AP World History Unit 7

MAIN Causes of WWI

The four long-term causes of World War I: Militarism (arms races), Alliances (secret treaties), Imperialism (competition for colonies), and Nationalism (desire for self-determination).

Total War

A conflict in which a nation mobilizes its entire population and all available resources (industrial, agricultural, and human) to support the war effort, blurring the line between civilians and combatants.

Trench Warfare

A form of combat prevalent on the Western Front of WWI where soldiers fought from elaborate systems of defensive ditches, leading to a prolonged war of attrition and high casualties.

Vladimir Lenin

The leader of the Bolshevik Party and the first head of the Soviet state; he adapted Marxist theory to Russia, arguing that a disciplined party could lead a communist revolution.

The Soviet Union (USSR)

The world’s first communist state, established in 1922 following the Russian Civil War, consisting of a confederation of socialist republics governed by the Communist Party.

October Revolution

The 1917 coup d'état led by the Bolsheviks that overthrew the Russian Provisional Government and established a communist regime.

Joseph Stalin

The dictatorial leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin; he transformed the USSR into an industrial and military superpower through centralized control and brutal purges.

Collectivization

A policy under Stalin where private farms were abolished and replaced by large, state-run collective farms to fund industrialization, often resulting in widespread famine.

Totalitarianism

A system of government where the state exercises total control over nearly every aspect of public and private life, often using propaganda, secret police, and censorship.

Indian National Congress (INC)

A political party formed in 1885 that led the Indian independence movement against British rule, transitioning from seeking reform to demanding full self-rule (Swaraj).

Washington Naval Conference

A 1921–1922 diplomatic meeting that aimed to prevent a naval arms race by limiting the production of battleships among major world powers.

Treaty of Sèvres

The 1920 treaty between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire that dismantled the empire and ceded vast territories to France, Britain, and Greece, sparking Turkish nationalist resistance.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey; he implemented radical Westernizing reforms, including secularism, a Latin alphabet, and industrialization.

Government of India Act (1919)

British legislation that introduced a system of "dyarchy" in India, granting limited self-government to provinces while retaining British control over key sectors like finance and police.

Rowlatt Act

A 1919 British law in India that allowed the government to imprison political activists without trial, sparking widespread protests across the subcontinent.

Amritsar Massacre

A 1919 event where British troops fired into a crowd of peaceful Indian protesters, killing hundreds and turning the Indian independence movement into a mass anti-colonial struggle.

Nationalism

An intense loyalty to one's nation and the belief that people who share a common language, history, and culture should constitute an independent political state.

The Great Depression

A severe global economic collapse triggered by the 1929 U.S. stock market crash, characterized by mass unemployment, bank failures, and a decline in international trade.

Keynesian Economics

An economic theory arguing that during a depression, the government should use deficit spending to stimulate demand and stabilize the economy.

Stalin’s Five- Year Plans

State-directed economic initiatives focused on the rapid forced industrialization of the Soviet Union, prioritizing heavy industry (steel/coal) over consumer goods.

The New Deal

A series of government programs and reforms enacted by FDR in the 1930s to provide relief, recovery, and reform for the U.S. economy during the Great Depression.

Fascist Corporatist

An economic system under fascism where the state mediates between labor and management, organizing the economy into "corporations" to serve the interests of the nation.

Adolf Hitler

The leader of the Nazi Party and dictator of Germany (1933–1945), whose aggressive expansionism and racial ideologies led to World War II and the Holocaust.

Appeasement

The policy followed by Britain and France in the late 1930s of making concessions to dictatorial powers (like Hitler) to avoid conflict.

D-Day

The Allied invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944; it opened a "Second Front" in Europe and began the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control.

Battle of Stalingrad

A major turning point on the Eastern Front where the Soviet Red Army defeated the German forces, ending Hitler’s eastward expansion and shifting the momentum to the Allies.

Firebombing

A military tactic used by the Allies to drop incendiary devices on cities (like Dresden and Tokyo), intended to cause mass destruction and break civilian morale.

Atomic Bombs

Nuclear weapons dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, leading to Japan's unconditional surrender and the start of the nuclear age.

Winston Churchill

The Prime Minister of Great Britain during WWII, known for his inspiring leadership and his staunch refusal to surrender to Nazi Germany.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)

The U.S. President during the Great Depression and most of WWII; he expanded the role of the federal government and helped coordinate the Allied war effort.

Holodomor

A man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine (1932–1933) caused by Stalin’s policies of collectivization, resulting in the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.

Holocaust

The systematic, state-sponsored genocide of six million Jews and millions of others (Romani, disabled, LGBTQ+) by the Nazi regime during WWII.

Armenian Genocide

The systematic killing and deportation of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during WWI, often cited as the first modern genocide.

Cambodian Genocide (Khmer Rouge)

The mass killing of nearly two million people (intellectuals, urbanites, minorities) by Pol Pot’s regime in an attempt to create a rural, agrarian communist society.

Rwandan Genocide

The 1994 mass slaughter of the Tutsi minority by members of the Hutu majority, resulting in roughly 800,000 deaths in 100 days.

PEMEX

The Mexican state-owned petroleum company created in 1938 after the government nationalized foreign oil holdings, representing a move toward economic nationalism.

Guernica

A Spanish city bombed by German planes during the Spanish Civil War; it became a symbol of the horrors of modern aerial warfare against civilians, famously depicted by Pablo Picasso.

Chemical Warfare

The use of toxic chemical substances, such as mustard gas and chlorine, as weapons. First used on a large scale during WWI, it led to agonizing deaths and permanent injuries, eventually resulting in international bans.

Women’s March (Russian Revolution)

A mass protest in Petrograd in March 1917 where female factory workers demanded "Bread and Peace." The march escalated into the February Revolution, leading to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.

Worker’s Soviet

Grassroots revolutionary councils of workers and soldiers formed in Russia. They functioned as local centers of political power that competed with the Provisional Government before the Bolsheviks took control.

Leon Trotsky

A key Bolshevik leader and commander of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. He was a brilliant strategist and Lenin's right-hand man, but was later exiled and assassinated by Stalin’s agents.

New Economic Policy (NEP)

A temporary economic policy introduced by Lenin in 1921 that allowed for some private trade and small-scale capitalism to help the Soviet economy recover from the Russian Civil War.

Dawes Plan

A 1924 international agreement that provided U.S. loans to Germany to help stabilize its economy and allow it to pay WWI reparations to Britain and France.

Young Plan

A 1929 follow-up to the Dawes Plan that further reduced Germany's total reparation payments and extended the period for repayment to 1988.

Benito Mussolini

The founder of Fascism and dictator of Italy (Il Duce). He established a totalitarian state based on extreme nationalism, corporatism, and the suppression of political opposition.

Francisco Franco

The nationalist general who led a military coup against the Spanish Republic, resulting in the Spanish Civil War. He ruled Spain as a conservative, fascist-aligned dictator until 1975.

T-4 Program

A Nazi "euthanasia" program that systematically murdered hundreds of thousands of people with physical and mental disabilities, serving as a precursor to the mass killing methods used in the Holocaust.

Night of the Long KNives

A 1934 purge in which Hitler ordered the execution of potential rivals within the Nazi Party, including the leaders of the SA (Brownshirts), to consolidate his absolute power.

Kristallnacht

The "Night of Broken Glass" (1938), a state-sponsored pogrom where Nazi mobs destroyed Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues, marking a transition to the violent phase of the Holocaust.

Warsaw Ghetto

The largest of the Nazi-established residential districts in occupied Poland, where Jews were confined in overcrowded, starving conditions before being sent to death camps. It was the site of a famous 1943 uprising.

Auschwitz

The largest complex of Nazi concentration and extermination camps in occupied Poland, where over 1.1 million people—mostly Jews—were murdered via gas chambers and forced labor.

Dachau

The first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany (1933). Initially used for political prisoners, it served as the model for all later camps in the Nazi system.

Anschuluss

The 1938 forced annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, violating the Treaty of Versailles but initially met with little resistance from Western powers.

Satyagraha

A philosophy of non-violent resistance developed by Mahatma Gandhi. It emphasizes "truth-force" and civil disobedience to achieve political and social change.

Charles de Gaulle

The leader of the Free French Forces during WWII and the head of the French government-in-exile, who organized resistance against the Nazi occupation of France.

Manhattan Project

The top-secret U.S. research and development program during WWII that produced the first nuclear weapons, led by J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Hiroshima & Nagasaki

The two Japanese cities targeted by U.S. atomic bombs in August 1945. The unprecedented destruction led to Japan's surrender and the end of WWII.

Land Redistribution in Mexico

A core goal of the Mexican Revolution, involving the breaking up of large estates (haciendas) and giving land back to peasants and indigenous communities in the form of ejidos.

Mexican Muralism

A government-funded art movement following the Mexican Revolution (led by artists like Diego Rivera) used to promote national unity and revolutionary ideals to a largely illiterate public.

Anti- War Art

Creative works (such as Picasso's Guernica or the poems of Wilfred Owen) produced to protest the brutality of modern industrial warfare and highlight human suffering.

Lázaro Cárdenas

The Mexican president (1934–1940) who fulfilled many revolutionary promises by implementing massive land reform and nationalizing the oil industry (creating PEMEX).

Schlieffen Plan

The German military strategy at the start of WWI intended to avoid a two-front war by quickly knocking out France through neutral Belgium before turning to fight Russia.

Race to the Sea

The period in 1914 when Allied and German forces tried to outflank each other to the north, eventually leading to a continuous line of trenches from the Swiss border to the North Sea.

Zemstvos

Local elected councils established in Russia in the 1860s to handle regional issues; their limited power frustrated liberals and contributed to the growing desire for a national parliament.

Battle of the Marne

A 1914 WWI battle where French and British forces stopped the German advance into France, ruining the Schlieffen Plan and initiating the stalemate of trench warfare.

Battle of the Somme

One of the deadliest battles in history (WWI), where British and French forces launched an offensive against Germany. It resulted in over a million total casualties for very little territorial gain.

Battle of El Alamein

A decisive 1942 turning point in North Africa where British forces defeated the German-Italian army, preventing the Axis from seizing the Suez Canal and Middle Eastern oil fields.