Term IDs

Socialism and Communism 1848-1947

  • Karl Marx

    • German philosopher, (1818-1883)

    • materialistic, labor makes us-us, capital-means of production → made labor alienated

    • Said that capitalism is a self-defeating system and is the inevitable end of history

    • known for talking about how materialism drives human history and how dialectic materialism creates a class struggle; i.e. master/slave

  • Vladmir Lenin

    • Russian revolutionary, (1870-1924)

    • gained power of all Russian communists by defeating his competition

    • his health was failing

  • Joseph Stalin

    • Soviet revolutionary,

    • wants power and doesn’t matter how he gets it

    • he quietly sat behind Lenin and started supporting him while making friends in high places

    • when Lenin dies Stalin is put to take his place

  • USSR

    • Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

    • Russia recovers really well because since it is socialists everyone gets the same thing

    • is it really easy to gain status as long as you are loyal to the government

  • Chiang Kai-shek

    • Chinese politician, (1866-1975)

    • unites forces and lots of factions through military might and turns against Communists, 1925, then purges the Communists in China

    • became like a dictator

  • Mao Zedong

    • Chinese Politician

    • willing to work with peasants which gave him a lot of support

    • permanent chair of Chinese communists part, forced to unite with Chiang to fight off invading Japan


Fascism 1918-1939

  • Benito Mussolini

    • he was a Italian journalist and a researcher

    • he believed in ethnic-nationalism and used very masculine themes, this attracted many young men and other war veterans

    • he believed in strength in unity not in the individual

    • led the fascists to try and take the capital (Rome), but they actually succeeded

    • ★ became the Prime minister of Italy because the Italian government brought Mussolini in and put him in power thinking they could control him in 1922

  • Weimar Republic

    • ★ This was the government that was put in place after Kaiser Wilhelm II was overthrown, it lasted from 1918-1934

    • Although the German government that started WWI didn’t even exist anymore

  • Adolf Hitler

    • He was Austrian but admired Germany so he moved there, joined the military, and fought for them in WWI

    • while working for Germany, he was a messenger so he started to form relations with people in high places

    • He joined the government and was essentially a spy, until he joined this one organization that was antisemitic.

    • Hitler liked the organization so much he joined it, became it’s leader, and changed the name to National Socialists Party (Nazi)

    • ★ The influence that the organization was causing started to become so large that the government put it in power thinking they could still control it just like what they did with Mussolini

  • Beer Hall Putsch

    • Hitler attempted to raid the capital like Mussolini did, but the raid failed and he was jailed in 1923

    • Germany

  • Kristallnacht

    • Night of Broken Glass, this is when Hitler directly encouraged violence against Jews

    • Nazi regime organized violent attacks against Jews in Germany and Austria

      • people who did this were mainly normal German people

      • destroyed synagogues, businesses, and homes and arrested 30,000 Jewish men

    • Seen as a turning point and started the harsh treatment of Jews which led to the Holocaust

    • 1938, Germany


The Second World War 1939-1949

  • Blitzkrieg

    • Germany invaded France and planned to invade as quickly as possible; hard pushed France

      • Planes & bombs → tanks → infantry

    • France wasn’t ready for this kind of warfare and fell

    • Germany and France in 1942

  • Operation Barbarossa

    • Germany broke the non-aggression pact it had with Russia and invaded

      • Attempted to do what they did with Blitzkrieg and it worked up until Russian winter came and Russia got the home field advantage

    • In 1941

  • Hiroshima & Nagasaki

    • This was the first time when atomic bombs were used in combat

    • The US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which become completely obliterated and are still uninhabitable

    • Japan in 1945

  • Nuremberg Trials

    • trying Nazi leaders who were responsible for the Holocaust because the damage and atrocities that were committed were too large to just past by

    • leaders of Nazi Germany were prosecuted

    • in Nuremberg, Germany from 1945-46

  • United Nations

    • The United Nations was established in 1945 in San Francisco, USA, replacing the League of Nations

    • Created by 51 founding nations to prevent future global conflicts like WWII and promote international cooperation

    • Key purposes include maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, and promoting human rights

    • Significant because it established a new framework for international diplomacy and collective security, responding directly to the failures that led to WWII and the atrocities of Nazi Germany

    • The UN Charter emphasized human rights and dignity in direct response to the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes


Origins of the Cold War 1816-1961

  • Manhattan Project

    • team put together to research and develop an atomic bomb in the U.S.

  • The Baruch Plan

    • atomic energy commission, completely disarm nuclear weapons, police the uranium and plutonium being gathered (weapon-grade levels of it)

    • Permanent Atomic Authority to bring rise to positive implementations of atomic usage

    • was not approved

  • Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

    • Since the Baruch Plan didn’t succeed

    • the best way to stop an abuse of nuclear power is the threat of nuclear power

    • There was more than one country that had atomic bombs, so if one launched an atomic bomb, the other would launch one of their own before they were destroyed.

    • This would cause both countries to be mutually destroyed.

  • NATO

    • North Atlantic Treaty Organization

    • mutual defense organization

    • the US spends a lot of money on defenses, yet the last time Europe was left to defend itself, it caused WWI & WWII

  • Division of Germany

    • plan to recreate Germany to make it peaceful and not create the conditions that caused WWII

    • rule over Germany was split between NATO and the Warsaw Pact

    • The US ruled the west side and advertised its ideas of capitalism

    • Russia rule the east side and advertised its ideas of communism

    • Russia tried to take the east side hostage to make the US do something (bc they wanted west Germany)

    • They blockaded Berlin because there was highway connecting the East and West Germany

      • this caused East Germany to become impoverished and many people tried to flee to West Germany which is when Russia put up the Berlin Wall

      • So the US responded with the Berlin Airlift where they few supply planes over east Berlin for sometime.

      • At it’s peak they were dropping supply packages every 30 seconds


Revolutions and Interventions 1946-present

  • Containment

    • The purpose of this containment aligned with the Domino Theory that if one nation became communist, the other nations around it would become communist too.

    • This is why the U.S. tried so hard to stop the prevent of communism anywhere.

  • Fulgencio Bautista

    • he was a Cuban military officer

    • he forms a coup and becomes president → dictator, 1940

    • he stepped down and was controlling Cuba from the shadows

      • the people where fine with his dictatorship

    • the people were fine until he wanted to come back and ran for reelection; reelection isn’t allowed in Cuba

      • this is where the people revolted

  • Fidel Castro,

    • Cuban revolutionary

    • Orthodox Party Leader, formed a revolution

    • he was going to run for a seat until elections were suspended by Bautista, were he formed a revolution

      • revolution failed and he was captured

    • He was freed, fled to Mexico, did the same thing there, Bautista fled to Spain and took all of Cuba’s funds

      • Cuba is now poor and needed money so he goes to Russia

    • US tried to kill him, Bay of Pigs failed (bc the public supported him), so his paranoia of ppl out to kill him led him to receive missiles from Russia which caused the Cuban Missile Crisis

  • Ho Chi Minh, 1890-1969

    • French, he traveled around, born in French Indochina

    • Joins the French Communist Party (1919), he wanted to free Vietnam from French powers

    • He felt betrayed by Allied powers when they returned Vietnam back to the French

    • He defeats the French there and this leads to the creation of North & South Vietnam

  • Ngo Dinh Diem

    • ruler of South Vietnam, backed by the U.S.

    • He ruled as a Communist, Civil War in South Vietnam

    • he became too oppressive, US comes in to try and remove communism and gets attacked by civilians from South Vietnam

    • After the US withdraws, North Vietnam invades and reunites Vietnam under communist rule


Decolonization: The Flight 1945-1983

  • Frantz Fanon

    • he was a French West Indian revolutionary, during the late 1900s

    • he called for a violent revolution as a means of decolonization and the creation of new human liberty

    • After witnessing the brutal effects of colonization in in Algeria, his mindset changed and began to push for more liberation

  • Sukarno

    • he was Indonesian, he had privileged parents, he had tried many different religions, he was a Polyglot

    • He really like philosophies → he joined a reading group about them → group became Indonesian Nationalist Party

    • He was exiled, fought in the war, didn’t want Japan to reclaim control of Indonesian so they declared independence

    • After lots of struggle and fighting with the Netherlands and with the Dutch they finally come to an agreement

      • ★ With that agreement Sukarno becomes the leader of Independent Indonesian 1959

  • Non-aligned

    • this was an agreement for multiple smaller nations to unite in opposition from receiving support from the United States and the USSR during the Cold War

    • it mainly consisted of developing nations and those who were recently freed from colonial rule

    • they received criticism for allowing dictatorships, however if they started policing each other they wouldn’t have the strength to sustain themselves

    • founded by Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and Sukarno of Indonesia

    • established in 1961 at the Belgrade Conference

  • Pieds-noirs

    • These were French people who had moved to and lived in Algeria while it was under French rule, which was 1830 to 1962, to 1900s

    • they made up 50% of the population so those who argued for Algerian Independence had a hard time because they could at most only get 50% of the population’s vote

    • the Pied-noirs didn’t want Algerian independence

  • Nasserism

    • Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein is the founder of this idea, came about during the 1950s

    • he create new ideas and brought up many Arab nations everywhere

    • these nations worked together 4 similar goals

    • the idea was to reject both Western communism and capitalism

    • in Egypt and Africa


Decolonization: Nonviolence & Civil Rights

  • Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi

    • lived from 1869-1948

    • was a lawyer in South Africa and was Indian, wanted a nonviolent approach, he said it took more bravery to stand firm at a protest when the police arrived

    • he wanted a secular Indian state were all religions were allowed

    • led the Salt March and brought the spinning wheel movement

  • Jawaharlal Nehru

    • he was Gandhi’s advisor, while Gandhi had all the ideas, Nehru was the one doing all the work behind the scenes

    • Ironically, him and Gandhi were very different

    • him and Gandhi were against the Cold War because they didn’t want to fight for a nation that exploited them, the United Kingdom

  • Apartheid

    • class levels; separating Black Africans from White Africans, legal discrimination like Jim Crow laws in the US

    • Bantustans was when Africans drew the line

      • these were strips of land where Black Africans would be allowed to live in

      • however they were not considered to be part of South Africa; this is where white Africans made Black Africans have visas and papers to be in South Africa

    • Black Africans had enough, they would not stand for them to require a paper to go to their homeland

  • Nelson Mandela

    • he was the face of African National Congress (ANC)’s Youth League

    • the ANC held protests and was political party to help African gain political status

    • it was made to bring Africans together but started to allow other minority races in as well

    • The ANC went under a change were police officers killed 3 unarmed protestors

  • Umkhonto we Sizwe (UK)

    • a new armed gorilla warfare group

    • lead very strategic attacks on the South African economy

    • the government used propaganda to cover their treatment of Africans from the United States and keep support during the Civil War

  • Truth and Reconciliation Commission

    • the trials are had to make leaders try and justify their treatment of Africans

    • this was after every black African received the right to vote, which immediately put the ANC in power

    • these were public courts so the world could see how these leaders were treating Africans and their means to explain it


Sunset over the Communist World 1970-1996

  • Henry Kissinger

    • An American Diplomat during the early 2000s

    • He believed that anything was better than the Holocaust happening again

    • He had Chile overthrown

    • Was involved in Operation CONDOR to destabilize South America and “prevent communism”

  • Soft Power

    • America started to create constructive programs

    • The Peace Corps in 1961 was created to help low-income Americans by sending them to other countries to help out there

      • almost like a PR stunt because people being sent aren’t getting paid to much and they’re sending the best people to represent American, not corrupt politicians or the like

    • United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was created in 1961 and its main purpose was to send money and resources out to other countries instead of people like in the Peace Corps

    • Radio American was created in 1985 which was a global radio channel which talked about global news, political commentary, cultural programming, and music

      • granted this was told in such a way to put America in a good light but it still offered an alternative narrative to the countries where the government controlled every kind of media

  • Mikhail Gorbachev

    • he was a Russian reformer who was the last leader of the Soviet Union in 1985

    • When he took power, he wanted to address the concerns of Russia’s satellite nations

    • He added more democratic policies to the government

    • ★ Most importantly, rather than crush under foot any revolutions as his previous predecessors, he let democracy rise

    • By doing so the nations then went to claim their independence and this was where the Soviet Union began to fall in 1991

  • The Cultural Revolution

    • Mao Zedong tried to rapidly industrialize China, making farmers become more industry oriented which as a consequence of the decrease of food caused a famine throughout China

    • ★ The government decides he is unfit to rule over China and kick him up. He is unhappy about this and goes around to create a mass following.

    • Mao and his following then start a movement to enforce Communist ideology by removing capitalistic and traditional element from society

    • this revolution happened from 1966-1976

  • Deng Xiaoping

    • He was a Chinese and the leader of the People’s Republic of China

    • he basically lead the change in Chinese culture after Mao died, around 1987.

    • This change was a shift from Maoist economy to one called socialist market economy

    • In other words, it aimed to reverse the changes brought by Mao and to replace them with economic development over class struggle

    • The result of this was the government still having lots of control however it’s economy becoming more much open and spread out

  • Tiananmen Square Massacre

    • The people were hoping for more democracy to be involved under Deng however he shut down the protests

    • The most notable of which was the Tiananmen Square Massacre

    • This was when numerous protests pushing for democracy were violently shut down and suppressed via military might in 1989


Human Rights and Genocide 1945-present

  • Raphael Lemkin

    • He was a Polish Jewish lawyer

    • he raised awareness of the Armenian Genocide

    • he is the one who coined the term genocide in 1943

    • He also worked on the Nuremberg Trials

  • Genocide

    • it is acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group

    • This term was created to describe the atrocities like the Holocaust in WWII

    • This term was unanimously adopted in 1948

    • Raphael Lemkin was the one who coined the term

  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

    • this is a set of rules that a person is granted no matter who they are or where they’re from

    • created in 1948 in Paris

    • essentially a global road map for equality

    • created by people from various different backgrounds

  • Peacekeepers

    • UN military force made up of recruited forces from the member nations of the UN

    • Unarmed Peacekeepers are often sent out to help keep an eye on things like elections and what have you

    • When armed Peacekeepers are sent in it is normally towards the end of the war and with the consent and usual at the request of the nations at war; in order for there to be some form of peace treaty or remedy to end the violence

    • they were formed in 1948

  • International Criminal Court

    • a tribunal (law court) that prosecutes (institutes legal actions) individuals for serious crimes like genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity

    • it was establish in 2002 in the Netherlands, Hague to be exact

    • it’s main purpose is to hold individuals accountable for incredibly grave offenses that those of genocide as well as those that take place in other nations


The Rise of Neoliberalism 1944-present

  • John Maynard Keynes

    • A British economist who studied at King’s College in Cambridge, England. He was a progressive liberalist. (1883-1946)

    • He created Keynesian economics, a body of theory emphasizing the role of government intervention in managing economic cycles.

    • He believed that the wealth gained from capitalism should be distributed among the working class.

      • He wanted to save capitalism from itself since capitalism is causes there to be a large class division between the wealthy and the poor.

    • Keynes argued that money should be used the moment the economy dips.

    • ★ He argued that government spending and intervention can stabilize economics, this challenged the idea that markets are self-correcting.

  • World Trade Organization

    • The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), in 1947 was an organization established to set basic rules for open, nondiscriminatory trade in the aftermath of World War II.

      • Its main goal was to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers to eliminate discriminatory treatment in international commerce.

    • ★ The World Trade Organization (WTO) was replaced the GATT in 1993 and was established to regulate and facilitate international commerce.

    • Its headquarters is located in Geneva, Switzerland.

    • The WTO’s main purpose is to create a predictable, transparent, and rules-based global trading system that promotes economic growth and international cooperation.

      • In other words, it sets rules for global trade and helps to manage and enforce them while also serving as a means for nations to handle disputes.

  • Milton Friedman

    • He was an American economist who advocated for free-market policies. (1912-2006)

    • As a supporter of free-market policies, he openly opposed Keynesian ideas.

    • ★ He thought that economic freedom = individual freedom and that any government intervention would make markets more inefficient. Friedman thought that the market would orient itself. He focused on inflation and money supply to control economy.

    • He believed that market was self-correcting.

  • Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC)

    • OPEC was an organized made up of oil-rich countries that manages oil production, prices, and aims to maximize profits. (1960)

      • Countries were Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela

    • When it was founded it broke the monopoly that British and American companies had on the oil market.

    • It started to gate keep oil which caused a global oil shortage in 1973 & 1979.

  • Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN)

    • Armed indigenous revolutionary organization based in Mexico’s poorest state. 1983

    • The organization came about to repel against oppression and lack of political representation for Mexico’s indigenous people.

    • They then formed autonomous communities with armed self-defense.

    • ★ It is significant because this revolution brought attention to human rights, neoliberalism, and indigenous autonomy.


    Global Religious Fundamentalism

  • John Nelson Darby

    • he was a British bible teacher

    • he was popular around the 1800s (1880-1882)

    • he thought that the bible was to be interpreted literally

    • his ideas became very popular and he is a major contributor to apocalyptic theology today

  • Shalier Matthews

    • he was an American Liberal Christian, he was significant around 1940s

    • his was spread the idea that the bible should be interpreted symbolically

    • he wanted to stop people from becoming atheist so he wanted to make the bible align more with science

  • Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

    • he was an Iranian cleric

    • he was the leader of the Iranian Revolution where he overthrew the shah

    • he founded the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979

  • Abul A’la Maududi

    • he was born in Britsh India

    • he is a South Asian Islamic scholar

    • he is responsible for breaking tradition and translating the Quran which led to many people having different interpretations due the meanings lost through translation

    • he wrote his version of the Qu’ran in 1942

  • Osama bin Laden

    • he was born in Saudi Arabia

    • he was the founder of the al-Qaeda

    • he was responsible for numerous terrorist attacks on the US

    • he was also behind 9/11 in 2001


The Global War on Terror

  • Al Qaeda

    • a Islamic terrorist group founded by Osama bin Laden in the 1980s

    • it was founded in Afghanistan

    • responsible for 9/11

  • “Axis of evil”

    • A phrase used by George W. Bush to describe Iran, North Korea, and Ba'athist Iraq which Bush labeled as terrorist groups

    • it was just a list of lies the government came up with to link Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda so we could invade Iraq

    • term was made and used in 2002 and 2003

  • Saddam Hussein

    • he was an Iraq politician and was the president of Iraq

    • he led Iraq into many conflicts and caused the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War

    • the US invaded Iraq to capture him on false claims that he had weapons of mass destruction

  • The Islamic State (ISIS)

    • militant organization named ISIS in 2013

    • started out as the al-Qaeda

    • when it kept spreading and eventually took control of Syria and Iraq it became ISIS

  • Benjamin Netanyahu

    • he was born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1949

    • he is the longest-serving Prime Minister of Israel

    • he is known for turning Israel into a more protective and technology advanced, and diplomatically expanded the regional power of Israel