World History and Modern Era Comprehensive Review

A complete set of 53 vocabulary flashcards covering European nationalism, imperialism, scientific innovations, World War I, the Russian Revolution, and interwar political transformations.

Napoleon Bonaparte

French military leader who became emperor of France (1804–1814 and briefly 1815), expanded French control across Europe, spread French Revolutionary ideas, and introduced the Napoleonic Code.

Peninsular War

A conflict (1808–1814) in Spain and Portugal where Napoleon's French forces fought Spain, Portugal, and Britain; Spanish resistance and guerrilla warfare weakened Napoleon's military and empire.

Congress of Vienna

A meeting of European leaders (1814–1815) in Vienna, Austria, including Klemens von Metternich, that redrew Europe's borders to restore monarchies and maintain a balance of power.

Irish Potato Famine

A catastrophic food crisis (1845–1852) in Ireland under British rule where a potato disease destroyed the staple crop, resulting in around one million deaths and another million emigrating.

Camillo Benso (Count of Cavour)

Italian statesman and political leader of Piedmont-Sardinia who used diplomacy, alliances, and military action in the 1850s and 1860s to help unify Italy into one nation in 1861.

The Great Exhibition

A major event organized in 1851 at the Crystal Palace in London under Prince Albert and Queen Victoria that showcased Britain's industrial power, manufacturing, technology, and new inventions.

Otto von Bismarck

Prussian political leader and chancellor of Germany who used his policy of "blood and iron" (military strength and diplomacy) to unify the German states into one country in 1871.

Shaka Zulu

Powerful Zulu king and military leader who ruled from 1816–1828 in southern Africa, strengthening and expanding the Zulu Kingdom through military organization and new fighting strategies.

Cape Colony

A southern African colony founded by the Dutch in 1652 and taken over by the British in 1806, serving as a critical trade route location and base for European settlement and expansion.

Tanzimat Era

A period of modernization and reform in the Ottoman Empire (1839–1876) where officials attempted to improve the military, education, legal system, and government.

Young Ottomans / Young Turks

Reformist intellectuals and political groups in the Ottoman Empire; the Young Ottomans (1860s–1870s) and Young Turks (late 1800s–early 1900s) opposed absolutism, with the Young Turks restoring the constitution in 1908.

Porfirio Diaz

Mexican military leader and president who ruled Mexico authoritarianly from 1876–1911 (with a short interruption), modernizing industry and railroads while his oppressive policies sparked the Mexican Revolution.

Berlin Conference

An 1884–1885 meeting in Berlin, Germany, where European powers established ground rules for claiming African territory, accelerating the Scramble for Africa without African representation.

First Opium War

An 1839–1842 conflict between Britain and Qing Dynasty China over British opium sales; ended in Chinese defeat and the Treaty of Nanjing, ceding Hong Kong to Britain and opening trade ports.

Self-Strengthening Movement

A reform movement (1861–1895) led by Qing Dynasty officials to modernize China's military, industry, and technology while preserving traditional Chinese culture and government, meeting limited success.

Meiji Era

A period from 1868–1912 under Emperor Meiji when Japan rapidly modernized its government, military, education, and industry, transforming into a major expanding world power.

Battle of Tsushima

A 1905 naval battle in the Tsushima Strait in which Japan destroyed much of Russia's Baltic Fleet, demonstrating Japan's military power and showing an Asian nation could defeat a major European power.

Sun Yat-sen

Chinese revolutionary and political leader who helped overthrow the Qing Dynasty in 1911, ending thousands of years of imperial rule and helping establish the Republic of China.

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

A concept announced by Japan in 1940 and promoted during World War II, ostensibly to unite Asian nations against Western imperialism, but used to justify Japanese military expansion and dominance.

Louis Daguerre

French artist and inventor who introduced the daguerreotype in 1839, developing one of the first successful photographic processes and altering how history was recorded.

Charles Babbage

English mathematician and inventor who designed early mechanical computing machines, the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine, and is often called the father of the computer.

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (Ada Lovelace)

English mathematician and writer who worked on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine and created an algorithm for it in 1843, making her widely considered the first computer programmer.

Sanitary Movement

A 19th-century public health reform movement originating in Britain that advocated for clean water, sewage systems, better housing, and public hygiene to curb disease and extend life expectancy.

Charles Darwin

English naturalist who sailed on the HMS Beagle and published On the Origin of Species in 1859, proposing the theory of evolution through natural selection.

Gregor Mendel

Austrian monk and scientist known as the father of genetics who discovered basic patterns of inheritance through pea plant experiments conducted from 1856–1863.

Dmitri Mendeleev

Russian chemist who created the periodic table in 1869, arranging elements by atomic weights and properties, and accurately predicting the existence of undiscovered elements.

Albert Einstein

German-born theoretical physicist who developed special relativity (1905) and general relativity (1915), transforming the concepts of space, time, energy, and gravity, and formulating $E=mc^2$.

Lumiere Brothers

Auguste and Louis Lumière, French inventors who developed the Cinématographe in 1895, making public motion-picture screenings possible and establishing modern cinema.

Georges Lemaître

Belgian priest, astronomer, and physicist who proposed the expanding-universe theory in 1927, establishing an early foundation for the Big Bang theory.

Alan Turing

British mathematician and computer scientist who cracked German Enigma codes during World War II and developed foundational concepts for modern computer science.

Dreyfus Affair

A major political scandal (1894–1906) in France centering on Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army officer falsely accused of treason, which exposed antisemitism and divided French society.

Theodor Herzl

Jewish journalist and political activist who published The Jewish State in 1896 and became a primary founder of modern political Zionism, advocating for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU)

British women's suffrage organization founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, using demonstrations, protests, and civil disobedience to secure voting rights for women.

Reasons for World War I

The core causes of World War I, remembered by the acronym MAIN: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne whose assassination on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by a Bosnian Serb nationalist triggered the outbreak of World War I.

Nineteenth Amendment

An amendment to the United States Constitution ratified on August 18, 1920, that prohibited denying the right to vote based on sex, securing constitutional voting rights for women.

Technological Advances in World War I

Weapons developed and deployed during 1914–1918—including machine guns, tanks, poison gas, submarines, airplanes, and heavy artillery—that magnified casualties and led to trench warfare.

Battle of Gallipoli

A 1915–1916 World War I campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula where the Ottoman Empire repelled an Allied effort to capture the Dardanelles and establish a sea route to Russia.

Mustafa Kemal

Ottoman military leader at Gallipoli who led the Turkish independence movement, established the Republic of Turkey in 1923, became its first president, and introduced extensive modernization reforms.

Battle of the Somme

A battle fought from July to November 1916 in France between British and French forces against Germany, standing as one of the deadliest battles of World War I.

Thomas Edward Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)

British military officer and intelligence operative who assisted in coordinating Arab forces against the Ottoman Empire during the Arab Revolt of World War I.

The Great Arab Revolt

An uprising (1916–1918) led by Sharif Hussein of Mecca and his sons with British backing against the Ottoman Empire, weakening Ottoman rule while later European agreements limited full Arab independence.

Zimmerman Telegram

A January 1917 diplomatic proposal sent by German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann offering Mexico U.S. territory in exchange for an alliance; its public revelation in March 1917 prompted U.S. entry into World War I.

Sykes-Picot Agreement

A secret 1916 agreement between Britain's Mark Sykes and France's François Georges-Picot to divide Middle Eastern Ottoman territories into British and French zones of influence.

Treaty of Sèvres

A 1920 post-World War I treaty partitioning the Ottoman Empire, which was rejected by Turkish nationalists and superseded in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne.

Nicholas II of Russia

The final tsar of Russia (ruled 1894–1917) whose military failures, poor governance, and inability to handle civil unrest precipitated the Russian Revolution and his 1917 abdication.

Vladimir Lenin

Russian revolutionary and Bolshevik leader who directed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, established Russia's first communist government, and served as the initial leader of the Soviet state.

October Revolution

The Bolshevik overthrow of Russia's provisional government in Petrograd in October 1917 (November on the modern calendar), placing Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks in power.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

A peace treaty signed in March 1918 between Bolshevik Russia and the Central Powers, ending Russia's combat role in World War I in exchange for large territorial concessions to Germany and its allies.

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

A communist federation created in 1922 under Vladimir Lenin that united Russia and adjacent republics, growing into a major global superpower throughout the 20th century.

Joseph Stalin

Soviet dictator who governed from the late 1920s until 1953, industrializing the USSR via Five-Year Plans and collectivization while executing purges, forced labor, and repression that killed millions.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Indian independence leader who organized nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns against British rule from the 1920s to the 1940s, influencing worldwide civil rights movements.

Great Depression

A severe international economic collapse (1929–late 1930s) initiated in the United States by bank failures, declining production, falling trade, and mass unemployment, transforming state economic management.