Modern World History Final Exam Study Guide

Flashcards to help study for the Final Exam

What was the Kuomintang?

Chinese nationalist party, formed in 1912

Who was Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen)?

Chinese statesman and revolutionary leader; believed that China should be a democracy but that it first needed to replace the Qing dynasty with a ruling nationalist party; founded the revolutionary alliance in 1905

What was the May Fourth Movement?

National protest in China in 1919 in which people demonstrated against the Treaty of Versailles and foreign interference

Who was Mao Zedong?

Leader of the Chinese communists, led a successful revolution & established a communist government in China in 1949

Who was Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek)?

Chinese general and politician; succeeded Sun Yixian as leader of the Nationalist Party in China in the 1920s, led attacks against communism in the 1920s as well

What was the Long March?

A 6000-mile journey made in 1934-1935 by Chinese Communists fleeing from Jiang Jieshi’s nationalist forces

What is the United Nations?

International peacekeeping organization founded in 1945 to provide security to the nations of the world

What was the Iron Curtain?

During the Cold War, a boundary separating the Communist nations of Eastern Europe from the mostly democratic nations of Western Europe

What is Containment?

A US foreign policy adopted by President Harry Truman in the late 1940s, in which the US tried to stop the spread of communism by creating alliances and helping weak countries resist Soviet advances

What is the Truman Doctrine?

Announced by President Truman in 1947, a US policy of giving economic and military aid to free nations threatened by internal or external opponents

What was the Marshall Plan?

US program of economic aid to European countries to help them rebuild after WWII

What was the Cold War?

State of diplomatic hostility between the US and the Soviet Union in the decades following WWII

What is NATO?

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, defensive military alliance formed in 1949 by 10 European nations, the US, and Canada

What was the Warsaw Pact?

Military alliance formed by the Soviet Union and 7 European countries

What is Brinkmanship?

Policy of threatening to go to war in response to any enemy aggression

What is a Commune (in communist China)?

A collective farm on which a great number of people work and live together

Who were the Red Guards?

Militia units formed by young Chinese people in 1966 in response to Mao Zedong’s call for a social and cultural revolution

What was the Cultural Revolution?

A 1966-1967 uprising in China led by the Red Guards, with the goal of establishing a society of peasants and workers in which all were equal

What is the 38th parallel?

Line of latitude that crosses Korea. End of WWII → Korea divides into two nations at this line. North of parallel = communist government, south of parallel = non-communist government

Who was Douglas MacArthur?

American general, commanded US troops in the southwest pacific during WWII + administered Japan after the end of the war, later commanded UN forces at the beginning of the Korean war until removal by President Truman

Who was Ho Chi Minh?

Vietnamese nationalist + revolutionary leader, president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 1945 to 1969, wanted to bring communism to South Vietnam

What is the Domino Theory?

Idea that if a nation falls under communist control, nearby nations will also fall under communist control

Who was Ngo Dinh Diem?

Leader of Vietnam from 1955 until his assassination in 1963, unpopular rule led to the Vietnam War

Who were the Vietcong?

Group of communist guerrillas who, with the help of North Vietnam, fought against the South Vietnamese government in the Vietnam War

What was Vietnamization?

President Richard Nixon’s strategy for ending US involvement in the Vietnam War, involving a gradual withdrawal of American troops and replacement of them with South Vietnamese forces

Who were the Khmer Rouge?

Group of communist rebels who seized power in Cambodia in 1975

What is the Third World?

During the Cold War, the developing nations not allied with either the US or the Soviet Union

Who was Fidel Castro?

Communist political leader of Cuba, helped overthrow the Cuban government in 1959 + seized total control of the country’s government and economy

Who was Anastasio Somoza?

Ruler of Nicaragua for 16 years, Somoza started a dynasty that held absolute control over Nicaragua for over 40 years

Who was Daniel Ortega?

Nicaraguan guerrilla leader, member of the Sandinistas who took power in 1979, elected president from 1984-1990 + in 2007

Who was Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini?

Iranian political + religious leader, led a revolution to overthrow the Shah of Iran’s government in 1979, ruled the country for the next 10 years

Who was Nikita Khrushchev?

First secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1953-1964), believed that communism would triumph over capitalism, but made some reforms in domestic policy + spoke out against Stalin’s excess

Who was Leonid Brezhnev?

Soviet statesman + Communist Party leader who led the Soviet Union for 18 years

Who was John F. Kennedy?

35th president of US (1961-1963), faced foreign crises in Cuba + berlin, assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1963

Who was Lyndon Johnson?

36th president of the US (1963-1969), elected vice president + became president in 1963 after Kennedy’s assassination, signed into law the Civil Rights Act, expanded American involvement in the Vietnam War, initiated social service programs

What is Détente?

Policy of reducing Cold War tensions that was adopted by the US during the presidency of Richard Nixon

Who was Richard Nixon?

37th president of the US (1969-1974), became the 1st president in American history to resign from office due to the impending impeachment because of the Watergate scandal

What were the SALT talks?

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, series of meetings in the 1970s in which leaders of the US and the Soviet Union agreed to limit their nations’ shock of nuclear weapons

Who was Ronald Reagan?

40th president of the US (1981-1989), was a conservative Republican + strong anti-communist with a charismatic style

Who was Margaret Thatcher?

British politician + prime minister (1979-1990), Europe’s first female PM, fought against trade unions + promoted the privatization of state-owned enterprises

What were the Rowlatt Acts?

Laws passed in 1919 that allowed the British government in India to jail anti-British protesters without trial for as long as 2 years

What was the Amritsar Massacre?

Killing by British troops of nearly 400 gathered at Amritsar to protest the Rowlatt Acts

Who was Mohandas K. Gandhi?

Leader of India’s struggle for independence from Great Britain, organized the population for protest through the methods of nonviolent resistance + civil disobedience

What is Civil Disobedience?

Deliberate + public refusal to obey a law considered unjust

What was the Salt March?

Peaceful protest against the Salt Acts in 1930 in India in which Gandhi led his followers on a 240 mile walk to the sea, where they made their own salt from evaporated seawater

What is the Congress Party?

Major national political party in India, also known as as the Indian National Congress

What was the Muslim League?

Organization formed in 1906 to protect the interests of India’s Muslims, which later proposed that India be divided into separate Muslim and Hindu nations

Who was Muhammad Ali Jinnah?

Indian politician + founder of Pakistan, leader of the Muslim League, believed that Indian Muslims needed a separate nation and called for a partition in 1940

What is Partition?

A division into parts, like the 1947 division of the British colony of India into the two nations of India and Pakistan

Who was Jawaharlal Nehru?

Indian statesman, first prime minister of an independent India at the end of British colonial rule

Who was Indira Gandhi?

Indian politician, daughter + mother of Indian prime ministers, India’s first female prime minister, her term was marred by sectarian violence involving India’s Sikh minority

Who was Benazir Bhutto?

Pakistani politician + prime minister, assassinated by a suicide bomber while campaigning for office in 2007

Who was Ferdinand Marcos?

Philippine politician, elected president of the Philippines in 1965 but soon became an authoritarian dictator; imposed martial law, arrested his political opponents, and stole millions from his country’s treasury

Who was Corazón Aquino?

Philippine politician + president of the Philippines from 1986-1992; struggled to restore political stability, return to democracy + rebuild the nation’s economy; assassinated by a suicide bomber in 2007

Who is Aung San Suu Kyi?

Burmese political leader, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her efforts to promote democracy in Burma

Who was Sukarno?

Indonesian politician, became Indonesia’s first president after he led an independence movement there, was a strong anti-communist whose policies resulted in the deaths of hundreds + eventually was deposed in a coup led by Suharto

Who was Suharto?

President of Indonesia from 1967-1998, seized power in Indonesia from Sukarno in a coup d'etat, his authoritarian + corrupt rule eventually led to his ouster

What is martial law?

Temporary rule by military authorities over a civilian population, usually imposed in times of war or civil unrest

What was the Negritude movement?

Movement in which French-speaking Africans + West Indians celebrated their heritage of traditional African culture & values

Who was Kwame Nkrumah?

Ghanaian national leader + statesman, pushed for Ghanaian independence from Great Britain + was elected Ghana’s first president in 1957

Who was Jomo Kenyatta?

African political leader + first president of Kenya from 1964-1978, leader of the African nationalist movement

Who was Ahmed Ben Bella?

Leader of the Algerian War of Independence against France + first elected president of Algeria, steered his nation towards socialism

Who was Mobutu Sese Seko?

President of Zaire, made himself dictator + amassed wealth for himself at the expense of his people (who remained poor) over the course of his rule

Who was Anwar Sadat?

Egyptian soldier + statesman, launched the Yom Kippur War against Israel

Who was Golda Meir?

Israeli politician, prime minister of Israel during the Yom Kippur War + sought assistance and supplies from the US

What is the PLO?

Palestine Liberation Organization, dedicated to the establishment of an independent state for Palestinian Arabs + elimination of Israel

Who was Yasir Arafat?

A leader of the PLO

Who was Menachem Begin?

Israeli politician + prime minister, signed a peace treaty with Anwar Sadat that ended 30 years of conflict between Israel + Egypt

What were the Camp David Accords?

First signed agreement between Israel + an Arab country, leading to a 1979 peace treaty in which Egypt recognized Israel as a legitimate state + Israel agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt

What is Intifada?

“Shaking off”, Palestinian campaigns of violence + nonviolence resistance against Israel, violence during the 1980s targeted Israeli army while violence during the 2000s targeted Israeli citizens

What were the Oslo Peace Accords?

Agreement in 1993 in which Israeli prime minister Rabin granted Palestinian self rule in the Gaza Strip + West Bank

Who was Yitzhak Rabin?

Israeli statesman + soldier who (as prime minister of Israel), led his nation towards a peace treaty with Palestine

Where are the Transcaucasian Republics?

3 nations (Armenia, Azerbaijan + Georgia), in the Caucasus Mountains between the Black + Caspian seas

Where are the Central Asian Republics?

5 nations (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) east of the Caspian Sea extending to the Tian Shan and Pamir mountains

Who were the Mujahideen?

In Afghanistan, holy warriors who banded together to fight the Soviet supported government in the late 1970s

Who are the Taliban?

Conservative Islamic group that took control of Afghanistan after the Soviet Union withdrew its troops, driven from power by US forces in December 2001 because of its harboring of suspected terrorists

What is a Federal System of government?

A system of government in which power is divided between central authority and a number of individual states

What is a Dissident?

An opponent of a government’s policies or actions

What was Apartheid?

South African policy of complete legal separation of races, including the banning of all social contact between black + white people

Who was Nelson Mandela?

Former guerrilla fighter + statesman, helped end the apartheid + became the first black president of South Africa

What is the Politburo?

Ruling committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union

Who was Mikhail Gorbachev?

Russian politician, last president of the Soviet Union before the nation’s collapse in 1991

What is Glasnost?

Soviet policy of openness to the free flow of ideas + information, introduced in 1985 by Mikhail Gorbachev

What is Perestroika?

Restructuring of the Soviet economy to permit more local decision making, begun by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985

Who was Boris Yeltsin?

Russian politician + president in the 1990s, first popularly elected leader of the country

What is the CIS?

“Commonwealth of Independent States”, loose association of former Soviet republics that was formed after the breakup of the Soviet Union

What is Shock Therapy?

Economic program implemented in Russia by Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s involving an abrupt shift from a command economy to a free market economy

What was Solidarity?

Polish labor union that during the 1980s became the main force of opposition to the communist rule in Poland

Who was Lech Walesa?

Polish labor leader + president from 1990 - 1995, founded Solidarity

What is Reunification?

A bringing together of things that have been separated, like the reuniting of East Germany and West Germany in 1990

What is Ethnic Cleansing?

Policy of murder + other acts of brutality by which Serbs hoped to eliminate Bosnia’s Muslim population after the breakup of Yugoslavia

Who was Zhou Enlai?

Chinese prime minister from 1949-1976, founder of the Chinese Communist Party

Who was Deng Xiaoping?

Chinese revolutionary + government leader, took power in 1981 after the power struggle following Mao Zedong’s death, made far-reaching market reforms in the Chinese economy

What were the Four Modernizations?

Set of goals adopted by Deng Xiaoping in the late 20th century involving progress in agriculture, industry, defense, + science & technology

What is Tiananmen Square?

Huge public space in Beijing China, was the site of student uprising in support of democratic reforms in 1989

What is Hong Kong?

Former British colony on the southeastern coast of China that was returned to China in 1997