History 151 Final Exam Study Guide

The Belgian Congo

King Leopold claimed as a personal colony in the 1880s. It was named the Congo Free State, and he subjected the Congolese to terrible brutality. Such brutality included cutting off the Congolese people's hands for not meeting their quotas of resources and even murdering them. This was a part of imperialism. Belgium exploited the Congo to produce goods for their empire such as diamonds and agriculture.

Civilizing Mission

The concept developed by Western nations to justify imperial expansion. The Great Powers, it was said, brought cultural advancement and economic development to non-Western parts of the world. The most famous of those justifications came from the English poet Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), who portrayed the colonization of darker races as the "white man's burden." It was the Europeans' moral duty - and the Americans' too - the poet wrote, to bestow the gift of civilization on a backward non-Western world.

Direct and Indirect Rule

Strategies under new imperialism. France was in favor of direct rule, where France exercised absolute power. Britain was in favor of indirect rule, where they ruled their colonies through local governments. The Belgians were a little bit of both.

New Imperialism

The extensive colonial conquests by the major European states in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The nationalist responses to European interventions moved the Europeans to respond in turn with new interventions more extensive than originally planned.

Boer War

(1899-1902) War between Great Britain and the Boers in South Africa over control of rich mining country. Great Britain won and created the Union of South Africa comprised of all the South African colonies. Boer is farmer in Dutch. Britain wanted to secure a sea route to India that sent ships around the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean. Britain met resistance from the Boers and Zulus. Boer War, in short, was the war fought from 1898 to 1902 in South Africa between the Boer settlers and the British Empire that extended British control in the region.

Spheres of Influence

Regions, cities, or territories over which powerful foreign nations exercise influence and control. (beginning of WWI) During this time, Russia continued its steady imperial march into Central Asia, and China, although not colonized formally, found itself divided into foreign spheres of influence and then invaded during the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Foreign countries' economic influences in other countries.

Indian Rebellion, 1857-1858

Britain had colonies in India, they did not want to formally colonize India. Yet, India rebelled against them, resulting in Britain's full colonization of India. British colonial administrators created a civil service based, in part, on longstanding indigenous practices, especially concerning tax collection and judicial procedure that Britain had not developed in their own country. Indian methods for managing food crises were used in Ireland, where a devastating famine had occurred in the 1840s (potato famine). And Anglo-Indian techniques of law enforcement such as fingerprinting were exported to Britain and Ireland, where they became staples of criminal investigation.

Triple Alliance

An alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy in the years before WWI which was created by Otto von Bismarck (German Chancellor). This was created in an attempt to gather the rest of the Austrian Empire to serve as a buffer against Russia. The Triple Entente was the alliance between Britain, France, and Russia that served as a counter to the Triple Alliance.

Dreadnoughts

Heavily armed battleships, seen by the British as the key to naval supremacy. The launch of the first dreadnoughts in 1906 intensified the ongoing Naval arms race between Britain and Germany and heightened the tensions leading up to the First World War. In the early 1900s, Britain responded to the rapid expansion of the German navy by building dreadnoughts to restore British dominance of the seas. During the First World War, these dreadnoughts proved highly effective, although they were so expensive to build that they nearly bankrupted the country. Liberals supported the dreadnoughts, but they added, had suffragists who tried to paralyze the state through civil disobedience and terror, and labor leaders who staged strikes in response to conservative elites for refusing to support the taxes required to build dreadnoughts.

Germany's Carte Blanche

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or "blank check" assurance of Germany's backing in the case of war. When the Serbs assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, Austria used Germany's pledge of loyalty to give Serbia an ultimatum, and it led Austria to declare war on Serbia. This event was noted in Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, stating that if Germany had never backed Austria, Austria would never have declared war on Serbia, leading to WWI.

The Schlieffen Plan

The plan developed by German army chief Alfred von Schlieffen in 1905 to send German forces first to France and then to Russia to avoid conducting a two-front war. His Schlieffen Plan (1905) envisaged sending the bulk of German troops through neutral Belgium and into France with the intention of overwhelming French forces in a matter of weeks, as in 1870. Germany would then turn virtually the whole of its army against Russia.

Article 231

This was the "war-guilt clause" in the Treaty of Versailles that placed total responsibility for World War I on Germany. The Treaty of Versailles, which Ferdinand Foch stated was an armistice for 20 years. WWII followed after the Treaty was up. (1919 Treaty of Versailles, 1939 WWII)

Total War

A conflict in which the participating countries devote all their resources to the war effort, and whose scope mobilizes not only armies but entire societies. The First World War is often considered the First Total War.

March and October Revolutions of 1917

Revolutions in Russia. The first revolution, in March, overthrew the imperial government and the second of which, in October, placed the Bolsheviks in power. March Revolution got rid of the monarchy, which is the easiest stage in a revolution. This sets up a provisional government (democratic), it is easy to grow a democracy where you have no political structure, but it is difficult after a war. The Tsar became unpopular because the war went too badly, and this government struggled to establish legitimacy. The March Revolution was supposed to get Russia out of the war, but it failed. This led to the second revolution. Lenin gets Russia out of the war. This is why Germany made their last ditch effort to knock out a blow before the US joined the war. Tsar, democracy, communism.

League of Nations

The international organization created by Woodrow Wilson after the First World War in 1920 to peacefully resolve conflicts between countries. Was created in Versailles. Most European nations agreed to join the League, but in the US, Wilson's Republican opponents raised two objections to the organization as the Democratic president had conceived it. It would, they said, unconstitutionally commit the United States to go to war in Europe without due congressional deliberation, while failing to provide for France's defense in the event of a renewed German threat. In the US, it failed to receive the two-thirds majority required for ratification, which meant that the United States could not join the League of Nations. With the world's leading power uninvolved and Germany and Russia excluded, the League would have minimal effect.

The Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson's post-WWI plan, most of which was rejected by European leaders following the war. Designed as guidelines for the rebuilding of the postwar world, the points included Wilson's ideas regarding nations' conduct of foreign policy, including freedom of the seas and free trade and the concept of national self-determination, with the achievement of this through the dismantling of European empires and the creation of new states. Most importantly, however, was Point 14, which called for a "general association of nations" that would offer "mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small nations alike." Wilson's Fourteen Points primarily supported the idea of lasting peace after WWI. Many of the points focused on: trade equality, ending of secret treaties, and alliances, freedom of the seas, and the establishment of the League of Nations. Led to Mandate System.

Fascism

An authoritarian and nationalistic form of right-wing government that uses intimidation and violence to win electoral contests and suppress opposition. In many ways, democracy made fascism possible. Fascist regimes came to power in Italy and Germany not through coups or revolutions, but by mobilizing masses of people and winning support in elections in which all adult citizens now possessed the right to vote. In Hungary, by contrast, where a fascist-style movement surfaced immediately after the war, the country's lack of democratic institutions prevented it from taking control. To achieve success, fascist politicians and movements needed not only to exploit democratic institutions but to use violence, or the threat of violence, to intimidate their opponents. Benito Mussolini gave rise to facism in Italy.

Blitzkrieg

"Lighting war/attack", a type of fast-moving warfare used by German forces against Poland in 1939. Used by the Germans at the beginning of the Second World War. Hitler's Blitzkrieg against France was designed to entrap French and British soldiers and bring a quick end to the war. These ominous developments triggered the fall of Chamberlain's (British politician) weak passive government and the establishment of a British war cabinet led by the far more resolute Winston Churchill (1874-1965).

Leninism

USSR's version of communism, workers and oppressed people's unite and overthrow capitalism and materialism. Vanguard communism. Society is not exposed to economic conflicts. Powerful class of leaders, the Vanguard, to lead revolutions. Riddled with contradictions and involved the Bolsheviks. Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism.

Socialism in One Country

Socialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally. Given the defeats of the 1917-1923 European communist revolutions, Joseph Stalin encouraged the theory of the possibility of constructing socialism in the Soviet Union. Permanent revolution that spreads communism (Leon Trotsky) vs. Socialism in one country (Joseph Stalin): Stalin won. Stalin tried to perfect communism within its borders, ideological purity is a weapon to kill masses of people. Perfecting revolution from within and not spreading it like Trotsky said.

Five Year Plan

Stalin's economic policy to rebuild the Soviet economy after WWI. It tried to improve heavy industry and improve farm output, but resulted in famine. "revolution from above." The first Five-Year Plan (1928-1932) focused on iron and steel production. Reorienting the Russian Economy and reducing the masses. It rapidly supercharged society from agrarian to industrial. For example, collectivization was economic and political, and fostered loyalty, and collective farming, (breaking the economy and society down).

Vernichtungskrieg

A war of annihilation or war of extermination is a type of war in which the goal is the complete annihilation of a state, a people, or an ethnic minority through genocide or the destruction of their livelihood. The goal can be outward-directed or inward, against elements of one's population. German WWII campaigns. Geneva convention. Germany's war in the East and invasion of Russia is a vernichtungskrieg. Germany's long-term goal when it comes to the east is to renew Russia's population. To expand so that Germany can expand for their people.

Freikorps

German paramilitary organizations formed by returning defeated German soldiers. The Freikorps served as the key paramilitary groups of the Weimar Republic. The paramilitary group transformed into a political party. From Freikorps to hyperinflation. The Treaty of Versailles destroyed Germany after WWI. Stalin trying to spread communism. Paramilitary groups fighting. Nazi stands for national socialism and comes from Freikorps. Germany's currency lost all value. Good conditions to set up a communist government in Germany. Germany is a mess of people duking it out to decide whether they want to be communist or not.

March on Rome

And attempted fascist show of strength led by Benito Mussolini's Blackshirt squads, March 22-29, 1922. King Victor Emmanuel III refused to use the army to diffuse the march, and instead made Mussolini prime minister, confirming his rise to power in Italy. On October 28, 1922, some 30,000 young black-shirted men marched toward Rome to demonstrate the strength of their fascist, paramilitary movement. The march nearly fizzled out before the bulk of the squadristi reached the Italian capital.

Operation Barbarossa

Codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II in 1941 to acquire land to expand Germany. A Vernichtungskrieg. War in the West will be like WWI. Spring of 1940, Germany went to France, and the Germans invaded France through the Arden forest. Operation Barbarossa was named after a crusading twelfth-century German emperor. On 22 June 1941 Hitler launched Operation 'Barbarossa', the invasion of the Soviet Union. It was the beginning of a campaign that would ultimately decide the Second World War. Hitler regarded the Soviet Union as his natural enemy.

Final Solution

The attempt to eliminate through murder the entire Jewish population of Europe. The Nazis committed genocide by shooting more than a million people and dumping their bodies in mass graves, herding millions more into lethal ghettoes, and confining them in death camps, where more than three million were asphyxiated with poison gas.

Marshall Plan

A US initiative that came from the Truman Administration, formally known as the European Recovery Program, to boost war-torn European economies by offering European countries significant grants of cash and American goods, which could be consumed or sold. To prevent hyper inflation in Europe because Europe needed to print money to pay for their deficits. On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State, George C. Marshall (1880-1959) announced that the United States would undertake a multiyear European Recovery Program (ERP) designed to boost the flagging European economies. The American government was motivated by humanitarianism and the desire for Europe to develop healthy capitalist economies compatible with that of the United States. The Marshall Plan was conceived before the Cold War was fully underway. However since it aimed to foster market economies as opposed to the state-driven, non-market-oriented Soviet system, Stalin saw it as a threat and prevented Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Albania from participating in the ERP.

The Mandate System

Allocation of former German colonies and Ottoman possessions to the victorious powers after World War I; to be administered under League of Nations supervision. Quasi-colonies created by the League of Nations, which mandated key territories of the defunct Ottoman Empire to Britain and France. Britain gained effective control over Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq, while France assumed jurisdiction over Syria. Countries under the Mandates were inhabited by people not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world. Mandates were updated versions of nineteenth-century colonialism in which self-determination was promised, but only at an unspecified future date.

Tirailleurs sénégalais

The Tirailleurs sénégalais (West African soldiers) were a corps of colonial infantry in the French Army (1857-1960). Fray the contract of empire. Important because France has a lot of colonial holdings in West Africa. These troops also fought in WWI. A good example of decolonization, whose goals include independence, working through the system, and improving status within a framework of empire. Expand Senegal rights. France used the soldiers again in WWII.

Indian National Congress Party

The first government that emerged after Great Britain took over India. The Indian National Congress was initially focused on moderate reform under the British Raj in India. However, some early 20th-century activists began to boycott British imports and promote Indian goods, garnering the support of a wide swath of social classes. In the 1920s and '30s party leader Mahatma Gandhi supported nonviolent acts of civil disobedience. Although tensions between the Congress Party and the Raj escalated during World War II, by 1947 these tactics had secured independence for India.

Harkis

The term "Harki" came to refer to all those "French of North African descent" or "Muslims" who had sided with the French Army or French Government. Harki is the generic term for native Muslim Algerians who served as auxiliaries in the French Army during the Algerian War from 1954 to 1962. The word sometimes applies to all Algerian Muslims who supported French Algeria during the war.

Patrice Lumumba

He was the leader of the Congolese National Movement (MNC) from 1958 until his execution in January 1961. Ideologically an African nationalist and pan-Africanist, he played a significant role in the transformation of the Congo from a colony of Belgium into an independent republic. The leader of the Congo was assassinated after he sought help from Russia. Decolonization and the Cold War. Was a democratic leader. Civil War going on in the Congo, The US won't help, but the USSR will. Decolonization is very influenced by the Cold War.

Satyagraha

Gandhi's civil disobedience campaign in India. Gandhi was a very non-violent leader. Truth holding on/truth force. Decolonization, Gandhi's approach was a nonviolent approach to get rid of British rule. The Salt March is the best example. British had attacks on salt, on the march, people went to harvest their salt. Closely influenced the U.S. civil rights movement.

Négritude

Literary movement in Africa; attempted to combat racial stereotypes of African culture; celebrated the beauty of black skin and African physique; associated with origins of African nationalist movements. Challenged the ideas of colonialism on a cultural level, not on a political level. Involved embracing blackness and black identity. Push for a new identity. Translates to blackness.

Mutually-Assured Destruction

Mutual assured destruction is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy that posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. When the possibility of nuclear warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union started to become a reality, theorists began to think that mutually assured destruction would be sufficient to deter the other side from launching a nuclear weapon.

Détente

A diplomatic term for the easing of tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S., especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In general, the 1970s was an age of détente between Western and Eastern Europe, a time when leaders on both sides committed themselves to reducing the tensions of the Cold War by improving political relations, increasing trade, and facilitating loans by Western banks to needy European countries.

Perestroika

The restructuring of the Soviet economy initiated by Gorbachev; it gave industrial firms a measure of autonomy, had managers elected rather than appointed, released enterprises from some requirements of centralized planning, and reduced military spending. Added incentives to work beyond the bare minimum.

Glasnost

A policy of openness to discussion of political and economic matters initiated in the Soviet Union by Gorbachev. Like Khrushchev, Gorbachev believed that the Soviet system was fundamentally sound; it just needed some well-planned, strategic reforms. Its economy had to be modernized, albeit under the Party's control, and it needed a new openness to discussion- glasnost in Russian- to adopt innovative ideas. But Gorbachev, blinkered by his faith in the Soviet system and instinctively uncurious about its worst defects, had no idea how dire things were. Reduced the fear of the death punishment for political beliefs.

Winnable Nuclear War

a shift from mutually assured destruction to a winnable nuclear war. The original US MAD doctrine was modified on July 25, 1980, with US President Jimmy Carter's adoption of a countervailing strategy with Presidential Directive 59. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, creator of the "countervailing strategy," stressed that the planned response to a Soviet attack was no longer to bomb Soviet population centers and cities primarily, but first to kill the Soviet leadership, then attack military targets, in the hope of a Soviet surrender before the destruction of the Soviet Union (and the United States). This modified version of MAD was seen as a winnable nuclear war, while still maintaining the possibility of assured destruction for at least one party. This policy was further developed by the Reagan administration with the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, nicknamed "Star Wars"), the goal of which was to develop space-based technology to destroy Soviet missiles before they reached the United States.

Solidarity

Polish trade union was created in 1980 to protest working conditions and political repression. It began the nationalist opposition to communist rule that led in 1989 to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. The national trade union created in Poland in 1980 by Lech Walesa and other activists. It was banned in 1981 and then legalized in 1989, winning the democratic election of that year and seating Poland's first noncommunist prime minister. When the heavily indebted Polish government raised the price of meat on July 1, 1980, a huge wave of strikes washed over the country. In response, the electrician Lech Walesa (1943-) and a few other activists announced the creation of a new national trade union to be called Solidarity. Solidarity's huge size and overwhelming popularity left the government no choice but to make it an official, independent organization, with Walesa as its president. Now, communist Poland possessed two huge, highly popular centers of opposition, the Catholic Church and the Solidarity Union.

Berlin Wall

The wall built by East Germany in 1961 to divide the city of Berlin and prevent East German citizens from escaping to the West; it was torn down in 1989. Britain and the United States resolved to foil the Soviet blockade by airlifting food and supplies into the besieged city. The airlift proved successful, and after more than thirteen months, Stalin gave in, unable to starve West Berlin into submission. He reopened the city in May 1949. In the aftermath, the United States, Britain, and France proceeded with their plan to create a new West German state, which came into existence in May 1949 as the Federal Republic of Germany. The Soviets answered a few months later by making their occupation zone into a (nominally) independent state known as the German Democratic Republic (commonly called East Germany). Berlin was then divided into western and eastern halves and later (1961) bisected by the Berlin Wall, which was built by East Germany to prevent its citizens from escaping to the West. The Dismantling of the Berlin Wall: In July 1989, tens of thousands of East Germans fled their country. Their destination was West Germany, but border guards and the Berlin Wall forced them to take a detour through Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Austria. Everything changed in late November when the citizens of East Berlin, aided in some cases by their former guards, forced open the wall separating them from West Berlin. The flow of refugees from east to west became a torrent, and the barriers separating the two Germanys ceased to exist.

Warsaw Pact

An alliance between the Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations in 1955 in response to the NATO. The Warsaw Pact was the Soviet counterpart to NATO during the Cold War. While Western Europe came together as a political and economic bloc, the Soviet Union organized its satellite countries as a separate bloc of its own. In 1947, it created the Cominform, an organization of European communist parties, and in answer to NATO, the Warsaw Pact in 1955. During these years, the Eastern economies and political systems were reshaped in the Soviet image and their states became quasi-colonies of the USSR. The most prominent leaders faced show trials not unlike those staged in Russia in 1936-1938 and found themselves accused, all at once, of supporting Tito, spying for Britain and the United States, and being for secret fascists. Most were forced to confess under torture and executed in prison. Stalin staged show trials in Eastern Europe to demonstrate to people there the limitless power of his police state, which could, at will, convict people of crimes they had not committed.

Apartheid

Racial segregation and discrimination enforced through legislation, as practiced by South Africa against its black population. South Africa, already autonomous, declared independence from Britain in 1961, leaving the Commonwealth and declaring Elizabeth II no longer its queen. The independent republic intensified its harsh policy of apartheid (racial segregation & discrimination) against the black population and became one of the world's pariah states. South Africa is mostly white people.

Velvet Revolution

The largely peaceful overthrow in 1989 of Czechoslovakia's communist regime. Havel's hastily constituted Civic Forum called for the rule of law, free elections, social justice, a clean environment, education, prosperity, and a "return to Europe." The Civic Forum quickly, bloodlessly, displaced the crumbling communist party, and on New Year's Day 1990, Havel, the gentle, cerebral playwright, became president of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, which would not remain socialist for long. Havel had played a crucial role in what came to be known as the Velvet Revolution, keeping the growing crowds under control and exercising precisely the right kind of leadership at the right moment. The velvet nonviolence of Czechoslovakia could not have contrasted more with what took place in Romania, long under the thumb of the brutal arty boss Nicolae Ceauşescu. Having kept his people in penury, Ceauşescu did not enjoy much support, but his ruthless secret police crushed even the mildest dissent - at least until the contagious events of 1989.

Chechnya

One of the republics that remains a part of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union despite independence movements and violent upheaval. Chechnya was the area of the greatest conflict between the Islam and Russian Federation. After the Soviet Union fell in 1991, the Chechens sought to give themselves an independent state. Russia blocked the secession of Chechnya, however, on the grounds of its strategic location and the existence of ethnic Russians in the province. The result was a murderous two-year-long war (1994-1996) in which Islamic radicals increasingly took over the Chechen resistance to Russian rule. By 1996, the Chechen war had become a jihad, a holy war, and the Russian public, still traumatized from a decade of futile fighting in Afghanistan, had no stomach for yet another protracted battle against Islamic insurgents. Boris Yelton negotiated a ceasefire and withdrew his troops, temporarily making Chechnya an independent state. Chechnya War: Muslim territory in Russia, rise of Putin, Muslim province in Russia fights two wars to break away from Russia.

French Revolution

18th century. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity were the ideals of the French Revolution. The main aim of French revolutionaries was: Was to overthrow the monarchical rule and the 'Ancient regime' in France and the establishment of a republican government. To create a sense of collective identity amongst the French people by banning the estate system. Essential social changes based on liberalism. Martin Luther & his 95 Theses called out the Catholic Church's abuses, specifically the sale of indulgences. Martin Luther.

Scientific Revolution

16th and 17th centuries. It replaced the Greek view of nature that had dominated science for almost 2,000 years. The Scientific Revolution was characterized by an emphasis on abstract reasoning, quantitative thought, an understanding of how nature works, the view of nature as a machine, and the development of an experimental scientific method. The scientific revolution is a series of rapid scientific advancements that occurred in Western Europe. It started for several reasons: the rise of empiricism and humanism, new inventions that either helped scientists better observe phenomena and the discovery of the New World.

Galileo Galilei

Italian astronomer and mathematician who was the first to use a telescope to study the stars.

- discovered the moons of Jupiter, cannon balls of various sizes accelerate the same

- Disproved many Aristotelian theories, and supported heliocentric theory

Bartolomé de las Casas

Sixteenth-century Dominican priest/friar whose account of the atrocities committed by Spanish colonists in the New World - A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies - helped to improve Spain's treatment of indigenous people.

Francis Bacon

(1561-1626) English politician, and writer. Father of the empirical method (reproduce results, experimentation, testing evidence, test theories). 1520 Novum Organum (new instrument). Inductive reasoning: to build off a small observation.

René Descartes

17th-century French philosopher. Famously known for writing "cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"). Deductive reasoning: starting with truth and breaking it down. Longed for a simple, unquestionable form of truth. Believed that senses could deceive (Satan, an "evil genius", misled the mind).

2 opposing methods for arriving at the truth:

1.) based on observation of physical evidence (empiricism)

2.) based on reason and fundamental truth (rationalism)

Voltaire

(1694-1778) French philosopher. He believed that freedom of speech was the best weapon against bad government. He also spoke out against the corruption of the French government and the intolerance of the Catholic Church.

- Renowned for his acerbic tongue, he questioned why things were the way they were. He had a negative view of humanity, he disbanded arbitrary traditions and abusive institutions, including the Roman Catholic Church. He was also a dyed-in-the-wool elitist who had little faith in the abilities of common men and women.

Martin Luther

A German teacher and a monk, brought about the Protestant Reformation when he challenged the Catholic Church's teachings starting in 1517. The Protestant Reformation was a religious reform movement that swept through Europe in the 1500s. His 95 Theses were 95 statements of faith questioning the doctrine of the Church, including the sale of indulgences. Martin Luther nailed them to the Church door in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. The theses called out the abuses of the Catholic Church, such as the sale of indulgences. Protestant Reformation.

The Thirty Years' War

A series of wars in Europe from 1618 to 1648 that were grounded in both religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics and in territorial and political disputes between the Holy Roman Empire and other European powers. The War was concluded by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

- War within the Holy Roman Empire between German Protestants and their allies (Sweden, Denmark, France) and the emperor and his ally, Spain; ended in 1648 after great destruction with the Treaty of Westphalia.

- A turning point in Church/State relations, defenestration of Prague (throw out the window), seesaw battle, every major power in Europe got involved, robbing & looting civilians, up to 2/3 of civilian population killed in Germany, 1/4 of German population lost

German Peasants' War

1524-1525: Peasants rose in mass to follow Luther's message, they wanted to strike, and Luther disowned the movement because of its violence and he did not want to be killed.

Democracy

a system of government in which all adult citizens can participate in their government through the right to vote, speak, assemble freely, and stand for elective office. It is easy to dismantle an already existing government and societal norms, but it is much harder to build a new government from the ground up. The French Revolution dismantled the monarchy but failed to establish a democracy successfully afterward. It is very hard to unite people when there is no common enemy to fight, therefore, these attempts to form new governments often fail because everyone is divided.

Nationalism

Love for your country led to imperialism because everyone wanted to expand their pride for their country to other countries. Nationalism - industrialization - imperialism