History 122 - Second Midterm

Who was King Louis XIV?

He was the king of France from 1643 to 1715 who established absolute monarchy to prevent the nobles from easily rebelling.

Who was King Louis XV?

He was the king of France from 1715 to 1774. He was known for having numerous affairs after having eight children with his wife over ten years.

What was the Seven Years War?

A war that lasted from 1756 to 1763 that significantly changed the dynamics of power in both Europe and North America. France lost all of its colonies in the New World, Poland was carved up, and the United Kingdom emerged as the dominant global superpower.

Who was King Frederick William I?

He was the king of Prussia from 1713 to 1740. His government needed more bureaucracy, so established more public offices and imposed strict disciplinary codes of conduct.

Who was Frederick the Great?

He was the king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786. He significantly reformed the country by promoting arts and literature, improving religious tolerance, reforming the education and justice systems, and making his army the best-trained in all of Europe.

Who was Maria Theresa?

She was the queen of Austria from 1740 to 1780. She reformed the tax system, was a skilled diplomat, maintained morality in her court, sponsored public arts and literature, and ensured stable succession, all while having sixteen children.

Who was King Joseph II?

He was the king of Austria from 1765 to 1790. He started his reign as a co-monarch to his mother, and assumed full control of the throne for the last ten years of his reign. He established true religious tolerance, liberated the serfs, further reformed the justice system, continued to sponsor the fine arts, and promoted free trade.

Who was Peter the Great?

He was the tsar of Russia from 1682 to 1725. He wanted to make the Russian Empire more like the countries of Western Europe, so he simplified the alphabet, established fifty districts with their own regional capitals, and reformed education, but he also put taxes on everything from bathtubs to beehives to beards.

Who was Catherine the Great?

She was the empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She was originally German, but was invited to the Russian court as a teenager. She promoted art and music, ushered a golden age of literature, built schools and hospitals, and won 78 military victories, but was super sensitive to criticism.

Who was Denis Diderot?

He was a French philosopher who believed that existing knowledge could solve any problem that society faced. He compiled an encyclopedia that included articles about various topics including science, history, technology, and even sports.

Who was Antoine Nicolas de Condorcet?

He was another French philosopher who was similar in beliefs to Diderot, as he believed education could fix any problem society was plagued by, including gender inequality, social inequality, economic division, wars, exploitation of the poor, sickness.

Who was Jean Jacques Roussau?

He was a Swiss philosopher who argued that logical reasoning could create the best economic and political reasons possible.

What is deism?

A theistic belief system that holds that God created the universe, but stays out of human affairs. A deist would agree with Christians that God exists, but would disagree regarding the existence of angels and demons, the necessity of religious ceremonies, or the importance of clergy.

What is the social contract theory?

The idea that people should surrender their inconveniences and some of their liberties to the government in exchange for law and order and protection of their remaining rights.

What is civil liberty?

The idea that we all have natural and inalienable rights. John Locke argued those natural rights include life, liberty, and property, and later philosophers expanded that list to include freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly, and due process.

Who was Immanuel Kant?

He was a German philosopher who argued that there is no greater happiness than what comes from doing everything that needs to be done.

What was the French Revolution?

It was a revolution from 1789 to 1799 that dismantled the French monarchy and established a republic.

Why were the people displeased with the monarchy?

They were heavily taxed compared to the clergy and nobility, inflation was out of control, there was a serious food shortage, the national debt level was incredibly high, and the Enlightenment Era had people questioning whether monarchy was really necessary.

What was the National Assembly in France?

It was a governing body established by the commoners to work towards better equality and economic reform. They established a constitutional monarchy, eliminate privileges for the clergy and nobility, confiscate their land, create national elections, and issue the Declaration of Rights of the Man and the Citizen.

Who was Maximilian Robespierre?

He was a radical figure within the revolution. His party had taken control of the National Assembly by 1793. They wanted to totally remove any resemblance of the old monarchy, so they standardize the metric system of measurements, create a new calendar, remove the Catholic Church, censored sacred or royalist works, and even changed the playing cards used in casinos.

What happened to Louis XVI?

He was caught trying to escape France to launch a campaign from abroad and retake his power, but was caught, put on trial for treason, and executed.

What was the Committee of Public Safety?

It was essentially a dictatorship operated by twelve men and with Robespierre as its leading voice. They created a secret police force to suppress any ideas contrary to their own, and would arrest anybody who didn’t comply. From 1793 to 1794, over 40,000 people would also be executed.

What was The Directory?

It was the new government established after Robespierre was executed. Although they tried to bring back order, they were an incompetent and corrupt oligarchy.

Who was Napoleon Bonaparte?

He was a military general who helped France push back foreign invaders trying to restore the old monarchy. In 1799, he overthrew The Directory and made himself an absolute dictator. This event marks the end of the French Revolution.

What was the Napoleonic Era?

In 1804, Napoleon declared himself emperor of France, greatly expanded its borders, power, and influence. He would defeated by a coalition of other European powers and exiled in 1814, only to return. He was defeated again at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and exiled again.

What was the Congress of Vienna?

It was an international convention that attempted to restore the old balance of power before the French Revolution in Europe by bringing back disposed rulers and creating the Concert of Europe to ensure cooperation in solving problems.

Who was Tsar Alexander I?

He was the tsar of Russia from 1801 to 1825. He proposed a “Holy Alliance” between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. He argued that for the past few decades, Christian Europe didn’t really live up to the teachings of the Gospel, so they should get back on track with that.

What is liberalism in the context of this era?

During the nineteenth century, a liberal was someone who wanted greater personal and economic freedom, and for people of common heritage and shared languages to form their own nations.

What was the Crimean War?

It was a territorial dispute from 1853 to 1856 after Russia attempted to annex the Crimean Peninsula from the Ottoman Empire. Russia was defeated and forced to back off from meddling in foreign affairs.

Who was Louis Phillipe?

After the Napoleonic Era, the old monarchy was restored. But in 1848, France went through another revolution that saw the country go back to being a republic. Louis Phillipe was in charge of this new republic, but after intense conflict between opposing factions of his citizens, he declared himself Emperor Napoleon III in 1852.

Who was Camillo Benso di Cavour?

He was the prime minister of the city state of Piedmont-Sardinia who wanted to unify the entire Italian Peninsula.

What helped kickstart the unification of Italy?

Piedmont-Sardinia sent troops to help the British and French in the Crimean War, so in exchange, the British agreed to stay neutral and the French would actively help Piedmont-Sardinia remove Austrian influence in the region.

When was the Kingdom of Italy established as a unified state?

September 20, 1870

Who was Otto von Bismarck?

He was the Chancellor of Prussia from 1871 to 1890. He was a pioneer of the theory of “realpolitik” to unify Germany as soon as possible.

What wars did Bismarck wage to unify Germany?

First, there was the Schleswig-Holstein War against Denmark. Second, there was the Seven Weeks War against Austria. Third, there was the Franco-Prussian War against France.

What was the Scramble for Africa?

A period of mass colonization of Africa by Europe between 1884 and 1914.

What was the “white man’s burden”?

The justification that Europeans used for colonization by claiming it was their moral duty to introduce the undeveloped Africans to the modern values and technology they possessed.

Who was Leopold II?

He was the king of Belgium from 1865 to 1909. He established a colony in the Congo that was until the last year of his reign, his personal property. He exploited the native Congolese for mass rubber extraction and would mutilate any of them who refused to work.