1962) Diplomatic standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union that was provoked by the Soviet Union’s attempt to base nuclear missiles in Cuba; it brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever before or since. (Glossary).
Schlieffen Plan
Devised by German general Alfred von Schlieffen in 1905 to avoid the dilemma of a two-front war against France and Russia. The Schlieffen plan required that Germany attack France first through Belgium and secure a quick victoria before wheeling to the east to meet the slower armies of the Russians on the Eastern Front. The Schlieffen Plan was put into operation on August 2, 1914, at the outset of the First World War. (Glossary)
Marxists
Followers of the socialist political economist Karl Marx who called for workers everywhere to united and create an independent political force. Marxist believed that industrialization produced an inevitable struggle between laborers and the class of capitalist property owners, and that this struggle would culminate in a revolution that would abolish private property and establish a society committed to social equality. (Glossary).
Modernism
There were several different modernist movements in art and literature, but they shared three key characteristics. First, they had a sense that the world had radically changed and that this change should be embraced. Second, they believed that traditional aesthetic values and assumptions about creativity were ill-suited to the present. Third, they developed a new conception of what art could do that emphasized expression over representation and insisted on the value of novelty, experimentation, and creative freedom. (Glossary).
Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939) The Austrian physician who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis and suggested that human behavior was largely motivated by unconscious and irrational forces. (Glossary).
Bolsheviks
Former members of the Russian Social Democratic Party who advocated the destruction of capitalist political and economic institutions and started the Russian Revolution. In 1918 the Bolsheviks change their name to the Russian Communist Party. Prominent Bolsheviks included Vladimir Lenin. (Glossary).
Auschwitz-Birkenau
The Nazi concentration camp in Poland between 1942 and 1944 over one million people were killed in Auschwitz-Birkeneau. (Glossary)
Fascism
The doctrine founded by Benito Mussolini, which emphasized three main ideas: Statism (“nothing above the state, northing outside the state, nothing against the state”) nationalism, and militarism. It’s name derives from the latin faces, a symbol of Roman imperial power adopted by Mussolini. (Glossary).
New Economic Policy (NEP)
In 1921, The Bolsheviks abandoned war communism in favor of the New Economic Party (NEP). Under NEP, the state still controlled all major industry and financial concerns, while individuals could own private property, trade freely within limits, and farm their own land for their own benefit. Fixed taxes replaced gain requisition. The policy successfully helped Soviet agriculture recover from the civil war, but was later abandoned in favor of collectivization. (Glossary).
Blitzkrieg
The German “lightening war” strategy used during the Second World War; the Germans invaded Poland, France, Russia, and other countries with fast-moving and well-coordinated attacks using aircraft, tanks and other armored vehicles, followed by infantry. (Glossary).
Vladimir Lenin
(1870-1924 Leader of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (1917) and the first leader of the Soviet Union. (Glossary).
Treaty of Versailles
signed on June 28, 1919, this peace settlement ended the First World War and required Germany to surrender a large part of its most valuable territories and to pay huge reparations to the Allies. (Glossary).
Hitler-Stalin Pact
(1939) Treaty between Stalin and Hitler, which promised Stalin a share of Poland, Finland, and Baltic States, and Bessarabia in the event of a Germany invasion of Poland, which began shortly thereafter, on September 1, 1939. (Glossary).
Americanization
The fear o many Europeans, since the 1920’s, that U.S. cultural products, such as film, television, and music, exerted too much influence. Many of the criticisms centered on America’s emphasis on mass production and organization. The fears about Americanization were not limited to culture. They extended to corporations, business techniques, global trade, and marketing. (Glossary).
Lusitania
The British passenger liner that was sunk by a German U-boat (submarine) on May 7, 1915. Public outrage over the sinking contributed to the U.S. decision to enter the First World War. (Glossary).
Civilizing Mission
An argument made by Europeans to justify colonial expansion in the nineteenth century. Supporters of the idea believed that Europeans had a duty to impose western ideas of economic and political progress on the indigenous peoples they ruled over in their colonies. In practice, the colonial powers often found that ambitious plans to impose European practices on colonial subjects led to unrest that threatened the stability of colonial rule, and by the early 20th century most colonial powers were more cautious in their plans for political or cultural transformation. (Glossary).
Berlin Conference
(1884) At this conference, the leading colonial powers met and established ground rules for the partition of Africa by European nations. By 1914, 90 percent of African territory was under European control. The Berlin Conference ceded control of the Congo region t o a private company run by King Leopold II of Belgium. They agreed to make the Congo valleys open to free trade and commerce, to end the slave trade in the region, and to establish a Congo Free State. In reality, King Leopold II’s company established a regime that was so brutal in its treatment of local populations that an international scandal forced the Belgian state to take over the colony in 1908. (Glossary).
Boxer Rebellion
(1899-1900) Chinese peasant movement that opposed foreign influence, especially that of Christian missionaries; it was finally put down after the Boxers were defeated by a foreign army composed of mostly Japanese, Russian, British, French, and American soldiers. (Glossary).
Italian invasion of Ethiopia
(1896) Italy invaded Ethiopia, which was the last major independent African Kingdom. Menelik II, the Ethiopian emperor, soundly defeated him. (Glossary).
Russo-Japanese War
(1904-1905) Japanese and Russian expansion collided in Mongolia and Manchuria. Russia was humiliated after the Japanese navy sunk its fleet, which helped provoke a revolt in Russia and led to an American-brokered peace treaty.
Boer War
(1898-1902) Conflict between British and ethnically European Afrikaners in South Africa, with terrible casualties on both sides. (Glossary).
Fashoda Incident
(1898) Disagreements between the French and the British over land claims in North Africa led to a standoff between armies of the two nations at the Sudanese town of Fashoda. The crisis was solved diplomatically. France ceded southern Sudan to Britain in exchange for a stop to further expansion by the British. (Glossary).
Spanish-American War
(1898) War between the United States and Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. It ended with a treaty in which the United States took over the Philippines, Gaum, Puerto Rico; Cuba won partial independence. (Glossary).
Atomic Bomb
In 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski in Japan, ending the Second World War. In 1949, the Soviet Union test their first atomic bomb, and in 1953 both superpowers demonstrated their new hydrogen bombs. Strategically, the nuclearization of welfare polarized the world. Countries without nuclear weapons found it difficult to avoid joining either the Soviet or American military pacts. Over time countries split into two groups: the superpowers with enormous military budgets and those countries taht relied on agreements and international law. The nuclearization of welfare also encourage “proxy wars” between clients of superpowers. Culturally, the hydrogen bomb came to symbolize the age and both humanity’s power and vulnerability. (Glossary).
Apartheid
The racial segregation policy of the Afrikaner-dominated South African government. Legislated in 1948 by the Afrikaner National Party, it existed in South Africa for many years. (Glossary).
al Qaeda
The radical Islamic organization founded in the late 1980’s by former mujahidin who had fought against Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda carried out 9/11 terrorist attacks and is responsible as well for attacks in Africa, southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East (Glossary).
Munich Conference
(1938) Hitler met with the leaders of Britain, France, and Italy and negotiated an agreement that gave Germany a major slice of Czechoslovakia. British prime minister Chamberlain believe that the agreement would bring peace to Europe. Instead, Germany invaded and seized the rest of Czechoslovakia. (Glossary).
Velvet Revolutions
The peaceful political revolutions throughout Eastern Europe in 1989. (Glossary).
Nelson Mandela
(b. 1918) The South African opponent of apartheid who led the African National Congress and was imprisoned from 1962 until 1990. After his release from prison, he worked with Prime Minister Federik Willem De Klerk to establish majority rule. Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994. (Glossary).
Manhattan Project
The secret U.S. government research project to develop the first nuclear bomb. The vast project involved dozens of sites across the United States, including New Mexico, Tennessee, Illinois, California, Utah, and Washington. The first test of a nuclear bomb was near Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. (Glossary).
Marshall Plan
Economic aid package given to Europe by the United States after the Second World War to promote reconstruction and economic development and to secure the countries from a feared communist takeover. (Glossary).
Operation Barbarossa
The codename for Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. (Glossary).
Potsdam
(1945) At this conference, Truman, Churchill and Stalin met to discuss their options at the conclusion of the Second World War, including making territorial changes to Germany and its allies and the question of war reparations. (Glossary).
HIV Epidemic
The first cases of HIV-AIDS appeared in the late 1970’s. As HIV-AIDS became a global crisis, international organizations recognized the need for an early, swift, and comprehensive response to future outbreaks of disease. (Glossary).
Truman Doctrine
(1947) Declaration promising U.S. economic military intervention to counter any attempt by the Soviet Union to expand its influence. Often cited as a key moment in the origins of the Cold War. (Glossary).
Mass Culture
The spread of literacy and public education in the nineteenth century created a new audience for print entertainment and a new class of entrepreneurs in the media to cater to this audience. The invention of radio, film, and television in the 20th century carried this development to another level, as millions of consumers were now accessible to the producers of news, information, and entertainment. The rise of this “mass culture” has been celebrated as an expression of popular taste but also criticized as a vehicle for the manipulation of populations through clever and seductive propaganda. (Glossary).
World Bank
International agency established in 1944 to provide economic assistance to war-torn nations and countries in need of economic development. (Glossary).
Cold War
(1945-1991) Ideological political and economic conflict in which the USSR and Eastern Europe opposed the United States and Western Europe in the decades after the Second World War. The Cold War’s origins lay in the breakup of the wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1945, and resulted in a division of Europe into two spheres: the West, committed to market capitalism, and the East, which sought to build Socialist republics in areas under Soviet Control. The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. (Glossary).
Slobodan Milosevic
(1941-2006) The Serbian nationalist politician who became president of Serbia and whose policies during the Balkan wars of early 1990’s led to the deaths of thousands of Croatian, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, and Kosovars. After leaving office in 2000 he was arrest and tried for war crimes at the International Court in The Hague. The trial ended before a verdict with his death in 2006. (Glossary).
Zionism
A political movement dating to the end of the 19th century holding that the Jewish people constitute a nation and are entitled to a national homeland. Zionist rejected a policy of Jewish assimilation, and advocated the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. (Glossary).
Franz Ferdinand
(1863-1914) Archduke of Austria and heir to the Austro-Hungary Empire; his assassination led to the beginning of the First World War. (Glossary).
Appeasement
The policy pursued by Western governments in the face of German, Italian, and Japanese aggression leading up to the Second World War. The policy, which attempted to accommodate and negotiate peace with the aggressive nations, was based on the belief that another global war like the First World War was unimaginable, a belief that Germany and its allies had been mistreated by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and a fear that fascist Germany and its allies protected the West from the spread of Soviet communism. (Glossary).
Arab Nationalism
During the period of decolonization secular forms of Arab nationalism, or pan-Arabism, found a wide following in many countries of the Middle East, especially in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. (Glossary).
European Common Market
(1957) The Treaty of Rome created the European Economic Community (EEC) or Common Market. The original members were France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and Luxemborg. The EEC sought to abolish trade barriers between its members and it pledged itself to common external tariffs, the free movement of labor and capital among the member nations, and uniform wage structures and social security systems to create similar working conditions in all member countries. (Glossary).
Russian Revolution of 1905
After Russia’s deafeat in the Russo-Japanese War, Russians began clamoring for political reforms. Protest grew over the course of 1905, and the autocracy lost control of entire towns and regions as workers went on strike, soldiers mutinied, and peasants revolted. Forced to yield, Tsar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, which pledged individual liberties and provided for the election of a parliament (called the Duma). The most radical of the revolutionary groups were put down with force, and the pace of political changed remained very slow in the aftermath of the revolution. (Glossary).
Great Depression
Global economic crisis following the U.S. stock market crash on October 29, 1929, and ending with the onset of the Second World War. (Glossary).
New Deal
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s package of government reforms that were enacted during the depression of the 1930’s to provide jobs for the unemployed, social welfare programs for the poor, and security to the financial markets. (Glossary).
Collectivization
Stalin’s plan for nationalizing agricultural production, begun in 1929. 25 million peasants were forced to give up their land and join 250,000 large collective farms. Many who resisted were deported to labor camps in the Far East, and Stalin’s government cut off food rations to those areas most marked by resistance to collectivization. In the ensuing man made famines, millions of people starved to death. (Glossary).
Mensheviks
Within the Russian Social Democratic Party, the Mensheviks advocated slow changes and a gradual move toward socialism, in contrast with the Bolsheviks, who wanted to push for a proletarian revolution. Mensheviks believed that a proletarian revolution in Russia was premature and that the country needed to complete its capitalist development first. (Glossary).
Neoliberalism
Neoliberals believe that free markets, profit incentives, and restraints on both budget deficits and social welfare programs are the best guarantee of individual liberties. Beginning in the 1980’s, neoliberal theory was used to structure the policy of financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which turned away from interventionist polices in favor of market-driven models of economic development. (Glossary).
Soviets
Local councils elected by workers and soldiers in Russia. Socialist started organizing these councils in 1905, and the Petrograd soviet in the capital emerged as one of the centers of power after the Russian monarchy collapsed in 1917 in the midst of World War I. The soviets became increasingly powerful and pressed for social reform, the redistribution of land, and called for Russian withdrawal from war effort. (Glossary).
Young Turks
The 1908 Turkish reformist movement that aimed to modernize the Ottoman empire, restore parliamentary rule, and depose Sultan Abdul Hamid II. (Glossary)
Anarchists
In the 19th century, they were a political movement with the aim of establishing small-scale, localized and self-sufficient democratic communities that could guarantee a maximum of individual sovereignty. Renouncing parties, unions and any form of modern mass organization, the anarchists fell back on the tradition of conspiratorial violence. (Glossary).
Great Terror
(1936-1938) The systematic murder of nearly a million people and the deportation of another million and a half to labor camps by Stalin’s regime in an attempt to consolidate power and remove perceived enemies. (Glossary).
Tsar Nicholas II
(1868-1918) The last Russian tsar, who abdicated the throne in 1917. He and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks on July 17, 1918. (Glossary).
Prague Spring
A period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia between January and August 1968 that was initiated by Alexander Dubcek, the Czech leader. This period of expanding freedom and openness in this Eastern bloc nation ended on August 20, when the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries invaded with 200,000 troops and 5,000 tanks (Glossary).
Womens Associations
Because European women were excluded from the workings of parliamentary and mass politics, some women formed organizations to press for political and civil rights. Some groups focused on establishing educational opportunities for women, while others campaigned energetically for the vote. (Glossary).
1973 OPEC Oil Embargo
Some leaders in the Arab-Dominated Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) wanted to used oil as a weapon against the West in the Arab-Israeli conflict. After the 1972 Arab-Israeli war, OPEC instituted an oil embargo against Western powers. The embargo increased the price of oil and sparked spiraling inflation and economic troubles in Western nations, triggering in turn a cycle of dangerous recession that lasted nearly a decade. In response, Western governments began viewing the Middle Eastern oil regions as areas of strategic importance. (Glossary).
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1948) United Nations declarations of that laid out the rights to which all human beings were entitled. (Glossary).
Alexander Dubcek
(1921-1992) Communist leader of the Czechoslovakian government who advocated for “socialism with a human face.” He encouraged debate within the party academic and artistic freedom, and less censorship, which led to the “Prague Spring” of 1968. People in other parts of Easter Europe began to demonstrate in support of Dubcek and demand their own reforms. When Dubcek tried to democratize the Communist party and did not attend a meeting of the Warsaw Pact, the Soviets sent tanks and troops into Prague and ousted Dubcek and his allies. (Glossary).
War Communism
The Russian civil war forced the Bolsheviks to take more radical economic stance. They requisitioned grain from the peasantry and outlawed private trade in consumer goods as “speculation.” They also militarized production facilities and abolished money. (Glossary).
Civil Rights Movement
The Second World War increased African American migration from the American South to northern cities, intensifying a drive for rights, dignity, and independence. By 1960, civil rights groups had started organizing boycotts and demonstrations directed at discrimination against blacks in the South. During the 1960’s, civil rights laws passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson did bring African Americans some equality with regard to voting rights and, to a much lessor degree, school desegregation. However, racism continued in areas such as housing, job opportunities, and the economic development of African American communities. (Glossary).
Dreyfus Affair
The 1894 French scandal surrounding accusations that a Jewish captain, Alfred Dreyfus, sold military secretes to the Germans. Convicted, Dreyfus, sold military secretes to the Germans. Convicted, Dreyfus was sentenced to solitary confinement for life. However, after public outcry, it was revealed that the trial documents were forgeries, and Dreyfus was pardoned after a second trial in 1899. In 1906 he was fully exonerated and reinstated in the army. The affair revealed the depths of popular anti-Semitism in France. (Glossary).
SARS Epidemic
(2003) The successful containment of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an example of how international health organizations can effectively work together to recognize and respond to a disease outbreak. The disease itself, however, is a reminder of the dangers that exist in a globalized economy with a high degree of mobility in both populations and goods. (Glossary).
Nikita Khrushchev
(1894-1971) Leader of the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis, Khrushchev came to power after Stalin’s death in 1953. His reforms and criticisms of the excesses of the Stalin regime led to his fall from power in 1964. (Glossary).
Provisional Government
After the collapse of the Russian monarchy, leaders in the Duma organized this government and hoped to establish a democratic system under constitutional rule. They also refused to concede military defeat, and it was impossible to institute domestic reforms and fight a war at the same time. As conditions worsened, the Bolsheviks gained support. In October 1917, they attacked the provisional government and seized control. (Glossary).
Arab-Israeli Conflict
Between the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 and the present, a series of wars has been fought between Israel and neighboring Arab: nations: the war of 1948 when Israel defeated attempts by Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to prevent the creation of the new state; the 1956 war between Israel and Egypt over the Sinai peninsula; the 1967 war, when Israel gained control of additional land in the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza strip, and in Sinai; and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Israel once again fought with forces from Egypt and Syria. A particularly difficult issue in all of those conflicts has been the situation of the 950,000 Palestinian refugees made homeless by the first war in 1948, and the movement of Israeli settlers into the occupied territories (outside of Israel’s original boarders.) In the late 1970’s, peace talks between Israel and Egypt inspired some hope of peace, but an on-going cycle of violence between Palestinians and the Israeli military have made a final settlement elusive. (Glossary).
Kristallnacht
Organized attack by Nazis and their supporters on the Jews of Germany following the assassination of a German embassy official by a Jewish man in Paris. Throughout Germany, thousands of stores, schools, cemeteries, and synagogues were attacked on November 9, 1938. Dozens of people were killed, and tens of thousands of Jews were arrested and held in camps, where many were tortured and killed in the ensuing months. (Glossary).
Syndicalist
A 19th century political movement that embraced a strategy of strikes and sabotage by workers. Their hope was that a general strike of all workers would bring down the capitalist state and replace it with workers’ syndicates or trade associations. Their refusal to participate in politics limited to their ability to command a wide influence. (Glossary).
Mikhail Gorbachev
(1931-) Soviet leader who attempted to reform the Soviet Union through his programs of Glasnot and Perestroika in the late 1980’s. He encouraged open discussions in other countries in the Soviet bloc, which helped inspire the velvet revolutions throughout Eastern Europe. Eventually the political, social, and economic upheaval he had unleashed would lead to the breakup of the Soviet Union. (Glossary).
Perestroika
Introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in June 1987, perestroika was the name given to economic and political reforms begun earlier in his tenure. It restructured the state bureaucracy, reduced the privileges or the political elite, and instituted a shift from the centrally planned economy to a mixed economy, combining planning with the operation of market forces. (Glossary).
German Social Democratic Party
Founded in 1875. It was the most powerful socialist party in Europe before 1917. (Glossary).
International Monetary Funds (IMF)
Established in 1945 to ensure international cooperation regarding currency exchange and monetary policy, the IMF is a specialized agency of the United Nations. (Glossary).
Social Darwinism
Belief that Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection (evolution) was applicable to human societies and justified the right of ruling classes or countries to dominate the weak. (Glossary).
Charles Darwin
(1809-1882) British naturalist who wrote On the Origin of Species and developed the theory of natural selection to explain the evolution of organisms. (Glossary).
Central Powers
The First World War alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. (Glossary).
Algerian War
(1954-1962) The war between France and Algerians seeking independence. Led by the National Liberation Front (FLN), guerrillas fought the French army in the mountains and desert of Algeria. The FLN also initiated a campaign of bombing and terrorism in Algerian cities that led French soldiers to torture many Algerians, attracting world attention and international scandal. (Glossary).
Brownshirts
Troops of young German men who dedicated themselves to the Nazi cause in the early 1930’s by holding street marches, mass rallies, and confrontations. They engaged in beatings of Jews and anyone who opposed the Nazis.
Berlin Airlift
(1948) The transport of vital supplies to West Berlin by air, primarily under U.S. auspices, in response to a blockade of the city that had been instituted by the Soviet Union to force the Allies to abandon West Berlin. (Glossary).
Black Tuesday
(October 29, 1929) The day on which the U.S. stock market crashed, plunging U.S. and international trading systems into crisis and leading the world into the “Great Depression.”
Enabling Act
(1933) Emergency act passed by Reichstag (German parliament) that helped transform Hitler from Germany’s chancellor, or prime minster, into a dictator, following the suspicious burning of the Reichstag building and a suspension of civil liberties. (Glossary).
Pan American Conference
1900 assembly in London that sought to draw attention to the sovereignty of African people and their mistreatment by colonial powers. (Glossary).
Peace of Paris
The 1919 Paris Peace conference established the terms to end the First World War. Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States signed five treaties with each of the defeated nations: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria. The settlement is notable for the territory that Germany had to give up, including large parts of Prussia to the new state of Poland, and Alsace and Lorraine to France; the disarming of Germany; and the “war guilt” provision, which required Germany and its allies to pay massive reparations to the victors. (Glossary).
DADA
Senseless art, aims towards senselessness of WWI.
Bon Marche
Department store that revolutionized window shopping got rid of specialty stores.
