WW1 and WW2 and Russian Revolution

Q: What caused World War I, besides the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
A: Militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism created tension that led to the war.

Q: How did the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand start World War I?
A: It caused Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia, which led to other countries joining in because of alliances.

Q: How did trench warfare affect World War I?
A: It caused a stalemate with lots of casualties and little progress, as soldiers lived in terrible conditions.

Q: What parts of the Treaty of Versailles made Germany angry?
A: Germany had to take blame for the war, pay reparations, lose land, and limit their military.

Q: What did the Balfour Declaration promise?
A: It promised to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which later caused conflicts between Jews and Arabs.

Q: What was the March 1st Movement in Korea?
A: It was a protest against Japan’s control over Korea, showing Koreans wanted independence.

Q: Why was the Bolshevik Revolution important?
A: It led to the rise of the Soviet Union with Lenin in charge, ending Russia’s involvement in World War I.

Q: What did the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk do for Russia?
A: It took Russia out of World War I and gave land to Germany.

Q: What was Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP)?
A: It allowed some private businesses to help recover the Russian economy after the Civil War.

Q: What were Stalin’s Five Year Plans?
A: They were plans to quickly grow the Soviet Union’s industry and economy.

Q: What were Stalin’s Great Purges?
A: They were mass killings of people who Stalin saw as a threat to his power, including many leaders and citizens.

Q: What is totalitarianism?
A: It’s a government where the leader controls everything in life, with no freedom or opposition allowed.

Q: What were the Nuremberg Laws?
A: Laws that discriminated against Jews in Nazi Germany, taking away their rights and freedom.

Q: What happened during Kristallnacht?
A: It was a violent attack against Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues, marking a shift to more violent anti-Semitic policies.

Q: What was the Final Solution?
A: It was the Nazi plan to kill all Jews, leading to the Holocaust and the deaths of 6 million Jews.

Q: What did the SS and Gestapo do in Nazi Germany?
A: The SS ran the concentration camps, and the Gestapo enforced Nazi laws and hunted down enemies of the state.

Q: What was the Munich Agreement of 1938?
A: It allowed Hitler to take parts of Czechoslovakia in exchange for peace, which failed to stop the war.

Q: What was the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939?
A: It was an agreement between Hitler and Stalin not to fight each other, allowing Hitler to invade Poland.

Q: What is Blitzkrieg?
A: A fast and powerful German military strategy to quickly defeat enemies by attacking with tanks, planes, and soldiers.

Q: What happened during the Battle of Britain in 1940?
A: Germany tried to bomb Britain into surrendering, but Britain resisted and won, preventing a German invasion.

Q: How did the attack on Pearl Harbor change the U.S. involvement in World War II?
A: The attack made the U.S. declare war on Japan, bringing them into World War II.

Q: Why was the Battle of Midway important?
A: The U.S. defeated Japan and gained control of the Pacific, changing the course of the war in the Pacific.

Q: What was Island Hopping?
A: A strategy where the U.S. took over weaker islands and skipped over stronger Japanese positions to get closer to Japan.

Q: What were Kamikaze attacks?
A: Suicide attacks by Japanese pilots who crashed their planes into enemy ships during World War II.

Q: Why was the Battle of Stalingrad important?
A: It was a turning point in the war, as the Soviet Union stopped the German army and began pushing them out of Russia.

Q: What is V-E Day?
A: It’s the day Nazi Germany officially surrendered in 1945, marking the end of the war in Europe.

Q: How did dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki end the war?
A: The bombs forced Japan to surrender, ending World War II in the Pacific.

Q: What happened at the Potsdam Conference in 1945?
A: The Allies decided how to divide Germany after its defeat and laid the groundwork for the post-war world.

Q: How did the Soviet Union’s actions in Eastern Europe lead to the Cold War?
A: The Soviet Union took control of Eastern Europe, refusing to allow democracy, which angered the West.

Q: What was the Marshall Plan?
A: A U.S. program that gave billions of dollars to help rebuild Western Europe after World War II to prevent the spread of communism.

Q: How did the Soviet Union respond to the Marshall Plan?
A: The Soviet Union rejected it and instead created their own economic group to control Eastern Europe.

Q: Why did the Soviet Union block West Berlin in 1948?
A: They tried to force the Allies out of West Berlin, but the Allies responded by airlifting supplies to the city.

Q: What was NATO and why was it formed in 1949?
A: NATO was a military alliance formed to defend Western Europe from Soviet aggression during the Cold War.

Q: What was the Warsaw Pact?
A: A military alliance formed by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies to oppose NATO.

Q: What is the Iron Curtain?
A: It was the division between communist Eastern Europe and democratic Western Europe, as described by Winston Churchill.

Q: What was the Berlin Wall, and why was it built?
A: The Berlin Wall was built by East Germany in 1961 to stop people from fleeing to West Berlin, symbolizing the Cold War division.

Q: What was the U.S. role in the Korean War?
A: The U.S. led the United Nations forces to defend South Korea from a communist invasion by North Korea.

Q: How did the Cuban Missile Crisis affect U.S.-Soviet relations?
A: It brought the world close to nuclear war, but both sides agreed to remove missiles from Cuba and Turkey to avoid further conflict.

Q: What was the space race, and why was it important during the Cold War?
A: It was a competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to dominate space exploration, symbolizing their technological rivalry.

Q: How did the Cold War affect Vietnam?
A: The U.S. fought to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam, leading to the Vietnam War, which divided the country and the world.

Q: What were the main goals of the United Nations after World War II?
A: To promote peace, prevent future wars, and support human rights worldwide.

Q: How did the Cold War end?
A: It ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, due to economic problems and pressure from democratic movements in Eastern Europe.