AP WORLD HISTORY: 1900 - Present

May Fourth Movement

A 1919 protest in China against the Treaty of Versailles and foreign influence.

Tehran Conference

A 1943 meeting of leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union; it agreed on the opening of a second front in France.

Potsdam Conference

A 1945 meeting of leaders of Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union in which it was agreed that the Soviet Union would be given control of Eastern Europe and that Germany would be divided into zones of occupation.

Geneva Conference

A 1954 conference that divided Vietnam at the seventeenth parallel.

Helsinki Accords

A 1975 political and human rights agreement signed in Helsinki, Finland, by Western European countries and the Soviet Union.

Cultural Revolution

A Chinese movement from 1966 to 1976 intended to establish an egalitarian society of peasants and workers.

European Economic Community

A Common Market organized in 1958 which reduced tariffs among member nations and created a common tariff policy for other world nations.

Spanish Civil War

A conflict from 1936 to 1939 that resulted in the installation of fascist dictator Francisco Franco as ruler of Spain; Franco’s forces were backed by Germany and Italy, whereas the Soviet Union supported opposing republican forces.

Kabuki Theater

A form of Japanese Theater developed in the seventeenth century that features colourful scenery and costumes and an exaggerated style of acting.

Coalition

A government based on temporary alliances of several political parties.

Yalta Conference

A meeting of the leaders of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States in 1945; the Soviet Union agreed to enter the war against Japan in exchange for influence in the Eastern European states. Also made plans for the establishment of a new international organization.

Iron Curtain

A metaphorical description of the divide between the Communist East and Democratic Western Europe.

Welfare State

A nation in which the government plays an active role in providing services such as social security to its citizens.

British Commonwealth

A political community consisting of the United Kingdom, its dependencies, and former colonies of Great Britain that are now sovereign nations.

Fascism

A political movement that is characterized by extreme nationalism, one-party rule, and the denial of individual rights.

Alliance for Progress

A program of economic aid for Latin America in exchange for a pledge to establish democratic institutions; part of U.S. President Kennedy’s international program.

Pan-Slavic Movement

A Russian attempt to unite all Slavic nations into a commonwealth relationship under the influence of Russia.

Cubism

A school of art in which persons and objects are represented by geometric forms.

Al-Qaeda

A terrorist group based in Afghanistan in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Ayatollah

A traditional Muslim religious ruler.

Russification

A tsarist program that required non-Russians to speak only Russian and provided education only for those groups loyal to Russia.

Mandate

A type of colony in which the government is overseen by another nation, as in the Middle Eastern mandates placed under European control after World War I.

Marshall Plan

A U.S. plan to support the recovery and reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II.

International Space Station

A vehicle sponsored by sixteen nations that circles the Earth while carrying out experiments.

Berlin Wall

A wall, built by the East German Communist government, to separate the Democratic Western Berlin.

World Bank

An agency of the United Nations that offers loans to countries to promote trade and economic development.

Import Substitution Industrialization

An economic system that attempts to strengthen a country’s industrial power by restricting foreign imports.

World Trade Organization

An international organization begun in 1995 to promote and organize world trade.

International Monetary Fund

An international organization founded in 1944 to promote market economies and free trade.

European Union

An organization designed to reduce trade barriers and promote economic unity in Europe; it was formed in 1993 to replace the European community.

North American Free Trade Organization

An organization that prohibits tariffs and other trade barriers between Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

Guomindang

China’s Nationalist political party founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1912 and based on democratic principles; in 1925, the party was taken over by Jiang Jieshi, who made it into a more authoritarian party.

Containment

Cold War policy of the United States, whose purpose was to prevent the spread of communism.

Government of India Act

In 1935, the British law passed in 1935 which increased suffrage and turned provincial governments over to Indian leaders.

Central Powers

In World War I, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and other nations who fought with them against the Allies.

Allied Powers

In World War I, the nations of Great Britain, France, Russia, the United States, and others that fought against the Central Powers; in World War II, the group of nations including Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States, that fought against the Axis Powers.

League of Nations

International organization founded after World War I to promote peace and cooperation among nations.

Service Industries

Occupations that provided a service rather than a manufactured or agricultural product.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

Organization formed in 1960 by oil-producing countries to regulate oil supplies and prices.

Evangelical

Pertaining to preaching the Gospel (the good news) or pertaining to theologically conservative Christians.

Five Year Plans

Plans for industrial production first introduced to the Soviet Union in 1928 by Stalin; they succeeded in making the Soviet Union, a major industrial power by the end of the 1930s.

Appeasement

Policy of Great Britain and France making concessions to Hitler in the 1930s.

Kulaks

Russian peasants, who became wealthy under Lenin’s New Economic Policy.

Afrikaners

South Africans who were descended from the Dutch who settled in South Africa in the seventeenth century.

Hubble Space Telescope

Telescope able to peer deep into space.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The 1918 treaty ending World War I between Germany and the Soviet Union.

Treaty of Versailles

The 1919 peace treaty between Germany and the Allied nations; it blamed the war on Germany and assessed heavy reparations and large territorial losses on the part of Germany.

Glasnost

The 1985 policy of Mikhail Gorbachev that allowed openness of expression of ideas in the Soviet Union.

Persian Gulf War

The 1991 war between Iraq and a U.S.-led coalition to liberate Kuwait from an Iraqi invasion.

Deoxyribonucleic Acid

The blueprint of heredity.

No Theater

The classical Japanese drama with music and dances performed on a simple stage by elaborately dressed actors.

Brinkmanship

The Cold War policy of the Soviet Union and the United States of threatening to go to war at a sign of aggression on the part of either power.

Collectivization

The combination of several small farms into a large government-controlled farm.

Great Leap Forward

The disastrous economic policy introduced by Mao Zedong that proposed the implementation of small-scale industrial projects on individual peasant communes.

Sputnik

The first man-made satellite, launched by the Soviet Union.

Anschluss

The German Annexation of Austria prior to World War II.

United Nations

The international organization founded in 1945 to establish peace and cooperation among nations.

Holocaust

The Nazi program during World War II that killed 6 million Jews and other groups considered undesirable.

Reparations

The payment of war debts by the losing side.

Great Depression

The severe worldwide economic downturn that began in the late 1920s and continues into the 1930s throughout many regions of the world.

Apartheid

The South African policy of separation of the races.

McDonaldization

The spread of American culture and values around the world.

Euro

The standard currency, introduced and adopted by the majority of members of the European Union in January 2002.

Genocide

The systematic killing of an entire ethnic group.

Cold War

The tense diplomatic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II.

Mass Consumerism

Trade in products designed to appeal to a global market.

National Organization For Women

U.S. organization founded in 1969 to campaign for women’s rights.

New Deal

U.S. President Roosevelt’s program to relieve the economic problems of the Great Depression; it increased government involvement in the society of the United States.

Cartels

Union of independent businesses in order to regulate production, prices, and the marketing of goods.

Korean Conflict

War between Communist North Korea, aided by China, and Capitalist South Korea, aided by the United States.

Cuban Missile Crisis

When in 1962, the Soviets constructed nuclear missiles in Cuba, which brought days of tense confrontation between Khrushchev and U.S. President Kennedy. Khrushchev ultimately backed down, and the missiles were removed.