AP World History - Unit: 5 World Cultures in the Modern Era

Western Front

A line of trenches and fortifications in World War I that stretched without a break from Switzerland to the North Sea. Scene of most of the fighting between Germany, on the one hand, and France and Britain, on the other.

Faisal

(1885-1993) Arab prince, leader of the Arab Revolt in World War I. The British made him king of Iraq in 1921, and he reigned under British protection until 1933.

Theodore Herzl

(1860-1904) Austrian journalist and founder of the Zionist movement urging the creation of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.

Balfour Declaration

Statement issued by Britain's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917 favoring the establishment of a jewish homeland in the state of Palestine

Bolsheveiks

Radical Marxist political party founded by Vladimir Lenin in 1903. Under Lenin's leadership, the __________ seized power in November 1917 during the Russian Revolution.

Vladimir Lenin

(1870-1924) Leader of the Bolshevik Party. He lived in exile in Switzerland until 1917, then returned to Russia to lead the Bolsheviks to victory during the Russian revolution and the civil war that followed.

Woodrow Wilson

(1856-1922) President of the United States (1913-1921) and the leading figure at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. He was unable to persuade the U.S. Congress to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League of Nations.

Fourteen Points

A peace program presented to the U.S. Congress by President Woodrow Wilson in January 1918. I called for the evacuation of German-occupied lands, the drawing of borders and the settling of territorial disputes by the self-determination of the affected pop

League of Nations

International organization founded in 1919 to promote world peace and cooperation but greatly weakened by the refusal of the U.S to join. It proved ineffectual in stopping aggression by Italy, Japan, and Germany in the 1930s, and it was superseded by the

Treaty of Versailles

(1919) The treaty imposed on Germany by France, Great Britain, the United States, and other Allied Powers after World War I. It demanded that Germany dismantle its military and give up some lands to Poland. It was resented by many Germans.

New Economic Policy

Policy proclaimed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 to encourage the revival of the Soviet economy by allowing small private enterprises. Joseph Stalin ended the N.E.P. in 1928 and replaced it with a series of 5-year plans.

Sun Yat-sen

(1867-1925) Chinese nationalist revolutionary, founder and leader of the Guomindang until his death. He attempted to create a liberal democratic policy but was thwarted by military leaders.

Yuan Shikai

(1859-1916) Chinese general and first president of the Chinese Republic (1912-1916). He stood in the way of the democratic movement led by Sun Yat-Sen.

Guomindang

Nationalist political party founded on democratic principles by Sun Yat-Sen in 1912. After 1925, the party was headed by Chiang Kai-Shek, who turned it into an increasingly authoritarian movement.

Chiang Kai-shek

(1887-1975) Chinese military and political leader. Succeeded Sun Yat-Sen as head of the Guomindang in 1925; headed the Chinese government from 1928 to 1948; fought against the Chinese Communists and Japanese invaders. After 1949 he headed teh Chinese Nati

mandate system

Allocation of former German colonies and Ottoman possessions to the victorious powers after World War I, to be administered under League of Nations supervision.

Ataturk

(1880-1938) The founder of modern Turkey. An army officer, he distinguished himself in the defense of Gallipoli in WWI and expelled a Greek expeditionary army from Anatolia in 1921-1922. He abolished the sultanate and replaced the Ottoman Empire with the

Margaret Sanger

(1883-1966) American nurse and author; pioneer in the movement for family planning; organized conferences and established birth control clinics.

Max Planck

(1858-1947) German physicist who developed quantum theory and was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1918.

Albert Einstein

(1879-1955) German physicist who developed the theory of relativity, which states that time, space and mass are relative to each other and not fixed.

Sigmund Freud

(1856-1939) Austrian psychiatrist, fouder of psychoanalysis. He argued that psychological problems were caused by traumas, especially sexual experiences in early childhoof, that were repressed in later life. His ideas caused considerable controversy among

Wilbur and Orville Wright

(1867-1912), (1871-1948) American bicycle mechanics; the first to build and fly an airplane, at Kitty Hawk, N Carolina, December 7, 1903.

Joseph Stalin

(1879-1953) Bolshevik revolutionary, head of the Soviet Communist Party and after 1924, and dictator of the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1953. He led the Soviet Union with an iron fist, using Five-Year Plans to increase industrial production and terror to cr

Five-Years Plan

Plans that Joseph Stalin introduced to industrialize the Soviet Union rapidly, beginning in 1928. They set goals for the output of steel, electricity, machinery and most other products and were enforced by the police powers of the state. They succeeded in

Benito Mussolini

(1883-1945) Fascist dictator of Italy (1922-1943). He led Italy to conquer Ethiopia (1935), joined Germany in the Axis pact (1936), and allied Italy with Germany in WWII. He was overthrown in 1943 when the allies invaded Italy.

Fascist Party

italian political party created by Mussolini during WWI. It emphasized aggressive nationalism and was Mussolini;s instrument for the creation of a dictatorship in Italy from 1922 to 1943.

Adolf Hitler

(1889-1945) Born in Austria, Hitler became a radical German nationalist during WWI. HE led the National Socialist German Workers' Party - the Nazis - in the 1920s and became dictator of Germany in 1933. HE led Europe into WWII.

Nazi Party

German political party joined by Adolf Hitler, emphasizing nationalism, racism, and war. When Hitler became Chancellor of Germant in 1933, the Nazis became the only legal party and an instrument of Hitler's absolute rule. The party's formal name was Natio

Mao Zeong

(1893-1976) Leader of the Chinese Communist Patyu (1927-1976). He led the Communists on the Long March (1934-1935)and rebuilt the Communist Party and Red Army during the Japanese occupation of China (1937-1945). After WWII, he led the Communists to victor

Long March

(1934-1935) The 6,000 mile flight of Chinese Communists from southeastern to northwestern China. The Communists, led by Mao Zedong, were pursued by the Chinese army under orders from Chiang Kai-Shek. The four thousand survivors of the march formed the nuc

Stalingrad

City in Russia, site of a Red Army victory over the German army in 1942-1943. The Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point in the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. Today Volgograd.

El Alamein

Town in Egypt, site of the victory by Britain's Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery over German forces led by General Erwin Rommel in 1942-1943.

Pearl Harbor

Naval base in Hawaii attacked by Japanese aircraft on December 7, 1941. The sinking of much of the U.S. Pacific Fleet brought the United States into WWII.

Battle of Midway

U.S. naval victory over the Japanese fleet in June 1942, in which the Japanese lost four of their best aircraft carriers. It marked a turning point in World War II.

Hiroshima

City in Japan, the first to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, on August 6, 1945. The bombing hastened the end of WWII.

Auschwitz

Nazi extermination camp in Poland, the largest center of mass murder during the Holocaust. Close to a million Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and others were killed there.

Holocaust

Nazi program during WWII to kill people they considered undesriable. Some 6 million Jews perished dring the Holocaust along with millions of Poles, Gypsies, Communists, Socialists, and others.

Indian National Congress

A movement and political party founded in 1985 to demand greater Indian participation in government. Its membership was middle class, and its demands were modest until WWI. Led after 1920 by Gandhi, it appealed increasinglu to the poor, and it organized m

Bengal

Region of northeastern India. It was the first part of India to be conquered by the British in the 18th century and remained the political and economic center of British India throughout the 19th century. The 1905 split of the province into predominantly

All-India Muslim League

Political organization founded in India in 1906 to defend the interests of India's Muslim minority. LEd by Muhammed Ali Jinnah, it attempted to negotiate with the Indian National Congress. In 1940, the League began demanding a separate state for Muslims,

Mohandas K. Gandhi

(1869-1948) Leader of the Indian independence movement and advocate of nonviolent resistance. After being educated as a lawyer in England, he returned to India and became leader of the INC in 1920. He appealed to the poor, led nonviolent demonstrations ag

Jawaharlal Nehru

(1889-1964) Indian statesman. He succeeded Gandhi as leader of the INC. He negotiated the end of British colonial tule in India and became India's first prime minister.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah

(1876-1948) Indian Muslim politician who founded the state of Pakistan. A lawyer by training, he joined the All-India Muslim League in 1913. As leader of the League from the 1920s on, he negotiated with the British and the INC for Muslim participation in

Blaise Diagne

(1872-1934) Senegalese political leader. Senegalese political leader. He wa the first African elected to the French National Assembly. during World War I, in exchange for promises to give French citizenship to Senegalese, he helped recruit Africans to ser

African National Congress

An organization dedicated to obtaining equal voting and civil rights for black inhabitants of South Africa. Founded in1912 as the South African Native National Congress, it changed its name in 1923. Though it was banned and its leaders were jailed for man

Haile Selassie

...(1892-1975) Emperor of Ethiopia(r.1930-1974) and symbol of African independence. He fought the Italian invasion of his country in 1935 and regained his throne during World War II, when British forces expelled the Italians. He ruled Ethiopia as a tradit

Emiliano Zapata

(1879-1919) Revolutionary and leader of peasants in the Mexican Revolution. He mobilized landless peasants in south-central Mexico in an attempt to seize and divide the lands of the wealthy landowners. Though successful for a time, he was ultimately defea

Pancho Villa

(1877-1923) A popular leader during the Mexican Revolution. An outlaw in his youth, when the revolution started, he formed a cavalry army in the north of Mexico and fought for the rights of the landless in collaboration with Emiliano Zapata. He was assass

Lazaro Cardenas

(1895-1970) President of Mexico (1934-1940). He brought major changes to Mexican life by distributing million of acres of land to the peasants, bringing representatives of workers and farmers into the inner circles of politics, and nationalizing the oil i

Hipolito Irogoyen

(1850-1933) Argentine politician, president of Argentina from 1916 to 1922 and 1928 to 1930. The first president elected by universal male suffrage, he began his presidency as a reformer, but later became conservative.

Getulio Vargas

(1883-1954) Dictator of Brazil from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Defeated in the presidential election of 1930, he overthrew the government and created Estado Novo ("New State"), a dictatorship that emphasized industrialization and helped the urban

import-substitution industrialization

An economic system aimed at building a country's industry by restricting foreign trade. It was especially popular in Latin American countries such as Mexico, Argentina and Brazil in the mid-twentieth century. It proved successful for a time but could not

Juan Peron

(1895-1974) President of Argentina (1946-1955) As a military officer, he championed the rights of labor. Aided by his wife Eva Duarte Peron, he was elected president in 1946. He built up Argentinean industry, became very popular among the urban poor, but

Eva Duarte Peron

(1919-1952) Wife of Juan Peron and champion of the poor in Argentina. She was a gifted speaker and popular political leader who campaigned to improve the life of the urban poor by founding schools and hospitals and providing other social benefits.

Iron Curtain

Winston Churchill's term for the Cold War division between the Soviet-dominated East and U.S. -dominated West.

Cold War

(1945-1991) The ideological struggle between communism (Soviet Union) and capitalism (United States) for world influence. The Soviet Union and the United States came to the brink of actual war during the Cuban missile crisis but never attacked one another

NATO

Organization formed in 1949 as a military alliance of western European and North American states against the Soviet Union and its east European allies

Warsaw Pact

The 1955 treaty binding the Soviet Union and countries of eastern Europe in an alliance against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

United Nations

International organization founded in 1945 to promote world peace and cooperation. It replaced the League of Nations.

World Bank

A specialized agency of the United Nations that makes loans to countries for economic development, trade promotion, and debt consolidation. Its formal name is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Marshall Plan

U.S. program to support the reconstruction of western Europe after World War II. By 1961 more than $20 billionin economic aid had been dispersed.

European Community

(1967) an organization promoting economic unity, consolidating earlier, more limited, agreements. Replaced by the European Union in 1993.

Truman Doctrine

Foreign policy initiated by U.S. president Harry Truman in 1947. It offered military aid to help Turkey and Greece resist Soviet military pressure and subversion.

Korean War

(1950-1953) Conflict that began with North Korea's invasion of South Korea and came to involve the United Nations (primarily the United States) allying with South Korea and the People's Republic of China allying with North Korea.

Vietnam War

(1954-1975) Conflict pitting North Vietnam and South Vietnamese communist guerrillas against the South Vietnamese government, aided after 1961 by the United States.

Cuban missile crisis

(1962) Brink-of-war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the latter's placement of nuclear-armed-missiles in Cuba

Helsinki Accords

(1975) Political and human rights agreement signed in Helsinki, Finland, by the Soviet Union and western European countries.

nonaligned nations

Developing countries that announced their neutrality in the Cold War.

Third World

Term applied to a group of developing countries who professed nonalignment during the Cold War.

Cultural Revolution (China)

(1966-1976) Campaign in China ordered by Mao Zedong to purge the Communist Party of his opponents and instill revolutionary values in the younger generation.

OPEC

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Organization formed in 1960 by oil-producing states to promote their collective interest in generating revenue from oil.