HIST 020 Final Keyterms

Nuremberg

German city chosen for post-WWII trials (1945–1946) prosecuting Nazi leaders for war crimes, establishing that "just following orders" is not a valid defense for atrocities.

lebensraum

"Living space"; a core Nazi geopolitical ideology used to justify aggressive territorial expansion into Eastern Europe by displacing or eradicating Slavic populations.

Atlantic Charter

A 1941 joint declaration by FDR and Churchill outlining a post-war vision of self-determination, free trade, and global cooperation.

holocaust

The systematic, state-sponsored genocide organized by Nazi Germany during WWII that murdered roughly six million Jews alongside millions of other targeted groups.

Guernica

A Basque town devastated by German/Italian warplanes in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War; a global symbol of total war and civilian targeting immortalized by Picasso.

Lise Meitner

Austrian-Swedish physicist who co-discovered nuclear fission but was unfairly excluded from the Nobel Prize awarded to her partner Otto Hahn.

fallout

The residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere by a nuclear blast that slowly settles back to Earth, contaminating ecosystems and food chains.

strontium-90

A dangerous radioactive isotope in fallout that mimics calcium, contaminating children's milk and causing bone cancer; sparked global anti-nuclear testing protests.

Gojira

A 1954 Japanese sci-fi film born from atomic trauma and the Lucky Dragon No. 5 incident; the monster serves as a cultural metaphor for nuclear destruction.

San Francisco Conference

The historic 1945 international meeting where delegates from 50 nations drafted and signed the UN Charter, officially establishing the United Nations.

Great Acceleration

The period starting around 1950 marked by a sudden, massive surge in human activity, population growth, and resource consumption, drastically changing Earth's ecosystems.

Great Leap Forward

A catastrophic 1958–1962 economic campaign in China led by Mao Zedong aiming for rapid industrialization via forced agricultural collectivization, resulting in tens of millions of deaths.

Bretton Woods

A 1944 conference designing the post-WWII financial system, establishing the US dollar as the primary reserve currency and creating the IMF and World Bank.

communes

Large-scale, state-controlled collective farms in China during the Great Leap Forward where peasant families pooled labor and private property was abolished.

Anthropocene

A proposed geological epoch defined by human activity becoming the dominant, measurable influence on Earth's climate, geology, and ecosystems.

Third World

Cold War term for nations that remained non-aligned, choosing not to ally with either the Western capitalist bloc (First World) or Soviet communist bloc (Second World).

partition & alignment

Partition is the splitting of territories along ethnic/religious lines during decolonization (e.g., India/Pakistan); Alignment is the pressure on new nations to choose a side in the Cold War.

Bandung

A landmark 1955 conference in Indonesia where 29 Afro-Asian states promoted anti-colonial cooperation, laying the groundwork for the Non-Aligned Movement.

Frantz Fanon

Anti-colonial philosopher and psychiatrist who argued in "The Wretched of the Earth" that revolutionary violence is a necessary tool for colonial subjects to reclaim dignity.

“Battle of Algiers”

A major 1956–1957 urban guerrilla warfare campaign in the Algerian War, also the name of a famous 1966 neo-realist film exposing brutal colonial counter-insurgency tactics.

Aisha Abdul Al-Rahman

Egyptian scholar (pen name Bint al-Shati) who advocated for women's education and rights within an authentic Islamic framework, resisting both traditional patriarchy and Western secularization.

Chipko

A non-violent 1970s grassroots eco-feminist movement in India where rural women literally hugged trees to prevent commercial loggers from destroying their forests.

communalism

In South Asia, an aggressive, exclusive allegiance to one's own ethnic or religious community over broader society, often weaponized by politicians to spark conflict.

military modernization

Cold War strategy where superpowers poured weapons and training into developing nations to fight proxy wars, frequently resulting in local military dictatorships.

Mossadegh

Democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran who nationalized the nation's oil in 1951 and was subsequently overthrown in a 1953 CIA-backed coup (Operation Ajax).

Samuel Huntington

Political scientist who proposed the "Clash of Civilizations" theory, arguing post-Cold War conflicts would be driven by cultural/religious differences rather than political ideologies.

Agent Orange

A toxic chemical defoliant used by the US military in the Vietnam War to destroy jungle canopy, causing severe birth defects and chronic cancers across generations.

Kwame Nkrumah

Nationalist leader who led Ghana to independence from Britain in 1957; a champion of Pan-Africanism who advocated for a United States of Africa.

stateless people

Individuals not recognized as citizens by any nation under its laws, leaving them locked out of basic human rights like legal protection, employment, and healthcare.

Articles 2,4,& 7

Foundational UN Charter clauses: Article 2 guarantees sovereign equality/bans force; Article 4 governs membership; Article 7 establishes principal UN organs.

“Black Girl”

A groundbreaking 1966 film by Ousmane Sembène critiquing neocolonialism by showing the isolation and racism experienced by a Senegalese domestic worker in France.

Aztlán

The mythical ancestral homeland of the Aztecs, reclaimed during the 1960s Chicano Movement as a symbol of cultural pride and resistance against forced assimilation.

Science, Technology & Global Politics

Historical framework analyzing how technological innovations (e.g., nuclear weapons, computing, medicine) alter international power dynamics and state control.

Alan Turing

British mathematician who cracked the Enigma code and formalized the concepts of algorithms and computation, forming the foundation of computer science and AI.

IAS Computer

An early electronic computer built at Princeton (1952) utilizing "von Neumann architecture," which became the structural blueprint for almost all modern computers.

ArpaNet

Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (late 1960s); a US military-funded project that developed packet-switching technology, eventually evolving into the Internet.

“Pax Americana” 1963

"American Peace"; the post-WWII period of relative Western stability maintained by US economic and military dominance, heavily strained by 1963 due to the arms race.

“Earthrise” 1968

The iconic Apollo 8 photograph of Earth over the lunar landscape; visually demonstrated Earth's fragility and catalyzed the global environmental movement.

Silent Spring

Rachel Carson's landmark 1962 book exposing the ecological dangers of pesticide use (DDT), which catalyzed the modern environmental movement.

Mayak

Soviet nuclear fuel plant and site of the catastrophic Kyshtym disaster (1957); the severe radioactive contamination was covered up by the USSR for decades.

Minimata

Japanese city where industrial mercury dumping poisoned the local food chain, causing a horrific, landmark neurological disease ("Minamata Disease").

Earth Day

First celebrated April 22, 1970; mobilized 20 million Americans to protest environmental degradation, leading directly to the creation of the US EPA.

Chernobyl

A catastrophic 1986 nuclear reactor explosion in Ukraine that released massive radiation across Europe, destroying public faith in Soviet competence and nuclear energy safety.

From Dictatorship to Democracy

Gene Sharp's highly influential handbook outlining a strategic, step-by-step guide for using non-violent resistance to overthrow authoritarian regimes.

Dag Hammarskjold

The second UN Secretary-General who pioneered modern UN peacekeeping operations and fiercely defended UN independence before dying in a mysterious 1961 plane crash.

egao

A Chinese internet subculture term for "spoofing" or parody, used by netizens to creatively bypass strict censorship and mock state authorities.

1948 Universal Declaration

A milestone UN General Assembly document outlining the fundamental, inalienable human rights that must be universally protected for all individuals.

Vaclav Havel

Czech dissident playwright who led the non-violent 1989 Velvet Revolution to overthrow communist rule, becoming Czechoslovakia's first democratically elected president.