History exam (everything you need to know)

"United States of America", "America", "US", "USA", and "USOA" redirect here. For the landmass comprising North, Central and South America, see Americas. For other uses, see America (disambiguation), US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), USOA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation). Coordinates: 40°N 100°W United States of America Flag of the United States Flag Great Seal of the United States Great Seal Motto: "In God We Trust"[1][fn 1] Other traditional mottos [show] Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner" MENU0:00 March: "The Stars and Stripes Forever"[2][3] MENU0:00 Projection of North America with the United States in green The contiguous United States plus Alaska and Hawaii The United States and its territories The United States including its territories Capital Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°01′W Largest city New York City 40°43′N 74°00′W Official languages None at federal level[fn 2] National language English[fn 3] Ethnic groups (2016[6]) By race: 77.1% White 13.3% Black 5.6% Asian 2.6% Other/multiracial 1.2% American Indian 0.2% Pacific Islander Ethnicity: 17.6% Hispanic or Latino 82.4% non-Hispanic or Latino Religion (2017[7]) 69% Christian 24% Unaffiliated 3% Unanswered 2% Jewish 1% Muslim 1% Buddhist 1% Hindu 1% Other Demonym American Government Federal presidential constitutional republic • President Donald Trump • Vice President Mike Pence • House Speaker Paul Ryan • Chief Justice John Roberts Legislature Congress • Upper house Senate • Lower house House of Representatives Independence from Great Britain • Declaration July 4, 1776 • Confederation March 1, 1781 • Treaty of Paris September 3, 1783 • Constitution June 21, 1788 • Last polity admitted March 24, 1976 Area • Total area 3,796,742 sq mi (9,833,520 km2)[8] (3rd/4th) • Water (%) 6.97 • Total land area 3,531,905 sq mi (9,147,590 km2) Population • 2017 estimate 325,719,178[9] (3rd) • 2010 census 308,745,538[10] (3rd) • Density 85/sq mi (32.8/km2) (179th) GDP (PPP) 2017 estimate • Total $19.390 trillion[11] (2nd) • Per capita $59,501[11] (11th) GDP (nominal) 2017 estimate • Total $19.390 trillion[11] (1st) • Per capita $59,501[11] (7th) Gini (2013) Negative increase 41.1[12] medium HDI (2015) Increase 0.920[13] very high · 10th Currency United States dollar ($) (USD) Time zone (UTC−4 to −12, +10, +11) • Summer (DST) (UTC−4 to −10[fn 4]) Date format mm/dd/yyyy Drives on the right[fn 5] Calling code +1 ISO 3166 code US Internet TLD .us The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.[fn 6] At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km2) and with over 325 million people, the United States is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area[fn 7] and the third-most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous and in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.[19] Paleo-Indians migrated from Russia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago.[20] European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, and the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776. The war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power.[21] The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories,[22] displacing Native American tribes, and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848.[22] During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.[23][24] By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean,[25] and its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar.[26] The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 moon landing. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower.[27] The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a representative democracy, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law".[28] The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States (OAS), and other international organizations. The United States is a highly developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for approximately a quarter of global GDP.[29] The U.S. economy is largely post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world.[30] The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods.[31][32] Though its population is only 4.3% of the world total,[33] the U.S. holds 33.4% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country.[34] The United States ranks among the highest nations in several measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage,[35] human development, per capita GDP, and productivity per person.[36] The U.S. is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending,[37] and is a leading political, cultural, and scientific force internationally.[38] Contents [hide] 1 Etymology 2 History 2.1 Indigenous peoples and pre-Columbian history 2.2 European settlements 2.2.1 Effects on and interaction with native populations 2.3 Independence and expansion (1776-1865) 2.4 Civil War and Reconstruction Era 2.5 Further immigration, expansion, and industrialization 2.6 World War I, Great Depression, and World War II 2.7 Cold War and civil rights era 2.8 Contemporary history 3 Geography, climate, and environment 3.1 Wildlife 4 Demographics 4.1 Population 4.2 Language 4.3 Religion 4.4 Family structure 5 Government and politics 5.1 Political divisions 5.2 Parties and elections 5.3 Foreign relations 5.4 Government finance 5.5 Military 6 Law enforcement and crime 7 Economy 7.1 Income, poverty and wealth 8 Infrastructure 8.1 Transportation 8.2 Energy 8.3 Water supply and sanitation 9 Education 10 Culture 10.1 Food 10.2 Literature, philosophy, and visual art 10.3 Music 10.4 Cinema 10.5 Sports 10.6 Mass media 11 Science and technology 12 Health 13 See also 14 Notes 15 References 16 Bibliography 16.1 Internet sources 17 External links Etymology See also: Naming of the Americas, Names for United States citizens, and American (word) The American continents are named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.[39] In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci (Latin: Americus Vespucius).[40] The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq., George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army. Addressed to Lt. Col. Joseph Reed, Moylan expressed his wish to carry the "full and ample powers of the United States of America" to Spain to assist in the revolutionary war effort.[41][42][43] The first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776.[44] The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the 'United States of America'".[45] The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'".[46] In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence.[45] This draft of the document did not surface until June 21, 1776, and it is unclear whether it was written before or after Dickinson used the term in his June 17 draft of the Articles of Confederation.[45] The short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms are the "U.S.", the "USA", and "America". Colloquial names are the "U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States". "Columbia", a name popular in poetry and songs of the late 18th century, derives its origin from Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "District of Columbia".[47] The phrase "United States" was originally plural, a description of a collection of independent states—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865.[48] The singular form—e.g., "the United States is"—became popular after the end of the American Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States". The difference is more significant than usage; it is a difference between a collection of states and a unit.[49] A citizen of the United States is an "American". "United States", "American" and "U.S." refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). In English, the word "American" rarely refers to topics or subjects not connected with the United States.[50] History Main articles: History of the United States, Timeline of United States history, American business history, Economic history of the United States, and Labor history of the United States Indigenous peoples and pre-Columbian history Further information: History of Native Americans in the United States Monks Mound in Cahokia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest and most influential settlement in Mississippian culture. The concrete staircase follows the approximate course of ancient wooden stairs. The Cliff Palace, built by the Ancestral Puebloans, is the largest Native cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park. The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 15,000 years ago, though increasing evidence suggests an even earlier arrival.[51] After crossing the land bridge, the first Americans moved southward, either along the Pacific coast[52][53] or through an interior ice-free corridor between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets.[54] The Clovis culture appeared around 11,000 BC, and it is considered to be an ancestor of most of the later indigenous cultures of the Americas.[55] While the Clovis culture was thought, throughout the late 20th century, to represent the first human settlement of the Americas,[56] in recent years consensus has changed in recognition of pre-Clovis cultures.[57] Over time, indigenous cultures in North America grew increasingly complex, and some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture in the southeast, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies.[58] From approximately 800 to 1600 AD[59] the Mississippian culture flourished, and its largest city Cahokia is considered the largest, most complex pre-Columbian archaeological site in the modern-day United States.[60] While in the Four Corners region, Ancestral Puebloans culture developed.[61] Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the United States are credited to the Pueblos: Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, and Taos Pueblo. The earthworks constructed by Native Americans of the Poverty Point culture in northeastern Louisiana have also been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.[62] In the southern Great Lakes region, the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) was established at some point between the twelfth[63] and fifteenth centuries,[64] lasting until the end of the Revolutionary War.[65] The date of the first settlements of the Hawaiian Islands is a topic of continuing debate.[66] Archaeological evidence seems to indicate a settlement as early as 124 AD.[67] During his third and final voyage, Captain James Cook became the first European to begin formal contact with Hawaii.[68] After his initial landfall in January 1778 at Waimea harbor, Kauai, Cook named the archipelago the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of Sandwich—the acting First Lord of the Admiralty of the British Royal Navy.[69] European settlements Further information: Colonial history of the United States, European colonization of the Americas, and Thirteen Colonies Saint Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States (1565)[70] The Mayflower Compact, 1620 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris After Spain sent Columbus on his first voyage to the New World in 1492, other explorers followed. The first Europeans to arrive in the territory of the modern United States were Spanish conquistadors such as Juan Ponce de León, who made his first visit to Florida in 1513; however, if unincorporated territories are accounted for, then credit would go to Christopher Columbus who landed in Puerto Rico on his 1493 voyage. Spanish set up the first settlements in Florida and New Mexico such as Saint Augustine[70] and Santa Fe. The French established their own as well along the Mississippi River. Successful English settlement on the eastern coast of North America began with the Virginia Colony in 1607 at Jamestown and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. Many settlers were dissenting Christian groups who came seeking religious freedom. The continent's first elected legislative assembly, Virginia's House of Burgesses created in 1619, the Mayflower Compact, signed by the Pilgrims before disembarking, and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, established precedents for the pattern of representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies.[71][72] Most settlers in every colony were small farmers, but other industries developed within a few decades as varied as the settlements. Cash crops included tobacco, rice, and wheat. Extraction industries grew up in furs, fishing and lumber. Manufacturers produced rum and ships, and by the late colonial period, Americans were producing one-seventh of the world's iron supply.[73] Cities eventually dotted the coast to support local economies and serve as trade hubs. English colonists were supplemented by waves of Scotch-Irish and other groups. As coastal land grew more expensive, freed indentured servants pushed further west.[74] A large-scale slave trade with English privateers was begun.[75] The life expectancy of slaves was much higher in North America than further south, because of less disease and better food and treatment, leading to a rapid increase in the numbers of slaves.[76][77] Colonial society was largely divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery, and colonies passed acts for and against the practice.[78][79] But by the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were replacing indentured servants for cash crop labor, especially in southern regions.[80] With the British colonization of Georgia in 1732, the 13 colonies that would become the United States of America were established.[81] All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism.[82] With extremely high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grew rapidly. Relatively small Native American populations were eclipsed.[83] The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty.[84] During the Seven Years' War (in the United States, known as the French and Indian War), British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans, who were being conquered and displaced, the 13 British colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain. Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase was such that by the 1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.[85] The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed the development of self-government, but their success motivated monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.[86] In 1774, the Spanish Navy ship Santiago, under Juan Pérez, entered and anchored in an inlet of Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, in present-day British Columbia. Although the Spanish did not land, natives paddled to the ship to trade furs for abalone shells from California.[87] At the time, the Spanish were able to monopolize the trade between Asia and North America, granting limited licenses to the Portuguese. When the Russians began establishing a growing fur trading system in Alaska, the Spanish began to challenge the Russians, with Pérez's voyage being the first of many to the Pacific Northwest.[88][fn 8] After having arrived in the Hawaiian islands in 1778, Captain Cook sailed north and then northeast to explore the west coast of North America north of the Spanish settlements in Alta California. He made landfall on the Oregon coast at approximately 44°30′ north latitude, naming his landing point Cape Foulweather. Bad weather forced his ships south to about 43° north before they could begin their exploration of the coast northward.[90] In March 1778, Cook landed on Bligh Island and named the inlet "King George's Sound". He recorded that the native name was Nutka or Nootka, apparently misunderstanding his conversations at Friendly Cove/Yuquot; his informant may have been explaining that he was on an island (itchme nutka, a place you can "go around"). There may also have been confusion with Nuu-chah-nulth, the natives' autonym (a name for themselves). It may also have simply been based on Cook's mispronunciation of Yuquot, the native name of the place.[91] Effects on and interaction with native populations Further information: American Indian Wars, Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, and James Cook Death of Captain Cook by Johann Zoffany (1795) With the progress of European colonization in the territories of the contemporary United States, the Native Americans were often conquered and displaced.[92] The native population of America declined after Europeans arrived, and for various reasons, primarily diseases such as smallpox and measles. Violence was not a significant factor in the overall decline among Native Americans, though conflict among themselves and with Europeans affected specific tribes and various colonial settlements.[93][94][95][96][97][98] In the early days of colonization, many European settlers were subject to food shortages, disease, and attacks from Native Americans. Native Americans were also often at war with neighboring tribes and allied with Europeans in their colonial wars. At the same time, however, many natives and settlers came to depend on each other. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts, natives for guns, ammunition and other European wares.[99] Natives taught many settlers where, when and how to cultivate corn, beans, and squash. European missionaries and others felt it was important to "civilize" the Native Americans and urged them to adopt European agricultural techniques and lifestyles.[100][101] Captain James Cook's last voyage included sailing along the coast of North America and Alaska searching for a Northwest Passage for approximately nine months. He returned to Hawaii to resupply, initially exploring the coasts of Maui and the big island, trading with locals and then making anchor at Kealakekua Bay in January 1779. When his ships and company left the islands, a ship's mast broke in bad weather, forcing them to return in mid-February. Cook would be killed days later.[102] [fn 9][fn 10] Independence and expansion (1776-1865) Further information: American Revolutionary War, United States Declaration of Independence, American Revolution, and Territorial evolution of the United States Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull The American Revolutionary War was the first successful colonial war of independence against a European power. Americans had developed an ideology of "republicanism" asserting that government rested on the will of the people as expressed in their local legislatures. They demanded their rights as Englishmen and "no taxation without representation". The British insisted on administering the empire through Parliament, and the conflict escalated into war.[115] Following the passage of the Lee Resolution, on July 2, 1776, which was the actual vote for independence, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, which proclaimed, in a long preamble, that humanity is created equal in their unalienable rights and that those rights were not being protected by Great Britain, and declared, in the words of the resolution, that the Thirteen Colonies were independent states and had no allegiance to the British crown in the United States. The fourth day of July is celebrated annually as Independence Day.[116] The Second Continental Congress declared on September 9 "where, heretofore, the words 'United Colonies' have been used, the stile be altered for the future to the 'United States' ".[117] In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak government that operated until 1789.[116] Britain recognized the independence of the United States following their defeat at Yorktown in 1781.[118] In the peace treaty of 1783, American sovereignty was recognized from the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River. Nationalists led the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in writing the United States Constitution, ratified in state conventions in 1788. The federal government was reorganized into three branches, on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances, in 1789. George Washington, who had led the revolutionary army to victory, was the first president elected under the new constitution. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.[119] Although the federal government criminalized the international slave trade in 1808, after 1820, cultivation of the highly profitable cotton crop exploded in the Deep South, and along with it, the slave population.[120][121][122] The Second Great Awakening, especially 1800-1840, converted millions to evangelical Protestantism. In the North, it energized multiple social reform movements, including abolitionism;[123] in the South, Methodists and Baptists proselytized among slave populations.[124] Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of American Indian Wars.[125] The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory in 1803 almost doubled the nation's area.[126] The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism.[127] A series of military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819.[128] The expansion was aided by steam power, when steamboats began traveling along America's large water systems, which were connected by new canals, such as the Erie and the I&M; then, even faster railroads began their stretch across the nation's land.[129] From 1820 to 1850, Jacksonian democracy began a set of reforms which included wider white male suffrage; it led to the rise of the Second Party System of Democrats and Whigs as the dominant parties from 1828 to 1854. The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that resettled Indians into the west on Indian reservations. The U.S. annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845 during a period of expansionist Manifest destiny.[130] The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest.[131] Victory in the Mexican-American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest.[132] The California Gold Rush of 1848-49 spurred western migration and the creation of additional western states.[133] After the American Civil War, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade and increased conflicts with Native Americans.[134] Over a half-century, the loss of the American bison (sometimes called "buffalo") was an existential blow to many Plains Indians cultures.[135] In 1869, a new Peace Policy sought to protect Native-Americans from abuses, avoid further war, and secure their eventual U.S. citizenship, although conflicts, including several of the largest Indian Wars, continued throughout the West into the 1900s.[136] The Statue of Liberty in New York City, dedicated in 1886, is a symbol of the United States as well as its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity.[137] Civil War and Reconstruction Era Further information: American Civil War and Reconstruction Era The Battle of Gettysburg by Thure de Thulstrup Differences of opinion regarding the slavery of Africans and African Americans ultimately led to the American Civil War.[138] Initially, states entering the Union had alternated between slave and free states, keeping a sectional balance in the Senate, while free states outstripped slave states in population and in the House of Representatives. But with additional western territory and more free-soil states, tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over federalism and disposition of the territories, whether and how to expand or restrict slavery.[139] This led to Missouri's controversial denouncement of the issue, as well as the formation of many short-lived territories such as the State of Scott, a county that left Tennessee to stay anti-slavery.[140] With the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, the first president from the largely anti-slavery Republican Party, conventions in thirteen slave states ultimately declared secession and formed the Confederate States of America (the "South"), while the federal government (the "Union") maintained that secession was illegal.[139] In order to bring about this secession, military action was initiated by the secessionists, and the Union responded in kind. The ensuing war would become the deadliest military conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of approximately 618,000 soldiers as well as many civilians.[141] The South fought for the freedom to own slaves, while the Union at first simply fought to maintain the country as one united whole. Nevertheless, as casualties mounted after 1863 and Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation, the main purpose of the war from the Union's viewpoint became the abolition of slavery. Indeed, when the Union ultimately won the war in April 1865, each of the states in the defeated South was required to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibited slavery. Three amendments were added to the U.S. Constitution in the years after the war: the aforementioned Thirteenth as well as the Fourteenth Amendment providing citizenship to the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves,[142] and the Fifteenth Amendment ensuring in theory that African Americans had the right to vote. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power[143] aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the South while guaranteeing the rights of the newly freed slaves. Reconstruction began in earnest following the war. While President Lincoln attempted to foster friendship and forgiveness between the Union and the former Confederacy, an assassin's bullet on April 14, 1865, drove a wedge between North and South again. Republicans in the federal government made it their goal to oversee the rebuilding of the South and to ensure the rights of African Americans. They persisted until the Compromise of 1877 when the Republicans agreed to cease protecting the rights of African Americans in the South in order for Democrats to concede the presidential election of 1876. Southern white Democrats, calling themselves "Redeemers", took control of the South after the end of Reconstruction. From 1890 to 1910, so-called Jim Crow laws disenfranchised most blacks and some poor whites throughout the region. Blacks faced racial segregation, especially in the South.[144] They also occasionally experienced vigilante violence, including lynching.[145] Further immigration, expansion, and industrialization Main articles: Economic history of the United States and Technological and industrial history of the United States Ellis Island, in New York City, was a major gateway for European immigration[146] In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe supplied a surplus of labor for the country's industrialization and transformed its culture.[147] National infrastructure including telegraph and transcontinental railroads spurred economic growth and greater settlement and development of the American Old West. The later invention of electric light and the telephone would also affect communication and urban life.[148] The end of the Indian Wars further expanded acreage under mechanical cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets.[149] Mainland expansion was completed by the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.[150] In 1893, pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the monarchy and formed the Republic of Hawaii, which the U.S. annexed in 1898. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by Spain in the same year, following the Spanish-American War.[151] American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the end of the Second Samoan Civil War.[152] The United States purchased the U.S. Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917.[153] Rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries fostered the rise of many prominent industrialists. Tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie led the nation's progress in railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. Banking became a major part of the economy, with J. P. Morgan playing a notable role. Edison and Tesla undertook the widespread distribution of electricity to industry, homes, and for street lighting. Henry Ford revolutionized the automotive industry. The American economy boomed, becoming the world's largest, and the United States achieved great power status.[154] These dramatic changes were accompanied by social unrest and the rise of populist, socialist, and anarchist movements.[155] This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which saw significant reforms in many societal areas, including women's suffrage, alcohol prohibition, regulation of consumer goods, greater antitrust measures to ensure competition and attention to worker conditions.[156][157][158] World War I, Great Depression, and World War II Further information: World War I, Great Depression, and World War II Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash The United States remained neutral from the outbreak of World War I, in 1914, until 1917 when it joined the war as an "associated power", alongside the formal Allies of World War I, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson took a leading diplomatic role at the Paris Peace Conference and advocated strongly for the U.S. to join the League of Nations. However, the Senate refused to approve this and did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles that established the League of Nations.[159] In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage.[160] The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of radio for mass communication and the invention of early television.[161] The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, which included the establishment of the Social Security system.[162] The Great Migration of millions of African Americans out of the American South began before World War I and extended through the 1960s;[163] whereas the Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.[164] At first effectively neutral during World War II while Germany conquered much of continental Europe, the United States began supplying material to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers.[165] During the war, the United States was referred as one of the "Four Policemen"[166] of Allies power who met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the Soviet Union and China.[167][168] Though the nation lost more than 400,000 soldiers,[169] it emerged relatively undamaged from the war with even greater economic and military influence.[170] The United States played a leading role in the Bretton Woods and Yalta conferences with the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and other Allies, which signed agreements on new international financial institutions and Europe's postwar reorganization. As an Allied victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.[171] The United States developed the first nuclear weapons and used them on Japan in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; causing the Japanese to surrender on September 2, ending World War II.[172][173] Parades and celebrations followed in what is known as Victory Day, or V-J Day.[174] Cold War and civil rights era Main articles: History of the United States (1945-64), History of the United States (1964-80), and History of the United States (1980-91) Further information: Cold War, Civil Rights Movement, War on Poverty, Space Race, and Reaganomics U.S. President Ronald Reagan at his "Tear down this wall!" speech in Berlin, Germany on June 12, 1987.[175] After World War II the United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for power during what became known as the Cold War, driven by an ideological divide between capitalism and communism[176] and, according to the school of geopolitics, a divide between the maritime Atlantic and the continental Eurasian camps. They dominated the military affairs of Europe, with the U.S. and its NATO allies on one side and the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies on the other. The U.S. developed a policy of containment towards the expansion of communist influence. While the U.S. and Soviet Union engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military conflict. The United States often opposed Third World movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored. American troops fought communist Chinese and North Korean forces in the Korean War of 1950-53.[177] The Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the first artificial satellite and its 1961 launch of the first manned spaceflight initiated a "Space Race" in which the United States became the first nation to land a man on the moon in 1969.[177] A proxy war in Southeast Asia eventually evolved into full American participation, as the Vietnam War. At home, the U.S. experienced sustained economic expansion and a rapid growth of its population and middle class. Construction of an Interstate Highway System transformed the nation's infrastructure over the following decades. Millions moved from farms and inner cities to large suburban housing developments.[178][179] In 1959 Hawaii became the 50th and last U.S. state added to the country.[180] The growing Civil Rights Movement used nonviolence to confront segregation and discrimination, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader and figurehead. A combination of court decisions and legislation, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1968, sought to end racial discrimination.[181][182][183] Meanwhile, a counterculture movement grew which was fueled by opposition to the Vietnam war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. The launch of a "War on Poverty" expanded entitlements and welfare spending, including the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, two programs that provide health coverage to the elderly and poor, respectively, and the means-tested Food Stamp Program and Aid to Families with Dependent Children.[184] The 1970s and early 1980s saw the onset of stagflation. After his election in 1980, President Ronald Reagan responded to economic stagnation with free-market oriented reforms. Following the collapse of détente, he abandoned "containment" and initiated the more aggressive "rollback" strategy towards the USSR.[185][186][187][188][189] After a surge in female labor participation over the previous decade, by 1985 the majority of women aged 16 and over were employed.[190] The late 1980s brought a "thaw" in relations with the USSR, and its collapse in 1991 finally ended the Cold War.[191][192][193][194] This brought about unipolarity[195] with the U.S. unchallenged as the world's dominant superpower. The concept of Pax Americana, which had appeared in the post-World War II period, gained wide popularity as a term for the post-Cold War new world order. Contemporary history Main articles: History of the United States (1991-2008) and History of the United States (2008-present) Further information: Gulf War, September 11 attacks, War on Terror, 2008 financial crisis, and Affordable Care Act The World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan during the September 11 terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda in 2001 One World Trade Center, newly built in its place After the Cold War, the conflict in the Middle East triggered a crisis in 1990, when Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded and attempted to annex Kuwait, an ally of the United States. Fearing that the instability would spread to other regions, President George H.W. Bush launched Operation Desert Shield, a defensive force buildup in Saudi Arabia, and Operation Desert Storm, in a staging titled the Gulf War; waged by coalition forces from 34 nations, led by the United States against Iraq ending in the successful expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, restoring the former monarchy.[196] Originating in U.S. defense networks, the Internet spread to international academic networks, and then to the public in the 1990s, greatly affecting the global economy, society, and culture.[197] Due to the dot-com boom, stable monetary policy under Alan Greenspan, and reduced social welfare spending, the 1990s saw the longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history, ending in 2001.[198] Beginning in 1994, the U.S. entered into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), linking 450 million people producing $17 trillion worth of goods and services. The goal of the agreement was to eliminate trade and investment barriers among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico by January 1, 2008. Trade among the three partners has soared since NAFTA went into force.[199] On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 people.[200] In response, the United States launched the War on Terror, which included war in Afghanistan and the 2003-11 Iraq War.[201][202] In 2007, the Bush administration ordered a major troop surge in the Iraq War,[203] which successfully reduced violence and led to greater stability in the region.[204][205] Government policy designed to promote affordable housing,[206] widespread failures in corporate and regulatory governance,[207] and historically low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve[208] led to the mid-2000s housing bubble, which culminated with the 2008 financial crisis, the largest economic contraction in the nation's history since the Great Depression.[209] Barack Obama, the first African American[210] and multiracial[211] president, was elected in 2008 amid the crisis,[212] and subsequently passed stimulus measures and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in an attempt to mitigate its negative effects and ensure there would not be a repeat of the crisis. The stimulus facilitated infrastructure improvements[213] and a relative decline in unemployment.[214] Dodd-Frank improved financial stability and consumer protection,[215] although there has been debate about its effects on the economy.[216] In 2010, the Obama administration passed the Affordable Care Act, which made the most sweeping reforms to the nation's healthcare system in nearly five decades, including mandates, subsidies and insurance exchanges. The law caused a significant reduction in the number and percentage of people without health insurance, with 24 million covered during 2016,[217] but remains controversial due to its impact on healthcare costs, insurance premiums, and economic performance.[218] Although the recession reached its trough in June 2009, voters remained frustrated with the slow pace of the economic recovery. The Republicans, who stood in opposition to Obama's policies, won control of the House of Representatives with a landslide in 2010 and control of the Senate in 2014.[219] American forces in Iraq were withdrawn in large numbers in 2009 and 2010, and the war in the region was declared formally over in December 2011.[220] The withdrawal caused an escalation of sectarian insurgency,[221] leading to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the successor of al-Qaeda in the region.[222] In 2014, Obama announced a restoration of full diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time since 1961.[needs update][223] The next year, the United States as a member of the P5+1 countries signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an agreement aimed to slow the development of Iran's nuclear program.[224] Geography, climate, and environment Main articles: Geography of the United States, Climate of the United States, and Environment of the United States A composite satellite image of the contiguous United States and surrounding areas Köppen climate classifications The land area of the entire United States is approximately 3,800,000 square miles (9,841,955 km2),[225] with the contiguous United States making up 2,959,064 square miles (7,663,940.6 km2) of that. Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 663,268 square miles (1,717,856.2 km2). Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America, is 10,931 square miles (28,311 km2) in area. The populated territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands together cover 9,185 square miles (23,789 km2).[226] Measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.[227] The United States is the world's third- or fourth-largest nation by total area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and just above or below China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted, and how the total size of the United States is measured.[fn 7] The Encyclopædia Britannica, for instance, lists the size of the United States as 3,677,649 square miles (9,525,067 km2), as they do not count the country's coastal or territorial waters.[228] The World Factbook, which includes those waters, gives 3,796,742 square miles (9,833,517 km2).[229] The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont.[230] The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest.[231] The Mississippi-Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north-south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast.[231] The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado.[232] Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Chihuahua and Mojave.[233] The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast, both ranges reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m). The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the state of California,[234] and only about 84 miles (135 km) apart.[235] At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali (Mount McKinley) is the highest peak in the country and North America.[236] Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.[237] The United States has the most ecoregions out of any country in the world.[238] The United States, with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south.[239] The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains have an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Hawaii and the southern tip of Florida are tropical, as are the populated territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific.[240] Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country, mainly in Tornado Alley areas in the Midwest and South.[241] Wildlife Main articles: Fauna of the United States and Flora of the United States See also: Category:Biota of the United States The bald eagle has been the national bird of the United States since 1782.[242] The U.S. ecology is megadiverse: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.[243] The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 bird species, 311 reptile species, and 295 amphibian species.[244] About 91,000 insect species have been described.[245] The bald eagle is both the national bird and national animal of the United States, and is an enduring symbol of the country itself.[246] There are 59 national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.[247] Altogether, the government owns about 28% of the country's land area.[248] Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching; about .86% is used for military purposes.[249][250] Environmental issues have been on the national agenda since 1970. Environmental controversies include debates on oil and nuclear energy, dealing with air and water pollution, the economic costs of protecting wildlife, logging and deforestation,[251][252] and international responses to global warming.[253][254] Many federal and state agencies are involved. The most prominent is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created by presidential order in 1970.[255] The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act.[256] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is intended to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.[257] Demographics Main articles: Demography of the United States, Americans, and Race and ethnicity in the United States Population See also: List of U.S. states by population and List of United States cities by population Historical population Census Pop. %± 1790 3,929,214 — 1800 5,308,483 35.1% 1810 7,239,881 36.4% 1820 9,638,453 33.1% 1830 12,866,020 33.5% 1840 17,069,453 32.7% 1850 23,191,876 35.9% 1860 31,443,321 35.6% 1870 38,558,371 22.6% 1880 50,189,209 30.2% 1890 62,979,766 25.5% 1900 76,212,168 21.0% 1910 92,228,496 21.0% 1920 106,021,537 15.0% 1930 123,202,624 16.2% 1940 132,164,569 7.3% 1950 151,325,798 14.5% 1960 179,323,175 18.5% 1970 203,211,926 13.3% 1980 226,545,805 11.5% 1990 248,709,873 9.8% 2000 281,421,906 13.2% 2010 308,745,538 9.7% Est. 2017[9] 325,719,178 5.5% 1610-1780 population data.[258] Note that the census numbers do not include Native Americans until 1860.[259] The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the country's population to be 325,719,178 as of July 1, 2017, and to be adding 1 person (net gain) every 13 seconds, or about 6,646 people per day.[33] The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th century, from about 76 million in 1900.[260] The third most populous nation in the world, after China and India, the United States is the only major industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.[261] In the 1800s the average woman had 7.04 children, by the 1900s this number had decreased to 3.56.[262] Since the early 1970s the birth rate has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 with 1.86 children per woman in 2014. Foreign-born immigration has caused the US population to continue its rapid increase with the foreign-born population doubling from almost 20 million in 1990 to over 40 million in 2010, representing one-third of the population increase.[263] The foreign-born population reached 45 million in 2015.[264] The United States has a very diverse population; 37 ancestry groups have more than one million members.[265] German Americans are the largest ethnic group (more than 50 million) - followed by Irish Americans (circa 37 million), Mexican Americans (circa 31 million) and English Americans (circa 28 million).[266][267] The dominant ancestry in each US state German American Mexican Irish African Italian English Japanese Puerto Rican White Americans (mostly European ancestry group with 73,1 % of total population) are the largest racial group; black Americans are the nation's largest racial minority (note that in the U.S. Census, Hispanic and Latino Americans are counted as an ethnic group, not a "racial" group), and third-largest ancestry group.[265] Asian Americans are the country's second-largest racial minority; the three largest Asian American ethnic groups are Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, and Indian Americans.[265] According to a 2015 survey, the largest American community with European ancestry is German Americans, which consists of more than 14% of total population.[268] In 2010, the U.S. population included an estimated 5.2 million people with some American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and 1.2 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively).[269] The census counted more than 19 million people of "Some Other Race" who were "unable to identify with any" of its five official race categories in 2010, over 18.5 million (97%) of whom are of Hispanic ethnicity.[269] The population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major demographic trend. The 50.5 million Americans of Hispanic descent[269] are identified as sharing a distinct "ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent.[270] Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 4.9%.[271] Much of this growth is from immigration; in 2007, 12.6% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin America.[272][fn 11] Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau as all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constituted 37.2% of the population in 2012[278] and over 50% of children under age one,[279][275] and are projected to constitute the majority by 2044.[279] The United States has a birth rate of 13 per 1,000, which is 5 births below the world average.[280] Its population growth rate is positive at 0.7%, higher than that of many developed nations.[281] In fiscal year 2015, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence.[282] Mexico has been the leading source of new residents since the 1965 Immigration Act. China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year since the 1990s.[283] As of 2012, approximately 11.4 million residents are illegal immigrants.[284] As of 2015, 47% of all immigrants are Hispanic, 26% are Asian, 18% are white and 8% are black. The percentage of immigrants who are Asian is increasing while the percentage who are Hispanic is decreasing.[264] According to a survey conducted by the Williams Institute, nine million Americans, or roughly 3.4% of the adult population identify themselves as homosexual, bisexual, or transgender.[285][286] A 2016 Gallup poll also concluded that 4.1% of adult Americans identified as LGBT. The highest percentage came from the District of Columbia (10%), while the lowest state was North Dakota at 1.7%.[287] In a 2013 survey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 96.6% of Americans identify as straight, while 1.6% identify as gay or lesbian, and 0.7% identify as being bisexual.[288] About 82% of Americans live in urban areas (including suburbs);[229] about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.[289] The US has numerous clusters of cities known as megaregions, the largest being the Great Lakes Megalopolis followed by the Northeast Megalopolis and Southern California. In 2008, 273 incorporated municipalities had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four global cities had over two million (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston).[290] There are 52 metropolitan areas with populations greater than one million.[291] Of the 50 fastest-growing metro areas, 47 are in the West or South.[292] The metro areas of San Bernardino, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Phoenix all grew by more than a million people between 2000 and 2008.[291] Leading population centers (see complete list) view talk edit Rank Core city (cities) Metro area population Metropolitan Statistical Area Region[293] New York City New York City Los Angeles Los Angeles Chicago Chicago Dallas Dallas 1 New York City 20,320,876 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA MSA Northeast 2 Los Angeles 13,353,907 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA MSA West 3 Chicago 9,533,040 Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI MSA Midwest 4 Dallas-Fort Worth 7,399,662 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA South 5 Houston 6,892,427 Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land MSA South 6 Washington, D.C. 6,216,589 Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA South 7 Miami 6,158,824 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL MSA South 8 Philadelphia 6,096,120 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA Northeast 9 Atlanta 5,884,736 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA MSA South 10 Boston 4,836,531 Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA Northeast 11 Phoenix 4,737,270 Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ MSA West 12 San Francisco 4,727,357 San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA MSA West 13 Riverside-San Bernardino 4,580,670 Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA MSA West 14 Detroit 4,313,002 Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI MSA Midwest 15 Seattle 3,867,046 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA MSA West 16 Minneapolis-St. Paul 3,600,618 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI MSA Midwest 17 San Diego 3,337,685 San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA MSA West 18 Tampa-St. Petersburg 3,091,399 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA South 19 Denver 2,888,227 Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO MSA West 20 Baltimore 2,808,175 Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD MSA South Based on 2017 MSA population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau[294] Language Main article: Languages of the United States See also: Language Spoken at Home in the United States of America, List of endangered languages in the United States, and Language education in the United States English (American English) is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English. In 2010, about 230 million, or 80% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught second language.[295][296] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in 32 states.[297] Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii, by state law.[298] Alaska recognizes twenty Native languages as well as English.[299] While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.[300] Other states, such as California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.[301] Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan[302] is officially recognized by American Samoa. Chamorro[303] is an official language of Guam. Both Carolinian and Chamorro have official recognition in the Northern Mariana Islands.[304] Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico and is more widely spoken than English there.[305] The most widely taught foreign languages in the United States, in terms of enrollment numbers from kindergarten through university undergraduate studies, are: Spanish (around 7.2 million students), French (1.5 million), and German (500,000). Other commonly taught languages (with 100,000 to 250,000 learners) include Latin, Japanese, ASL, Italian, and Chinese.[306][307] 18% of all Americans claim to speak at least one language in addition to English.[308] Languages spoken at home by more than 1 million persons in the U.S. (2016)[309][310][fn 12] Language Percent of population Number of speakers Number who speak English very well Number who speak English less than very well English (only) ~80% 237,810,023 N/A N/A Spanish (including Spanish Creole but excluding Puerto Rico) 13% 40,489,813 23,899,421 16,590,392 Chinese (all varieties, including Mandarin and Cantonese) 1.0% 3,372,930 1,518,619 1,854,311 Tagalog (including Filipino) 0.5% 1,701,960 1,159,211 542,749 Vietnamese 0.4% 1,509,993 634,273 875,720 Arabic (all varieties) 0.3% 1,231,098 770,882 460,216 French (including Patois and Cajun) 0.3% 1,216,668 965,584 251,087 Korean 0.2% 1,088,788 505,734 583,054 Religion Main article: Religion in the United States Religious affiliation in the U.S. (2014)[311] Affiliation % of U.S. population Christianity 70.6 Protestant 46.5 Evangelical Protestant 25.4 Mainline Protestant 14.7 Black church 6.5 Catholic 20.8 Mormon 1.6 Jehovah's Witnesses 0.8 Eastern Orthodox 0.5 Other Christian 0.4 Judaism 1.9 Islam 0.9 Buddhism 0.7 Hinduism 0.7 Other faiths 1.8 Irreligion 22.8 Nothing in particular 15.8 Agnostic 4.0 Atheist 3.1 Don't know or refused answer 0.6 The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment. In a 2013 survey, 56% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives", a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation.[312] In a 2009 Gallup poll, 42% of Americans said that they attended church weekly or almost weekly; the figures ranged from a low of 23% in Vermont to a high of 63% in Mississippi.[313] As with other Western countries, the U.S. is becoming less religious. Irreligion is growing rapidly among Americans under 30.[314] Polls show that overall American confidence in organized religion has been declining since the mid to late 1980s,[315] and that younger Americans, in particular, are becoming increasingly irreligious.[311][316] According to a 2012 study, the Protestant share of the U.S. population had dropped to 48%, thus ending its status as religious category of the majority for the first time.[317][318] Americans with no religion have 1.7 children compared to 2.2 among Christians. The unaffiliated are less likely to get married with 37% marrying compared to 52% of Christians.[319] According to a 2014 survey, 70.6% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians;[320] Protestants accounted for 46.5%, while Roman Catholics, at 20.8%, formed the largest single denomination.[321] In 2014, 5.9% of the U.S. adult population claimed a non-Christian religion.[311] These include Judaism (1.9%), Hinduism (1.2%), Buddhism (0.9%), and Muslim (0.9%).[311] The survey also reported that 22.8% of Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist or simply having no religion—up from 8.2% in 1990.[321][322][323] There are also Unitarian Universalist, Scientologist, Baha'i, Sikh, Jain, Shinto, Confucian, Taoist, Druid, Native American, Wiccan, humanist and deist communities.[324] Protestantism is the largest Christian religious grouping in the United States, accounting for almost half of all Americans. Baptists collectively form the largest branch of Protestantism at 15.4%,[325] and the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest individual Protestant denomination at 5.3% of the U.S. population.[325] Apart from Baptists, other Protestant categories include nondenominational Protestants, Methodists, Pentecostals, unspecified Protestants, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, other Reformed, Episcopalians/Anglicans, Quakers, Adventists, Holiness, Christian fundamentalists, Anabaptists, Pietists, and multiple others.[325] Two-thirds of American Protestants consider themselves to be born again.[325] Roman Catholicism in the United States has its origin primarily in the Spanish and French colonization of the Americas, as well as in the English colony of Maryland.[326] It later grew because of Irish, Italian, Polish, German and Hispanic immigration. Rhode Island has the highest percentage of Catholics, with 40 percent of the total population.[327] Utah is the only state where Mormonism is the religion of the majority of the population.[328] The Mormon Corridor also extends to parts of Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming.[329] Eastern Orthodoxy is claimed by 5% of people in Alaska,[330] a former Russian colony, and maintains a presence on the U.S. mainland due to recent immigration from Eastern Europe. Finally, a number of other Christian groups are active across the country, including the Oneness Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Restorationists, Churches of Christ, Christian Scientists, Unitarians and many others. The Bible Belt is an informal term for a region in the Southern United States in which socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. By contrast, religion plays the least important role in New England and in the Western United States.[313] Family structure Main article: Family structure in the United States As of 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married.[331] Women now work mostly outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees.[332] The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate is 26.5 per 1,000 women. The r

"USSR", "CCCP", and "Soviet" redirect here. For other uses, see USSR (disambiguation), CCCP (disambiguation), and Soviet (disambiguation). Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Союз Советских Социалистических Республик Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik 1922-1991[1] Flag Flag State emblem State emblem Motto Workers of the world, unite! Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes'! Literally: Proletarians of all countries, unite!) Anthem The Internationale (1922-1944) MENU0:00 State Anthem of the Soviet Union (1944-1977) MENU0:00 State Anthem of the Soviet Union (modified version) (1977-1991) MENU0:00 The Soviet Union after World War II Capital Moscow Languages Russian (de facto official)[2] Other languages[show] Demonym Soviet, Russian[1] Government Federal Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist state (1922-1990)[2][3][4][5] Federal semi-presidential republic (1990-1991)[6] General Secretary • 1922-1952 Joseph Stalin (first) • 1991 Vladimir Ivashko (last) Head of state • 1922-1938 Mikhail Kalinin (first) • 1988-1991 Mikhail Gorbachev (last) Head of government • 1922-1924 Vladimir Lenin (first) • 1991 Ivan Silayev (last) Legislature Supreme Soviet • Upper house Soviet of the Union • Lower house Soviet of Nationalities Historical era 20th century • Treaty of Creation 30 December 1922 • Admitted to the United Nations 25 October 1945 • Constitution adopted 9 October 1977 • Union dissolved 25 December 1991[3] Area • 1991 22,402,200 km2 (8,649,500 sq mi) Population • 1991 est. 293,047,571 Density 13/km2 (34/sq mi) Currency Soviet ruble (руб) (SUR) Internet TLD .su[4] Calling code +7 Preceded by Succeeded by Russian SFSR Transcaucasian SFSR Ukrainian SSR Byelorussian SSR Bukharan People's Soviet Republic Khorezm People's Soviet Republic Estonia Latvia Lithuania Kingdom of Romania Tuvan People's Republic Russian Federation Ukraine Belarus Armenia Azerbaijan Estonia Georgia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lithuania Moldova Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Notes ^ Declaration № 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, formally establishing the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a state and subject of international law. (in Russian) ^ Original lyrics used from 1944 to 1956. No lyrics from 1956 to 1977. Revised lyrics from 1977 to 1991. ^ All-union official since 1990, constituent republics had the right to declare their own official languages. ^ Assigned on 19 September 1990, existing onwards. The Soviet Union (Russian: Сове́тский Сою́з, tr. Sovétsky Soyúz, IPA: [sɐˈvʲɛt͡skʲɪj sɐˈjus] (About this sound listen)), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyúz Sovétskikh Sotsialistícheskikh Respúblik, IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲɛtskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪsˈtʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪˈspublʲɪk] (About this sound listen)), abbreviated as the USSR (Russian: СССР, tr. SSSR), was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics,[a] its government and economy were highly centralized. The country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The Russian nation had constitutionally equal status among the many nations of the union but exerted de facto dominance in various respects.[7] Other major urban centres were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Alma-Ata and Novosibirsk. The Soviet Union was one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possessed the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.[8] It was a founding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, as well as a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the leading member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government which had replaced Tsar Nicholas II during World War I. In 1922, the Soviet Union was formed with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics. Following Lenin's death in 1924 and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin committed the state's ideology to Marxism-Leninism (which he created) and initiated a centrally planned economy which led to a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization. During this period of totalitarian rule, political paranoia fermented; the late-1930s Great Purge removed Stalin's opponents within and outside of the party via arbitrary arrests and persecutions of many people, resulting in an estimated 600,000 deaths. Suppression of political critics, forced labor and famines were carried out by Stalin's government; in 1933, a major famine struck Soviet Ukraine, causing the deaths of some 3[9] to 7 million people. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, after which the two countries invaded Poland in September 1939. In June 1941, the pact collapsed as Germany turned to attack the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at intense battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk. The territories overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Soviet Union; the postwar division of Europe into capitalist and communist halves would lead to increased tensions with the West, led by the United States. The Cold War emerged by 1947, as the Eastern Bloc, united under the Warsaw Pact in 1955, confronted the Western Bloc, united under NATO in 1949. On 5 March 1953, Stalin died and was eventually succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who in 1956 denounced Stalin and began the De-Stalinization of Soviet society through the Khrushchev Thaw. The Soviet Union took an early lead in the Space Race, with the first artificial satellite and the first human spaceflight. Khrushchev was removed from power in 1964 and was succeeded as head of state by Leonid Brezhnev. In the early 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, but tensions resumed with the Soviet-Afghan War in 1979. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost (government transparency) and perestroika (openness, restructuring). Under Gorbachev, the role of the Communist Party in governing the state was removed from the constitution, causing a surge of severe political instability to set in. The Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989, Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist governments. With the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the union republics, Gorbachev tried to avert a dissolution of the Soviet Union in the post-Cold War era. A March 1991 referendum, boycotted by some republics, resulted in a majority of participating citizens voting in favor of preserving the union as a renewed federation. Gorbachev's power was greatly diminished after Russian President Boris Yeltsin played a high-profile role in facing down an abortive August 1991 coup d'état attempted by Communist Party hardliners. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the remaining twelve constituent republics emerged as independent post-Soviet states. The Russian Federation—formerly the Russian SFSR—assumed the Soviet Union's rights and obligations and is recognized as the successor state of the Soviet Union.[10][11][12] In summing up the international ramifications of these events, Vladislav Zubok stated: "The collapse of the Soviet empire was an event of epochal geopolitical, military, ideological and economic significance."[13] Contents [hide] 1 Name 2 Geography, climate and environment 3 History 3.1 Revolution and foundation 3.2 Unification of republics 3.3 Stalin era 3.4 Khrushchev era 3.5 Era of Stagnation 3.6 Gorbachev era 3.7 Dissolution 4 Foreign affairs 4.1 Organizations 4.2 Early Soviet foreign policies (1919-1939) 4.3 World War II era (1939-1945) 4.4 Cold War era (1945-1991) 5 Politics 5.1 Communist Party 5.2 Government 5.3 Separation of power and reform 5.4 Judicial system 6 Administrative divisions 7 Economy 7.1 Energy 7.2 Science and technology 7.3 Transport 8 Demographics 8.1 Education 8.2 Ethnic groups 8.3 Health 8.4 Language 8.5 Religion 9 Military 10 Legacy 11 Culture 12 Sport 12.1 Amateurism 12.2 Doping 13 See also 13.1 Conflicts 14 References 15 Notes 16 Bibliography 17 Further reading 17.1 Surveys 17.2 Lenin and Leninism 17.3 Stalin and Stalinism 17.4 World War II 17.5 Cold War 17.6 Collapse 17.7 Specialty studies 18 External links Name Part of a series on the History of Russia Coat of arms of Russia Cimmerians 12th-7th century BCE Scythians 8th-4th century BCE Sarmatians 5th century BCE-4th century CE Early Slavs / Rus' pre-9th century Khazar Khaganate 7th-10th century Rus' Khaganate 9th century Volga Bulgaria 9th-13th century Kievan Rus' 882-1240 Vladimir-Suzdal 1157-1331 Novgorod Republic 1136-1478 Mongol Yoke 1240s-1480 Grand Duchy of Moscow 1283-1547 Tsardom of Russia 1547-1721 Russian Empire 1721-1917 Russian Republic 1917 Russian SFSR 1917-1922 Soviet Union 1922-1991 Russian Federation 1991-present Timeline Flag of Russia.svg Russia portal v t e Main article: Official names of the Soviet Union See also: Names of Russia The word "Soviet" is derived from a Russian word meaning council, assembly, advice, harmony, concord,[note 1] and all ultimately deriving from the Proto-Slavic verbal stem of *vět-iti "to inform", related to Slavic "věst" ("news"), English "wise", the root in "ad-vis-or" (which came to English through French), or the Dutch "weten" (to know; cf. "wetenschap"=science). The word "sovietnik" means councillor.[14] A number of organizations in Russian history were called "council" (Russian: сове́т). For example, in the Russian Empire, the State Council, which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers after the revolt of 1905.[14] During the Georgian Affair, Vladimir Lenin envisioned an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Joseph Stalin and his supporters, calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union, which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Респу́блик Евро́пы и А́зии, tr. Soyúz Sovétskikh Respúblik Evrópy i Ázii).[15] Stalin initially resisted the proposal, but ultimately accepted it, although - with Lenin's agreement - he changed the name of the newly proposed state to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, although all the republics began as Socialist Soviet and did not change to the other order until 1936. In addition, in the national languages of several republics the word "Council/Conciliar" in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian "Soviet" - and never in others, e.g., Ukraine. The names of the Soviet Union are as follows in several languages of its 15 constituent republics: Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик; Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik Ukrainian: Союз Радянських Соціалістичних Республік; Soyuz Radyans'kykh Socialistychnykh Respublik Belarusian: Саюз Савецкіх Сацыялістычных Рэспублік; Sajuz Savieckich Sacyjalistyčnych Respublik Uzbek: Совет Социалистик Республикалари Иттифоқи; Sovet Sotsialistik Respublikalari Ittifoqi Kazakh: Кеңестік Социалистік Республикалар Одағы; Keñestik Socïalïstik Respwblïkalar Odağı Georgian: საბჭოთა სოციალისტური რესპუბლიკების კავშირი (sabch'ota sotsialist'uri resp'ublik'ebis k'avshiri) Azerbaijani: Совет Сосиалист Республикалары Иттифагы; Sovet Sosialist Respublikaları İttifaqı Lithuanian: Tarybų Socialistinių Respublikų Sąjunga Moldovan: Униуня Републичилор советиче Сочиалисте; Uniunea Republicilor Sovietice Socialiste Latvian: Padomju Sociālistisko Republiku Savienība Kyrgyz: Советтик Социалисттик Республикалaр Союзу; Sovettik Socialisttik Respublikalar Soyuzu Tajik: Иттиҳоди Ҷумҳуриҳои Шӯравии Сосиалистӣ; Ittihodi Chumhurihoi Shūravii Sosialistī Armenian: Խորհրդային Սոցիալիստական Հանրապետությունների Միություն; Xorhrdayin Soc̕ialistakan Hanrapetowt̕yownneri Miowt̕yown Turkmen: Совет Социалистик Республикалары Союзы; Sovet Sosialistik Respublikalary Soýuzy Estonian: Nõukogude Sotsialistlike Vabariikide Liit In some cases, due to the length of its name, the state was referred to as the "Soviet Union" or the "USSR" especially when used in the Western media. It was also informally called "Russia" (and its citizens "Russians"[1]), though that was technically incorrect since Russia was only one of the republics.[16] Geography, climate and environment Main article: Geography of the Soviet Union With an area of 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi), the Soviet Union was the world's largest country, a status that is retained by the Russian Federation.[17] Covering a sixth of Earth's land surface, its size was comparable to that of North America.[18] The European portion accounted for a quarter of the country's area, and was the cultural and economic center. The eastern part in Asia extended to the Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia, was much less populous. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones, and over 7,200 kilometres (4,500 mi) north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert, and mountains. The Soviet Union had the world's longest border, like Russia, measuring over 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), or ​1 1⁄2 circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it was a coastline. Across the Bering Strait was the United States. The Soviet Union bordered Afghanistan, China, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Iran, Mongolia, North Korea, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Turkey from 1945 to 1991. The Soviet Union's highest mountain was Communism Peak (now Ismoil Somoni Peak) in Tajikistan, at 7,495 metres (24,590 ft). The Soviet Union also included most of the world's largest lakes; the Caspian Sea (shared with Iran), and Lake Baikal, the world's largest and deepest freshwater lake that is also an internal body of water in Russia. History Part of a series on the History of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) State Emblem of the Soviet Union 1917-1927 Revolutionary Beginnings Revolution Civil War New Economic Policy 1922 Treaty National delimitation 1927-1953 Stalinist rule Socialism in One Country Great Purge Soviet famine of 1932-33 (Holodomor Kazakhstan famine of 1932-1933) World War II (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Great Patriotic War Operation Barbarossa Occupation of the Baltic states Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina Battle of Berlin Soviet invasion of Manchuria) Soviet deportations Soviet famine of 1946-47 Cold War Korean War 1953-1964 Post-Stalin era Berlin blockade 1954 transfer of Crimea Khrushchev Thaw On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences We will bury you 9 March riots Wage reforms Cuban Revolution Sino-Soviet split Space program Cuban Missile Crisis 1964-1982 Brezhnev era Brezhnev Doctrine Era of Stagnation 50th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide protests Prague Spring Vietnam War (Laotian Civil War Operation Menu Cambodian Civil War Fall of Saigon) Six-Day War Détente Yom Kippur War Dirty War Wars in Africa (Angolan War of Independence Angolan Civil War Mozambican War of Independence Mozambican Civil War South African Border War Rhodesian Bush War) Cambodian-Vietnamese War Soviet-Afghan War 1980 Summer Olympics Olympic boycotts (1980 Olympic boycott 1984 Olympic boycott) Polish strike Death and funeral of Brezhnev 1982-1991 Leadership changes and collapse Invasion of Grenada Glasnost Perestroika Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan Singing Revolution (Baltic Way Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania On the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia Estonian Sovereignty Declaration) Revolutions of 1989 (Pan-European picnic Die Wende Peaceful Revolution Fall of the Berlin Wall Velvet Revolution End of communist rule in Hungary Romanian Revolution German reunification) Dissolution (Jeltoqsan Nagorno-Karabakh War 9 April tragedy Black January Osh riots War of Laws Dushanbe riots January Events The Barricades Referendum Union of Sovereign States August Coup Ukrainian independence (referendum) Belavezha Accords Alma-Ata Protocol) History of Russia Moscow Kiev Minsk Former Soviet Republics Soviet leadership 1. Lenin 2. Stalin 3. Malenkov 4. Khrushchev 5. Brezhnev 6. Andropov 7. Chernenko 8. Gorbachev Culture Economy Education Geography Politics Flag of the Soviet Union.svg Soviet Union portal v t e Main article: History of the Soviet Union The last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, ruled the Russian Empire until his abdication in March 1917 in the aftermath of the February Revolution, due in part to the strain of fighting in World War I, which lacked public support. A short-lived Russian Provisional Government took power, to be overthrown in the October Revolution (N.S. 7 November 1917) by revolutionaries led by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin.[19] The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922 with the union of the Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics, each ruled by local Bolshevik parties. Despite the foundation of the Soviet state as a federative entity of many constituent republics, each with its own political and administrative entities, the term "Soviet Russia" - strictly applicable only to the Russian Federative Socialist Republic - was often applied to the entire country by non-Soviet writers and politicians. Revolution and foundation Main article: History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917-27) Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the Decembrist revolt of 1825. Although serfdom was abolished in 1861, it was done on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—the State Duma—was established in 1906 after the Russian Revolution of 1905, but Tsar Nicholas II resisted attempts to move from absolute to constitutional monarchy. Social unrest continued and was aggravated during World War I by military defeat and food shortages in major cities. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution, 1919 A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd, in response to the wartime decay of Russia's economy and morale, culminated in the February Revolution and the toppling of the imperial government in March 1917. The tsarist autocracy was replaced by the Russian Provisional Government, which intended to conduct elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and to continue fighting on the side of the Entente in World War I. At the same time, workers' councils, known in Russian as "Soviets", sprang up across the country. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, pushed for socialist revolution in the Soviets and on the streets. On 7 November 1917, the Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd, ending the rule of the Provisional Government and leaving all political power to the Soviets. This event would later be officially known in Soviet bibliographies as the Great October Socialist Revolution. In December, the Bolsheviks signed an armistice with the Central Powers, though by February 1918, fighting had resumed. In March, the Soviets ended involvement in the war for good and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. A long and bloody Civil War ensued between the Reds and the Whites, starting in 1917 and ending in 1923 with the Reds' victory. It included foreign intervention, the execution of the former tsar and his family, and the famine of 1921, which killed about five million people.[20] In March 1921, during a related conflict with Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia had to resolve similar conflicts with the newly established Republic of Finland, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Latvia, and the Republic of Lithuania. Unification of republics The Russian SFSR as a part of the USSR in 1922. The Russian SFSR as a part of the USSR after 1936 Russian territorial changes. On 28 December 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR[21] and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.[22] These two documents were confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by the heads of the delegations,[23] Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze, Grigory Petrovsky, and Alexander Chervyakov,[24] on 30 December 1922. The formal proclamation was made from the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre. On 1 February 1924, the USSR was recognized by the United Kingdom. The same year, a Soviet Constitution was approved, legitimizing the December 1922 union. An intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this was done according to the Bolshevik Initial Decrees, government documents signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the GOELRO plan, which envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country. The plan was developed in 1920 and covered a 10 to 15-year period. It included construction of a network of 30 regional power stations, including ten large hydroelectric power plants, and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises.[25] The plan became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was fulfilled by 1931.[26] Stalin era Main article: History of the Soviet Union (1927-53) Stalin and Nikolai Yezhov, head of the NKVD. After Yezhov was executed, he was edited out of the image. From its creation, the government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[27] After the economic policy of "War communism" during the Russian Civil War, as a prelude to fully developing socialism in the country, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist alongside nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax. The stated purpose of the one-party state was to ensure that capitalist exploitation would not return to the Soviet Union and that the principles of democratic centralism would be most effective in representing the people's will in a practical manner. Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for a power struggle in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. Initially, Lenin was to be replaced by a "troika" consisting of Grigory Zinoviev of the Ukrainian SSR, Lev Kamenev of the Russian SFSR, and Joseph Stalin of the Transcaucasian SFSR. On 3 April 1922, Stalin was named the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Lenin had appointed Stalin the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, which gave Stalin considerable power. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmaneuvering his rivals within the party, Stalin became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union and, by the end of the 1920s, established totalitarian rule. In October 1927, Grigory Zinoviev and Leon Trotsky were expelled from the Central Committee and forced into exile. In 1928, Stalin introduced the first five-year plan for building a socialist economy. In place of the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution, it aimed to build Socialism in One Country. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization. In agriculture, rather than adhering to the "lead by example" policy advocated by Lenin,[28] forced collectivization of farms was implemented all over the country. Famines ensued, causing millions of deaths; surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour.[29] Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s. Stalin's Great Purge resulted in the execution or detainment of many "Old Bolsheviks" who had participated in the October Revolution with Lenin. According to declassified Soviet archives, in 1937 and 1938, the NKVD arrested more than one and a half million people, of whom 681,692 were shot. Over those two years that averages to over one thousand executions a day.[30] According to historian Geoffrey Hosking, "...excess deaths during the 1930s as a whole were in the range of 10-11 million."[31] Although historian Timothy D. Snyder claims that archival evidence suggests a maximum excess mortality of nine million during the entire Stalin era.[32] Historian and archival researcher Stephen G. Wheatcroft asserts that around a million "purposive killings" can be attributed to Stalinist regime, along with the premature deaths of roughly two million more amongst the repressed populations (i.e., in camps, prisons, exile, etc.) through criminal negligence.[33] Yet despite the turmoil of the mid-to-late 1930s, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before World War II. Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, there was a "government-sponsored program of forced conversion to atheism" conducted by Communists.[34][35][36] The communist regime targeted religions based on State interests, and while most organized religions were never outlawed, religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools.[37] In 1925 the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the propaganda campaign.[38] Accordingly, although personal expressions of religious faith were not explicitly banned, a strong sense of social stigma was imposed on them by the official structures and mass media and it was generally considered unacceptable for members of certain professions (teachers, state bureaucrats, soldiers) to be openly religious. As for the Russian Orthodox Church, Soviet authorities sought to control it and, in times of national crisis, to exploit it for the regime's own purposes; but their ultimate goal was to eliminate it. During the first five years of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks executed 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and over 1,200 Russian Orthodox priests. Many others were imprisoned or exiled. Believers were harassed and persecuted. Most seminaries were closed, and the publication of most religious material was prohibited. By 1941 only 500 churches remained open out of about 54,000 in existence prior to World War I. 1930s "Strengthen working discipline in collective farms" - Soviet propaganda poster issued in Uzbekistan, 1933 The early 1930s saw closer cooperation between the West and the USSR. From 1932 to 1934, the Soviet Union participated in the World Disarmament Conference. In 1933, diplomatic relations between the United States and the USSR were established when in November, the newly elected President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt chose to formally recognize Stalin's Communist government and negotiated a new trade agreement between the two nations.[39] In September 1934, the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations. After the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, the USSR actively supported the Republican forces against the Nationalists, who were supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. In December 1936, Stalin unveiled a new Soviet Constitution. The supporters around the world hailed it as the most democratic Constitution imaginable. Historian J. Arch Getty concludes: Many who lauded Stalin's Soviet Union as the most democratic country on earth lived to regret their words. After all, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 was adopted on the eve of the Great Terror of the late 1930s; the "thoroughly democratic" elections to the first Supreme Soviet permitted only uncontested candidates and took place at the height of the savage violence in 1937. The civil rights, personal freedoms, and democratic forms promised in the Stalin constitution were trampled almost immediately and remained dead letters until long after Stalin's death.[40] Sergei Korolev, the father of the Soviet space program, shortly after his arrest during Stalin's Great Terror The year 1939 saw a dramatic shift toward Nazi Germany that astonished the world. In 1939, almost a year after Britain and France had concluded the Munich Agreement with Germany, the Soviet Union made agreements with Germany as well, both militarily and economically during extensive talks. The two countries concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement in August 1939. The nonaggression pact made possible Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and eastern Poland. In late November of the same year, unable to coerce the Republic of Finland by diplomatic means into moving its border 25 kilometres (16 mi) back from Leningrad, Joseph Stalin ordered the invasion of Finland. In the east, the Soviet military won several decisive victories during border clashes with the Empire of Japan in 1938 and 1939. However, in April 1941, USSR signed the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact with the Empire of Japan, recognizing the territorial integrity of Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state. World War II Main article: Eastern Front (World War II) The Battle of Stalingrad is considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II. Although it has been debated whether the Soviet Union intended to invade Germany once it was strong enough,[41] Germany itself broke the treaty and invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, starting what was known in the USSR as the "Great Patriotic War". The Red Army stopped the seemingly invincible German Army at the Battle of Moscow, aided by an unusually harsh winter. The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted from late 1942 to early 1943, dealt a severe blow to the Germans from which they never fully recovered and became a turning point in the war. After Stalingrad, Soviet forces drove through Eastern Europe to Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945. The German Army suffered 80% of its military deaths in the Eastern Front.[42] The same year, the USSR, in fulfillment of its agreement with the Allies at the Yalta Conference, denounced the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1945[43] and invaded Manchukuo and other Japan-controlled territories on 9 August 1945.[44] This conflict ended with a decisive Soviet victory, contributing to the unconditional surrender of Japan and the end of World War II. Left to right: Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill confer in Tehran in 1943. The Soviet Union suffered greatly in the war, losing around 27 million people.[45] Approximately 2.8 million Soviet POWs died of starvation, mistreatment, or executions in just eight months of 1941-42.[46] During the war, the Soviet Union together with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered as the Big Four of Allied powers in World War II [47] and later became the Four Policemen which was the foundation of the United Nations Security Council.[48] It emerged as a superpower in the post-war period. Once denied diplomatic recognition by the Western world, the Soviet Union had official relations with practically every nation by the late 1940s. A member of the United Nations at its foundation in 1945, the Soviet Union became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which gave it the right to veto any of its resolutions. The Soviet Union maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers for four decades through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military strength, economic strength, aid to developing countries, and scientific research, especially in space technology and weaponry.[49] Cold War Main article: Cold War During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union rebuilt and expanded its economy, while maintaining its strictly centralized control. It took effective control over most of Eastern Europe (except Yugoslavia and Albania), turning them into satellite states, binding them in a military alliance (the Warsaw Pact) in 1955, and an economic organization (The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance or Comecon) from 1949 to 1991, the latter a counterpart to the European Economic Community.[50] The Soviet Union concentrated on its own recovery. It seized and transferred most of Germany's industrial plants and it exacted war reparations from East Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It used trading arrangements deliberately designed to favor the Soviet Union. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes: The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $15 billion to $20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under the Marshall Plan.[51] Later, the Comecon supplied aid to the eventually victorious Communist Party of China, and saw its influence grow elsewhere in the world. Fearing its ambitions, the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, became its enemies. In the ensuing Cold War, the two sides clashed indirectly using mostly proxies. Khrushchev era Main article: History of the Soviet Union (1953-64) Globe showing the greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and states that were dominated politically, economically and/or militarily by it, which was in 1960. This was during the period of time just after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and just before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961. Stalin died on 5 March 1953. Without a mutually agreeable successor, the highest Communist Party officials initially opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly through a troika headed by Georgy Malenkov. This did not last, however, and Nikita Khrushchev eventually won the power struggle by the mid-1950s. He shortly afterward denounced Stalin's use of repression in 1956 and proceeded to ease Stalin's repressive controls over party and society. This was known as de-Stalinization. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (left) with John F. Kennedy in Vienna, 3 June 1961 Because Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a critically vital buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders (in case of another major invasion such as the German invasion of 1940), the USSR sought to cement its control of the region by transforming the Eastern European countries into satellite states dependent upon and subservient to its leadership. Soviet military force was used to suppress anti-Stalinist uprisings in Hungary and Poland in 1956. In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regarding the USSR's rapprochement with the West and what Mao Zedong perceived as Khrushchev's revisionism led to the Sino-Soviet split. This resulted in a break throughout the global Marxist-Leninist movement, with the governments in Albania, Cambodia and Somalia choosing to ally with China in place of the USSR. During this period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union continued to realize scientific and technological exploits in the Space Race, rivaling the United States: launching the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 in 1957; a living dog named Laika in 1957; the first human being, Yuri Gagarin in 1961; the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963; Alexey Leonov, the first person to walk in space in 1965; the first soft landing on the moon by spacecraft Luna 9 in 1966 and the first moon rovers, Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.[52] Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, first human to travel into space Khrushchev initiated "The Thaw", a complex shift in political, cultural and economic life in the Soviet Union. This included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods, allowing living standards to rise dramatically while maintaining high levels of economic growth. Censorship was relaxed as well. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive. In 1962, he precipitated a crisis with the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. An agreement was made between the Soviet Union and the United States to remove enemy nuclear missiles from both Cuba and Turkey, concluding the crisis. This event caused Khrushchev much embarrassment and loss of prestige, resulting in his removal from power in 1964. Era of Stagnation Main articles: History of the Soviet Union (1964-82), History of the Soviet Union (1982-91), and Era of Stagnation The Era of Stagnation was a period of negative economic, political, and social effects in the Soviet Union, which began during the rule of Leonid Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of collective leadership ensued, consisting of Leonid Brezhnev as General Secretary, Alexei Kosygin as Premier and Nikolai Podgorny as Chairman of the Presidium, lasting until Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent Soviet leader. In 1968, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia to halt the Prague Spring reforms. In the aftermath, Brezhnev justified the invasion along with the earlier invasions of Eastern European states by introducing the Brezhnev Doctrine, which claimed the right of the Soviet Union to violate the sovereignty of any country that attempted to replace Marxism-Leninism with capitalism. Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and US President Jimmy Carter sign the SALT II arms limitation treaty in Vienna on 18 June 1979. Brezhnev presided over a period of détente with the West that resulted in treaties on armament control (SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) while at the same time building up Soviet military might. In October 1977, the third Soviet Constitution was unanimously adopted. The prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. The long period of Brezhnev's rule had come to be dubbed one of "standstill", with an aging and ossified top political leadership. Gorbachev era Main articles: Cold War (1985-91), History of the Soviet Union (1982-91), and 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with U.S. President Ronald Reagan Two developments dominated the decade that followed: the increasingly apparent crumbling of the Soviet Union's economic and political structures, and the patchwork attempts at reforms to reverse that process. Kenneth S. Deffeyes argued in Beyond Oil that the Reagan administration encouraged Saudi Arabia to lower the price of oil to the point where the Soviets could not make a profit selling their oil, so the USSR's hard currency reserves became depleted.[53] Brezhnev's next two successors, transitional figures with deep roots in his tradition, did not last long. Yuri Andropov was 68 years old and Konstantin Chernenko 72 when they assumed power; both died in less than two years. In an attempt to avoid a third short-lived leader, in 1985, the Soviets turned to the next generation and selected Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev made significant changes in the economy and party leadership, called perestroika. His policy of glasnost freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship. Reagan greets a young boy while touring Red Square with Gorbachev during the Moscow Summit, 31 May 1988 Gorbachev also moved to end the Cold War. In 1988, the Soviet Union abandoned its nine-year war in Afghanistan and began to withdraw its forces. In the late 1980s, he refused military support to the governments of the Soviet Union's satellite states[clarify], which paved the way for Revolutions of 1989. With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and with East Germany and West Germany pursuing unification, the Iron Curtain between the West and Soviet-controlled regions came down. In the late 1980s, the constituent republics of the Soviet Union started legal moves towards potentially declaring sovereignty over their territories, citing Article 72 of the USSR constitution, which stated that any constituent republic was free to secede.[54] On 7 April 1990, a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two-thirds of its residents voted for it in a referendum.[55] Many held their first free elections in the Soviet era for their own national legislatures in 1990. Many of these legislatures proceeded to produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as the "War of Laws". In 1989, the Russian SFSR, which was then the largest constituent republic (with about half of the population) convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies. Boris Yeltsin was elected its chairman. On 12 June 1990, the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the USSR's laws. After a landslide victory of Sąjūdis in Lithuania, that country declared its independence restored on 11 March 1990. A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on 17 March 1991 in nine republics (the remainder having boycotted the vote), with the majority of the population in those nine republics voting for preservation of the Union. The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost. In the summer of 1991, the New Union Treaty, which would have turned the Soviet Union into a much looser Union, was agreed upon by eight republics. Boris Yeltsin stands on a tank in Moscow to defy the August Coup, 1991 The signing of the treaty, however, was interrupted by the August Coup—an attempted coup d'état by hardline members of the government and the KGB who sought to reverse Gorbachev's reforms and reassert the central government's control over the republics. After the coup collapsed, Yeltsin was seen as a hero for his decisive actions, while Gorbachev's power was effectively ended. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. In August 1991, Latvia and Estonia immediately declared the restoration of their full independence (following Lithuania's 1990 example). Gorbachev resigned as general secretary in late August, and soon afterward the Party's activities were indefinitely suspended—effectively ending its rule. By the fall, Gorbachev could no longer influence events outside Moscow, and he was being challenged even there by Yeltsin, who had been elected President of Russia in July 1991. Dissolution Main articles: Dissolution of the Soviet Union and Commonwealth of Independent States The remaining 12 republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union. However, by December, all except Russia and Kazakhstan had formally declared independence. During this time, Yeltsin took over what remained of the Soviet government, including the Moscow Kremlin. The final blow was struck on 1 December, when Ukraine, the second most powerful republic, voted overwhelmingly for independence. Ukraine's secession ended any realistic chance of the Soviet Union staying together even on a limited scale. Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (formerly Byelorussia), signed the Belavezha Accords, which declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place. While doubts remained over the authority of the accords to do this, on 21 December 1991, the representatives of all Soviet republics except Georgia signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, which confirmed the accords. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as the President of the USSR, declaring the office extinct. He turned the powers that had been vested in the presidency over to Yeltsin. That night, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time, and the Russian tricolor was raised in its place. The following day, the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body of the Soviet Union, voted both itself and the Soviet Union out of existence. This is generally recognized as marking the official, final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning state. The Soviet Army originally remained under overall CIS command, but was soon absorbed into the different military forces of the newly independent states. The few remaining Soviet institutions that had not been taken over by Russia ceased to function by the end of 1991. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, Russia was internationally recognized[56] as its legal successor on the international stage. To that end, Russia voluntarily accepted all Soviet foreign debt and claimed overseas Soviet properties as its own. Under the 1992 Lisbon Protocol, Russia also agreed to receive all nuclear weapons remaining in the territory of other former Soviet republics. Since then, the Russian Federation has assumed the Soviet Union's rights and obligations. Ukraine has refused to recognize exclusive Russian claims to succession of the USSR and claimed such status for Ukraine as well, which was codified in Articles 7 and 8 of its 1991 law On Legal Succession of Ukraine. Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine has continued to pursue claims against Russia in foreign courts, seeking to recover its share of the foreign property that was owned by the Soviet Union. Internally displaced Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh, 1993 The dissolution of the Soviet Union was followed by a severe economic contraction and catastrophic fall in living standards in post-Soviet states[57] including a rapid increase in poverty,[58][59][60][61] crime,[62][63] corruption,[64][65] unemployment,[66] homelessness,[67][68] rates of disease,[69][70][71] demographic losses,[72] income inequality and the rise of an oligarchical class,[73][58] along with decreases in calorie intake, life expectancy, adult literacy, and income.[74] Between 1988/1989 and 1993/1995, the Gini ratio increased by an average of 9 points for all former socialist countries.[58] The economic shocks that accompanied wholesale privatization were associated with sharp increases in mortality. Data shows Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia saw a tripling of unemployment and a 42% increase in male death rates between 1991 and 1994.[75][76] In summing up the international ramifications of these events, Vladislav Zubok stated: "The collapse of the Soviet empire was an event of epochal geopolitical, military, ideological, and economic significance[77] Country emblems of the Soviet Republics, before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Post-Soviet states Main article: Post-Soviet states The analysis of the succession of states with respect to the 15 post-Soviet states is complex. The Russian Federation is seen as the legal continuator state and is for most purposes the heir to the Soviet Union. It retained ownership of all former Soviet embassy properties, as well as the old Soviet UN membership and permanent membership on the Security Council. There are additionally four states that claim independence from the other internationally recognized post-Soviet states, but possess limited international recognition: Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. The Chechen separatist movement of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria lacks any international recognition. Foreign affairs Main article: Foreign relations of the Soviet Union 1960s Cuba-Soviet friendship poster with Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev Gerald Ford, Leonid Brezhnev and Henry Kissinger speaking informally at the Vladivostok Summit in 1974 Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush signing bilateral documents during Gorbachev's official visit to the United States in 1990 Organizations Stalin always made the final policy decisions, 1925-1953. Otherwise Soviet foreign policy was set by the Commission on the Foreign Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, or by the Party's highest body the Politburo. Operations were handled by the separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was known as the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (or Narkomindel), until 1946. The most influential spokesmen were Georgy Chicherin (1872-1936), Maxim Litvinov (1876-1951), Vyacheslav Molotov (1890-1986), Andrey Vyshinsky (1883-1954) and Andrei Gromyko (1909-89). Intellectuals were based in the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.[78] COMINTERN (1919-1943), or Communist International was an international communist organization based in the Kremlin that advocated world communism. The COMINTERN intended to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state".[79] It was abolished as a conciliatory measure toward Britain and the U.S.[80] COMECON, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Russian: Совет Экономической Взаимопомощи, Sovet Ekonomicheskoy Vzaimopomoshchi, СЭВ, SEV) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under Soviet control that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world. Moscow was concerned about the Marshall Plan. Comecon was meant to prevent countries in the Soviets' sphere of influence from moving towards that of the Americans and South-East Asia. Comecon was the Eastern Bloc's reply to the formation in Western Europe of the Organization for European Economic Co-Operation (OEEC),[81][82] The Warsaw Pact was a collective defence alliance formed in 1955 among the USSR and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional economic organization for the socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO.[83] The Cominform (1947-1956), informally the "Communist Information Bureau" and officially the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties was the first official agency of the international communist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. Its role was to coordinate actions between Communist parties under Soviet direction. Stalin used it to order Western European Communist parties to abandon their exclusively parliamentarian line and, instead, concentrate on politically impeding the operations of the Marshall Plan.[84] It also coordinated international aid to communist insurgents during the Greek Civil War in 1947-49.[85] It expelled Yugoslavia in 1948 after Tito insisted on an independent program. Its newspaper, For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy! promoted Stalin's positions. The Cominform's concentration on Europe meant a deemphasis on world revolution in Soviet foreign policy. By enunciating a uniform ideology, it allowed the constituent parties to focus on personalities rather than issues.[86] Early Soviet foreign policies (1919-1939) Further information: International relations (1919-1939) § Soviet Union The Communist leadership the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and change directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates and he frequently changed positions.[87] The first stage (1917-1921), assumed that Communist revolutions would break out very soon in every major industrial country, and it was the Soviet responsibility to assist them. The COMINTERN Was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—the Hungarian Soviet Republic—lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help. By 1921, the second stage came with the realization by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became the duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now in it a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with the Treaty of Rapallo that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time the two countries secretly set up training programs for illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in the Soviet Union.[88] At the same time, Moscow stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. United Kingdom, dismissed the warnings of Winston Churchill and a few others about a continuing communist threat, and opened trade relations and de facto diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the prewar tsarist debts, but that issue was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new Labour Party came to power in 1924.[89] All the other major countries opened trade relationships. Henry Ford opened large-scale business relationships with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping it would lead to a long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the Soviet Union, a decision backed by public opinion and especially by American business interests that expected a new profitable market would open up.[90] A third stage came in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when Stalin ordered Communist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-communist political parties, labor unions or other organizations on the left. Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with the Popular Front program the called on all Communist parties to join together with all anti-Fascist political, labor, and organizational forces that were opposed to fascism, especially of the Nazi variety.[91][92] World War II era (1939-1945) Main articles: Causes of World War II and Diplomatic history of World War II Cold War era (1945-1991) Main articles: Origins of the Cold War and Cold War Politics Main articles: Politics of the Soviet Union and Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Part of a series on Marxism-Leninism Marx, Engels and Lenin, the founders of Marxism-Leninism. Concepts[show] Variants[show] People[show] Literature[show] History[hide] October Revolution Soviet Union Comintern Hungarian Soviet Republic Spanish Civil War World War II Warsaw Pact Greek Civil War Chinese Revolution Korean War Cuban Revolution De-Stalinization Non-Aligned Movement Sino-Soviet split Vietnam War Portuguese Colonial War Black Power movement Nicaraguan Revolution Nepalese Civil War Naxalite insurgency Internal conflict in Peru Related topics[show] Communism portal Socialism portal v t e There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the government represented by the Council of Ministers, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only legal party and the ultimate policymaker in the country.[93] Communist Party Main article: Communist Party of the Soviet Union At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee, elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. The Central Committee in turn voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952-1966), Secretariat and the General Secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the de facto highest office in the Soviet Union.[94] Depending on the degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country[95] (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941).[96] They were not controlled by the general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism, demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above.[97] The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state largely through its control over the system of appointments. All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin in 1941-1953 and Khrushchev in 1958-1964 were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership,[98] but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal head of state. The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations.[99] In practice, however, the degree of control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with the party.[100] Nor was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned.[101] Government Main article: Government of the Soviet Union The Grand Kremlin Palace, seat of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, 1982 The Supreme Soviet (successor of the Congress of Soviets and Central Executive Committee) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history,[102] at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, the powers and functions of the Supreme Soviet were extended in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including the creation of new state commissions and committees. It gained additional powers relating to the approval of the Five-Year Plans and the Soviet government budget.[103] The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium to wield its power between plenary sessions,[104] ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the Supreme Court,[105] the Procurator General[106] and the Council of Ministers (known before 1946 as the Council of People's Commissars), headed by the Chairman (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society.[104] State and party structures of the constituent republics largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike the other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of the CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into party committees, local Soviets and executive committees. While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary.[107] The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Stalinist terror,[108] but after the death of Stalin, the state security police was brought under strict party control. Under Yuri Andropov, KGB chairman in 1967-1982 and General Secretary from 1982 to 1984, the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers, reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure,[109] culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[110] Separation of power and reform Main article: Perestroika Nationalist anti-government riots in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 1990 The Union constitutions, which were promulgated in 1918, 1924, 1936 and 1977,[111] did not limit state power. No formal separation of powers existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers[112] that represented executive and legislative branches of the government. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions, and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in the Politburo after the deaths of Lenin[113] and Joseph Stalin,[114] as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal,[115] itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee.[116] All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, except Georgy Malenkov[117] and Khrushchev, both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party.[116] Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition, Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from the highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. The Congress of People's Deputies was established, the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, much stronger than before. For the first time since the 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers.[118] In 1990, Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the President of the Soviet Union, concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government,[119] now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR, to himself.[120] Tensions grew between the union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists led in Russia by Boris Yeltsin and controlling the newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, and Communist Party hardliners. On 19-21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged an abortive coup attempt. Following the failed coup, the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power "in the period of transition".[121] Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR.[122] Judicial system Main article: Law of the Soviet Union See also: Socialist law The judiciary was not independent of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts (People's Court) and applied the law as established by the Constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union used the inquisitorial system of Roman law, where the judge, procurator, and defense attorney collaborate to establish the truth.[123] Administrative divisions Main articles: Soviet republic (system of government) and Republics of the Soviet Union Constitutionally, the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics, which were either unitary states, such as Ukraine or Byelorussia (SSRs), or federal states, such as Russia or Transcaucasia (SFSRs),[93] all four being the founding republics who signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in December 1922. In 1924, during the national delimitation in Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were formed from parts of the Russia's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and Bukharan SSRs. In 1929, Tajikistan was split off from the Uzbekistan SSR. With the constitution of 1936, the Transcaucasian SFSR was dissolved, resulting in its constituent republics of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan being elevated to Union Republics, while Kazakhstan and Kirghizia were split off from Russian SFSR, resulting in the same status.[124] In August 1940, Moldavia was formed from parts of the Ukraine and Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (SSRs) were also admitted into the union which was not recognized by most of the international community and was con

Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] (About this sound listen); 20 April 1889 - 30 April 1945) was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; NSDAP), Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Führer ("Leader") of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.[a] As dictator, Hitler initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and was central to the Holocaust. Hitler was born in Austria—then part of Austria-Hungary—and was raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the NSDAP, and was appointed leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted to seize power in a failed coup in Munich and was imprisoned. While in jail he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). After his release from prison in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-semitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy. By 1933, the Nazi Party was the largest elected party in the German Reichstag, but did not have a majority, and no party was able to form a majority parliamentary coalition in support of a candidate for chancellor. This led to former chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservative leaders persuading President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Shortly after, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933, which began the process of transforming the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany, a one-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of National Socialism. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain and France. His first six years in power resulted in rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the abrogation of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War I and the annexation of territories that were home to millions of ethnic Germans which gave him significant popular support. Hitler sought Lebensraum ("living space") for the German people in Eastern Europe and his aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the primary cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting in Britain and France declaring war on Germany. In June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941, German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa. In December 1941, he formally declared war on the United States, bringing them directly into the conflict. Failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, he married his long-time lover Eva Braun. Less than two days later on 30 April 1945, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army and their corpses were burned. Under Hitler's leadership and racially motivated ideology, the Nazi regime was responsible for the genocide of at least 5.5 million Jews and millions of other victims whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen (sub-humans) or socially undesirable. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European theatre. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare and the casualties constituted the deadliest conflict in human history. Contents [hide] 1 Early years 1.1 Ancestry 1.2 Childhood and education 1.3 Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich 1.4 World War I 2 Entry into politics 2.1 Beer Hall Putsch and Landsberg Prison 2.2 Rebuilding the Nazi Party 3 Rise to power 3.1 Brüning administration 3.2 Appointment as chancellor 3.3 Reichstag fire and March elections 3.4 Day of Potsdam and the Enabling Act 3.5 Dictatorship 4 Nazi Germany 4.1 Economy and culture 4.2 Rearmament and new alliances 5 World War II 5.1 Early diplomatic successes 5.1.1 Alliance with Japan 5.1.2 Austria and Czechoslovakia 5.2 Start of World War II 5.3 Path to defeat 5.4 Defeat and death 6 The Holocaust 7 Leadership style 8 Legacy 9 Views on religion 10 Health 11 Family 12 In propaganda 12.1 Films 12.1.1 List of propaganda and film appearances 13 See also 14 References 15 External links Early years Ancestry Main article: Hitler family Hitler's father Alois Hitler Sr. (1837-1903) was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber.[3] The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, and Alois initially bore his mother's surname Schicklgruber. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Alois's mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler.[4] In 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois's father (recorded as "Georg Hitler").[5][6] Alois then assumed the surname "Hitler",[6] also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, or Huettler. The Hitler surname is probably based on "one who lives in a hut" (German Hütte for "hut").[7] Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Alois's mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the family's 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois.[8] No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenberger's existence,[9] so historians dismiss the claim that Alois's father was Jewish.[10][11] Childhood and education Adolf Hitler as an infant (c. 1889-90) Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary (in present-day Austria), close to the border with the German Empire.[12] He was christened as "Adolphus Hitler".[13] He was the fourth of six children born to Alois Hitler and his third wife, Klara Pölzl. Three of Hitler's siblings—Gustav, Ida, and Otto—died in infancy.[14] Also living in the household were Alois's children from his second marriage: Alois Jr. (born 1882) and Angela (born 1883).[15] When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany.[16] There he acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather than Austrian German, which marked his speech throughout his life.[17][18][19] The family returned to Austria and settled in Leonding in 1894, and in June 1895 Alois retired to Hafeld, near Lambach, where he farmed and kept bees. Hitler attended Volksschule (a state-owned school) in nearby Fischlham.[20][21] The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caused by Hitler's refusal to conform to the strict discipline of his school.[22] Alois Hitler's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and in 1897 the family moved to Lambach. The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even considered becoming a priest.[23] In 1898 the family returned permanently to Leonding. Hitler was deeply affected by the death of his younger brother Edmund, who died in 1900 from measles. Hitler changed from a confident, outgoing, conscientious student to a morose, detached boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.[24] Hitler's mother, Klara Hitler's father, Alois Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau, and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.[25] Hitler later dramatised an episode from this period when his father took him to visit a customs office, depicting it as an event that gave rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and son, who were both strong-willed.[26][27][28] Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become an artist, Alois sent Hitler to the Realschule in Linz in September 1900.[b][29] Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in Mein Kampf states that he intentionally did poorly in school, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to my dream".[30] Like many Austrian Germans, Hitler began to develop German nationalist ideas from a young age.[31] He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an ethnically variegated empire.[32][33] Hitler and his friends used the greeting "Heil", and sang the "Deutschlandlied" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.[34] After Alois's sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated and his mother allowed him to leave.[35] He enrolled at the Realschule in Steyr in September 1904, where his behaviour and performance improved.[36] In 1905, after passing a repeat of the final exam, Hitler left the school without any ambitions for further education or clear plans for a career.[37] Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich The house in Leonding in Austria where Hitler spent his early adolescence (photo taken in July 2012) In 1907 Hitler left Linz to live and study fine art in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna but was rejected twice.[38][39] The director explained his drawings showed "unfitness for painting" and suggested Hitler was better suited to studying architecture. Though this was an interest of his, he lacked the academic credentials as he had not finished secondary school.[40] On 21 December 1907, his mother died of breast cancer at the age of 47. In 1909 Hitler ran out of money and was forced to live a bohemian life in homeless shelters and Meldemannstraße dormitory.[41][42] He earned money as a casual labourer and by painting and selling watercolours of Vienna's sights.[38] The Alter Hof in Munich. Watercolour by Adolf Hitler, 1914 During his time in Vienna he pursued a growing passion for two interests, architecture and music, attending ten performances of Lohengrin, his favorite Wagner opera.[43] It was here that Hitler first became exposed to racist rhetoric.[44] Populists such as mayor Karl Lueger exploited the climate of virulent anti-Semitism and occasionally espoused German nationalist notions for political effect. German nationalism had a particularly widespread following in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler lived.[45] Georg Ritter von Schönerer became a major influence on Hitler.[46] He also developed an admiration for Martin Luther.[47] Hitler read local newspapers such as Deutsches Volksblatt that fanned prejudice and played on Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of Eastern European Jews.[48] He read newspapers and pamphlets that published the thoughts of philosophers and theoreticians such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gustave Le Bon and Arthur Schopenhauer.[49] The origin and development of Hitler's anti-Semitism remains a matter of debate.[50] His friend, August Kubizek, claimed that Hitler was a "confirmed anti-Semite" before he left Linz.[51] However, historian Brigitte Hamann describes Kubizek's claim as "problematical".[52] While Hitler states in Mein Kampf that he first became an anti-Semite in Vienna,[53] Reinhold Hanisch, who helped him sell his paintings, disagrees. Hitler had dealings with Jews while living in Vienna.[54][55][56] Historian Richard J. Evans states that "historians now generally agree that his notorious, murderous anti-Semitism emerged well after Germany's defeat [in World War I], as a product of the paranoid "stab-in-the-back" explanation for the catastrophe".[57] Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich, Germany.[58] Hitler was called up for conscription into the Austro-Hungarian Army,[59] so he journeyed to Salzburg on 5 February 1914 for medical assessment. After he was deemed by the medical examiners as unfit for service, he returned to Munich.[60] Hitler later claimed that he did not wish to serve the Habsburg Empire because of the mixture of races in its army and his belief that the collapse of Austria-Hungary was imminent.[61] World War I Main article: Military career of Adolf Hitler Hitler (far right, seated) with his army comrades of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (c. 1914-18) In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was living in Munich and voluntarily enlisted in the Bavarian Army.[62] According to a 1924 report by the Bavarian authorities, allowing Hitler to serve was almost certainly an administrative error, since as an Austrian citizen, he should have been returned to Austria.[62] Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of the List Regiment),[63][62] he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium,[64] spending nearly half his time at the regimental headquarters in Fournes-en-Weppes, well behind the front lines.[65][66] He was present at the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele, and was wounded at the Somme.[67] He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914.[67] On a recommendation by Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, Hitler's Jewish superior, he received the Iron Cross, First Class on 4 August 1918, a decoration rarely awarded to one of Hitler's Gefreiter rank.[68][69] He received the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.[70] Adolf Hitler as a soldier during World War I (1914-1918) During his service at headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded in the left thigh when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.[71] Hitler spent almost two months in hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March 1917.[72] On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded in a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised in Pasewalk.[73] While there, Hitler learned of Germany's defeat, and—by his own account—upon receiving this news, he suffered a second bout of blindness.[74] Hitler described the war as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery.[75] His wartime experience reinforced his German patriotism and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918.[76] His bitterness over the collapse of the war effort began to shape his ideology.[77] Like other German nationalists, he believed the Dolchstoßlegende (stab-in-the-back myth), which claimed that the German army, "undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders, Jews, and Marxists, later dubbed the "November criminals".[78] The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must relinquish several of its territories and demilitarise the Rhineland. The treaty imposed economic sanctions and levied heavy reparations on the country. Many Germans saw the treaty as an unjust humiliation—they especially objected to Article 231, which they interpreted as declaring Germany responsible for the war.[79] The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political conditions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gain.[80] Entry into politics Main article: Political views of Adolf Hitler Hitler's German Workers' Party (DAP) membership card After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich.[81] Without formal education or career prospects, he remained in the army.[82] In July 1919 he was appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance unit) of the Reichswehr, assigned to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). At a DAP meeting on 12 September 1919, Party Chairman Anton Drexler was impressed with Hitler's oratorical skills. He gave him a copy of his pamphlet My Political Awakening, which contained anti-Semitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas.[83] On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party,[84] and within a week was accepted as party member 555 (the party began counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much larger party).[85][86] Around this time, Hitler made his earliest known recorded statement about the Jews in a letter (now known as the Gemlich letter) dated 16 September 1919 to Adolf Gemlich about the Jewish question. In the letter, Hitler argues that the aim of the government "must unshakably be the removal of the Jews altogether".[87] At the DAP, Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of the party's founders and a member of the occult Thule Society.[88] Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him and introducing him to a wide range of Munich society.[89] To increase its appeal, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party; NSDAP).[90] Hitler designed the party's banner of a swastika in a white circle on a red background.[91] Hitler was discharged from the army on 31 March 1920 and began working full-time for the NSDAP.[92] The party headquarters was in Munich, a hotbed of anti-government German nationalists determined to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar Republic.[93] In February 1921—already highly effective at crowd manipulation—he spoke to a crowd of over 6,000.[94] To publicise the meeting, two truckloads of party supporters drove around Munich waving swastika flags and distributing leaflets. Hitler soon gained notoriety for his rowdy polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, and especially against Marxists and Jews.[95] Hitler poses for the camera, 1930 In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the NSDAP in Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP).[96] Hitler returned to Munich on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that the resignation of their leading public figure and speaker would mean the end of the party.[97] Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich.[98] The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July as member 3,680. Hitler continued to face some opposition within the NSDAP: Opponents of Hitler in the leadership had Hermann Esser expelled from the party, and they printed 3,000 copies of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as a traitor to the party.[98][c] In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself and Esser, to thunderous applause. His strategy proved successful, and at a special party congress on 29 July, he was granted absolute powers as party chairman, replacing Drexler, by a vote of 533 to 1.[99] Hitler's vitriolic beer hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. He became adept at using populist themes, including the use of scapegoats, who were blamed for his listeners' economic hardships.[100][101][102] Hitler used personal magnetism and an understanding of crowd psychology to his advantage while engaged in public speaking.[103][104] Historians have noted the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups.[105] Algis Budrys recalled the crowd noise and behavior when Hitler appeared in a 1936 parade; some in the audience writhed and rolled on the ground or experienced fecal incontinence.[106] Alfons Heck, a former member of the Hitler Youth, recalled a similar experience: We erupted into a frenzy of nationalistic pride that bordered on hysteria. For minutes on end, we shouted at the top of our lungs, with tears streaming down our faces: Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! From that moment on, I belonged to Adolf Hitler body and soul.[107] Early followers included Rudolf Hess, former air force ace Hermann Göring, and army captain Ernst Röhm. Röhm became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung (SA, "Stormtroopers"), which protected meetings and attacked political opponents. A critical influence on Hitler's thinking during this period was the Aufbau Vereinigung,[108] a conspiratorial group of White Russian exiles and early National Socialists. The group, financed with funds channelled from wealthy industrialists, introduced Hitler to the idea of a Jewish conspiracy, linking international finance with Bolshevism.[109] Beer Hall Putsch and Landsberg Prison Main article: Beer Hall Putsch Defendants in the Beer Hall Putsch trial. From left to right: Pernet, Weber, Frick, Kiebel, Ludendorff, Hitler, Bruckner, Röhm, and Wagner. In 1923 Hitler enlisted the help of World War I General Erich Ludendorff for an attempted coup known as the "Beer Hall Putsch". The NSDAP used Italian Fascism as a model for their appearance and policies. Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini's "March on Rome" of 1922 by staging his own coup in Bavaria, to be followed by a challenge to the government in Berlin. Hitler and Ludendorff sought the support of Staatskommissar (state commissioner) Gustav Ritter von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler. However, Kahr, along with Police Chief Hans Ritter von Seisser and Reichswehr General Otto von Lossow, wanted to install a nationalist dictatorship without Hitler.[110] On 8 November 1923 Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting of 3,000 people organised by Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller, a beer hall in Munich. Interrupting Kahr's speech, he announced that the national revolution had begun and declared the formation of a new government with Ludendorff.[111] Retiring to a back room, Hitler, with handgun drawn, demanded and got the support of Kahr, Seisser, and Lossow.[111] Hitler's forces initially succeeded in occupying the local Reichswehr and police headquarters, but Kahr and his cohorts quickly withdrew their support. Neither the army, nor the state police, joined forces with Hitler.[112] The next day, Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government, but police dispersed them.[113] Sixteen NSDAP members and four police officers were killed in the failed coup.[114] Dust jacket of Mein Kampf (1926-28 edition) Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl and by some accounts contemplated suicide.[115] He was depressed but calm when arrested on 11 November 1923 for high treason.[116] His trial before the special People's Court in Munich began in February 1924,[117] and Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the NSDAP. On 1 April, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison.[118] There, he received friendly treatment from the guards, and was allowed mail from supporters and regular visits by party comrades. Pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court, he was released from jail on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections.[119] Including time on remand, Hitler served just over one year in prison.[120] While at Landsberg, Hitler dictated most of the first volume of Mein Kampf (My Struggle; originally entitled Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice) to his deputy, Rudolf Hess.[120] The book, dedicated to Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart, was an autobiography and exposition of his ideology. The book laid out Hitler's plans for transforming German society into one based on race. Some passages imply genocide.[121] Published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, it sold 228,000 copies between 1925 and 1932. One million copies were sold in 1933, Hitler's first year in office.[122] Shortly before Hitler was eligible for parole, the Bavarian government attempted to have him deported back to Austria.[123] The Austrian federal chancellor rejected the request on the specious grounds that his service in the German Army made his Austrian citizenship void.[124] In response, Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925.[124] Rebuilding the Nazi Party At the time of Hitler's release from prison, politics in Germany had become less combative and the economy had improved, limiting Hitler's opportunities for political agitation. As a result of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, the Nazi Party and its affiliated organisations were banned in Bavaria. In a meeting with the Prime Minister of Bavaria Heinrich Held on 4 January 1925, Hitler agreed to respect the state's authority and promised that he would seek political power only through the democratic process. The meeting paved the way for the ban on the NSDAP to be lifted on 16 February.[125] However, after an inflammatory speech he gave on 27 February, Hitler was barred from public speaking by the Bavarian authorities, a ban that remained in place until 1927.[126][127] To advance his political ambitions in spite of the ban, Hitler appointed Gregor Strasser, Otto Strasser and Joseph Goebbels to organise and grow the NSDAP in northern Germany. Gregor Strasser steered a more independent political course, emphasising the socialist elements of the party's programme.[128] The stock market in the United States crashed on 24 October 1929. The impact in Germany was dire: millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the NSDAP prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to repudiate the Versailles Treaty, strengthen the economy, and provide jobs.[129] Rise to power Main article: Adolf Hitler's rise to power NSDAP election results[130] Election Total votes % votes Reichstag seats Notes May 1924 1,918,300 6.5 32 Hitler in prison December 1924 907,300 3.0 14 Hitler released from prison May 1928 810,100 2.6 12 September 1930 6,409,600 18.3 107 After the financial crisis July 1932 13,745,000 37.3 230 After Hitler was candidate for presidency November 1932 11,737,000 33.1 196 March 1933 17,277,180 43.9 288 Only partially free during Hitler's term as chancellor of Germany Brüning administration The Great Depression provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent about the parliamentary republic, which faced challenges from right- and left-wing extremists. The moderate political parties were increasingly unable to stem the tide of extremism, and the German referendum of 1929 helped to elevate Nazi ideology.[131] The elections of September 1930 resulted in the break-up of a grand coalition and its replacement with a minority cabinet. Its leader, chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party, governed through emergency decrees from President Paul von Hindenburg. Governance by decree became the new norm and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government.[132] The NSDAP rose from obscurity to win 18.3 per cent of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, becoming the second-largest party in parliament.[133] Hitler and NSDAP treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz at the dedication of the renovation of the Palais Barlow on Brienner Straße in Munich into the Brown House headquarters, December 1930 Hitler made a prominent appearance at the trial of two Reichswehr officers, Lieutenants Richard Scheringer and Hans Ludin, in late 1930. Both were charged with membership in the NSDAP, at that time illegal for Reichswehr personnel.[134] The prosecution argued that the NSDAP was an extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify.[135] On 25 September 1930, Hitler testified that his party would pursue political power solely through democratic elections,[136] which won him many supporters in the officer corps.[137] Brüning's austerity measures brought little economic improvement and were extremely unpopular.[138] Hitler exploited this by targeting his political messages specifically at people who had been affected by the inflation of the 1920s and the Depression, such as farmers, war veterans, and the middle class.[139] Although Hitler had terminated his Austrian citizenship in 1925, he did not acquire German citizenship for almost seven years. This meant that he was stateless, legally unable to run for public office, and still faced the risk of deportation.[140] On 25 February 1932, the interior minister of Brunswick, Dietrich Klagges, who was a member of the NSDAP, appointed Hitler as administrator for the state's delegation to the Reichsrat in Berlin, making Hitler a citizen of Brunswick,[141] and thus of Germany.[142] Hitler ran against Hindenburg in the 1932 presidential elections. A 27 January 1932 speech to the Industry Club in Düsseldorf won him support from many of Germany's most powerful industrialists.[143] Hindenburg had support from various nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, and republican parties, and some Social Democrats. Hitler used the campaign slogan "Hitler über Deutschland" ("Hitler over Germany"), a reference to his political ambitions and his campaigning by aircraft.[144] He was one of the first politicians to use aircraft travel for political purposes, and used it effectively.[145][146] Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 35 per cent of the vote in the final election. Although he lost to Hindenburg, this election established Hitler as a strong force in German politics.[147] Appointment as chancellor Hitler, at the window of the Reich Chancellery, receives an ovation on the evening of his inauguration as chancellor, 30 January 1933 The absence of an effective government prompted two influential politicians, Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, along with several other industrialists and businessmen, to write a letter to Hindenburg. The signers urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties", which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people".[148][149] Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after two further parliamentary elections—in July and November 1932—had not resulted in the formation of a majority government. Hitler headed a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and Hugenberg's party, the German National People's Party (DNVP). On 30 January 1933, the new cabinet was sworn in during a brief ceremony in Hindenburg's office. The NSDAP gained three posts: Hitler was named chancellor, Wilhelm Frick Minister of the Interior, and Hermann Göring Minister of the Interior for Prussia.[150] Hitler had insisted on the ministerial positions as a way to gain control over the police in much of Germany.[151] Reichstag fire and March elections As chancellor, Hitler worked against attempts by the NSDAP's opponents to build a majority government. Because of the political stalemate, he asked Hindenburg to again dissolve the Reichstag, and elections were scheduled for early March. On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. Göring blamed a communist plot, because Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was found in incriminating circumstances inside the burning building.[152] According to Kershaw, the consensus of nearly all historians is that van der Lubbe actually set the fire.[153] Others, including William L. Shirer and Alan Bullock, are of the opinion that the NSDAP itself was responsible.[154][155] At Hitler's urging, Hindenburg responded with the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February, which suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. The decree was permitted under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which gave the president the power to take emergency measures to protect public safety and order.[156] Activities of the German Communist Party (KPD) were suppressed, and some 4,000 KPD members were arrested.[157] In addition to political campaigning, the NSDAP engaged in paramilitary violence and the spread of anti-communist propaganda in the days preceding the election. On election day, 6 March 1933, the NSDAP's share of the vote increased to 43.9 per cent, and the party acquired the largest number of seats in parliament. Hitler's party failed to secure an absolute majority, necessitating another coalition with the DNVP.[158] Day of Potsdam and the Enabling Act Main article: Enabling Act of 1933 Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler on the Day of Potsdam, 21 March 1933 On 21 March 1933, the new Reichstag was constituted with an opening ceremony at the Garrison Church in Potsdam. This "Day of Potsdam" was held to demonstrate unity between the Nazi movement and the old Prussian elite and military. Hitler appeared in a morning coat and humbly greeted Hindenburg.[159][160] To achieve full political control despite not having an absolute majority in parliament, Hitler's government brought the Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) to a vote in the newly elected Reichstag. The Act—officially titled the Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich ("Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich")—gave Hitler's cabinet the power to enact laws without the consent of the Reichstag for four years. These laws could (with certain exceptions) deviate from the constitution.[161] Since it would affect the constitution, the Enabling Act required a two-thirds majority to pass. Leaving nothing to chance, the Nazis used the provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to arrest all 81 Communist deputies (in spite of their virulent campaign against the party, the Nazis had allowed the KPD to contest the election[162]) and prevent several Social Democrats from attending.[163] On 23 March 1933, the Reichstag assembled at the Kroll Opera House under turbulent circumstances. Ranks of SA men served as guards inside the building, while large groups outside opposing the proposed legislation shouted slogans and threats towards the arriving members of parliament.[164] The position of the Centre Party, the third largest party in the Reichstag, was decisive. After Hitler verbally promised party leader Ludwig Kaas that Hindenburg would retain his power of veto, Kaas announced the Centre Party would support the Enabling Act. The Act passed by a vote of 441-84, with all parties except the Social Democrats voting in favour. The Enabling Act, along with the Reichstag Fire Decree, transformed Hitler's government into a de facto legal dictatorship.[165] Dictatorship At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000 years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power![166] — Adolf Hitler to a British correspondent in Berlin, June 1934 Having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his allies began to suppress the remaining opposition. The Social Democratic Party was banned and its assets seized.[167] While many trade union delegates were in Berlin for May Day activities, SA stormtroopers demolished union offices around the country. On 2 May 1933 all trade unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested. Some were sent to concentration camps.[168] The German Labour Front was formed as an umbrella organisation to represent all workers, administrators, and company owners, thus reflecting the concept of national socialism in the spirit of Hitler's Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community").[169] In 1934, Hitler became Germany's head of state with the title of Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor of the Reich). By the end of June, the other parties had been intimidated into disbanding. This included the Nazis' nominal coalition partner, the DNVP; with the SA's help, Hitler forced its leader, Hugenberg, to resign on 29 June. On 14 July 1933, the NSDAP was declared the only legal political party in Germany.[169][167] The demands of the SA for more political and military power caused anxiety among military, industrial, and political leaders. In response, Hitler purged the entire SA leadership in the Night of the Long Knives, which took place from 30 June to 2 July 1934.[170] Hitler targeted Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders who, along with a number of Hitler's political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher), were rounded up, arrested, and shot.[171] While the international community and some Germans were shocked by the murders, many in Germany believed Hitler was restoring order.[172] On 2 August 1934, Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the "Law Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich".[2] This law stated that upon Hindenburg's death, the office of president would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government, and was formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor),[1] although Reichskanzler was eventually quietly dropped.[173] With this action, Hitler eliminated the last legal remedy by which he could be removed from office.[174] As head of state, Hitler became supreme commander of the armed forces. Immediately after Hindenberg's death, at the instigation of the leadership of the Reichswehr, the traditional loyalty oath of soldiers was altered to affirm loyalty to Hitler personally, by name, rather than to the office of supreme commander or the state.[175] On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by 88 per cent of the electorate voting in a plebiscite.[176] Hitler's personal standard In early 1938, Hitler used blackmail to consolidate his hold over the military by instigating the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair. Hitler forced his War Minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, to resign by using a police dossier that showed that Blomberg's new wife had a record for prostitution.[177][178] Army commander Colonel-General Werner von Fritsch was removed after the Schutzstaffel (SS) produced allegations that he had engaged in a homosexual relationship.[179] Both men had fallen into disfavour because they objected to Hitler's demand to make the Wehrmacht ready for war as early as 1938.[180] Hitler assumed Blomberg's title of Commander-in-Chief, thus taking personal command of the armed forces. He replaced the Ministry of War with the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command: OKW), headed by General Wilhelm Keitel. On the same day, sixteen generals were stripped of their commands and 44 more were transferred; all were suspected of not being sufficiently pro-Nazi.[181] By early February 1938, twelve more generals had been removed.[182] Hitler took care to give his dictatorship the appearance of legality. Many of his decrees were explicitly based on the Reichstag Fire Decree and hence on Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. The Reichstag renewed the Enabling Act twice, each time for a four-year period.[183] While elections to the Reichstag were still held (in 1933, 1936, and 1938), voters were presented with a single list of Nazis and pro-Nazi "guests" which carried with well over 90 percent of the vote.[184] These elections were held in far-from-secret conditions; the Nazis threatened severe reprisals against anyone who didn't vote or dared to vote no.[185] Nazi Germany Main article: Nazi Germany Economy and culture Main article: Economy of Nazi Germany Ceremony honouring the dead (Totenehrung) on the terrace in front of the Hall of Honour (Ehrenhalle) at the Nazi party rally grounds, Nuremberg, September 1934 In August 1934, Hitler appointed Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht as Minister of Economics, and in the following year, as Plenipotentiary for War Economy in charge of preparing the economy for war.[186] Reconstruction and rearmament were financed through Mefo bills, printing money, and seizing the assets of people arrested as enemies of the State, including Jews.[187] Unemployment fell from six million in 1932 to one million in 1936.[188] Hitler oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, leading to the construction of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. Wages were slightly lower in the mid to late 1930s compared with wages during the Weimar Republic, while the cost of living increased by 25 per cent.[189] The average work week increased during the shift to a war economy; by 1939, the average German was working between 47 and 50 hours a week.[190] Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale. Albert Speer, instrumental in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture, was placed in charge of the proposed architectural renovations of Berlin.[191] Despite a threatened multi-nation boycott, Germany hosted the 1936 Olympic Games. Hitler officiated at the opening ceremonies and attended events at both the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Summer Games in Berlin.[192] Rearmament and new alliances Main articles: Axis powers, Tripartite Pact, and German re-armament In a meeting with German military leaders on 3 February 1933, Hitler spoke of "conquest for Lebensraum in the East and its ruthless Germanisation" as his ultimate foreign policy objectives.[193] In March, Prince Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow, secretary at the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office), issued a statement of major foreign policy aims: Anschluss with Austria, the restoration of Germany's national borders of 1914, rejection of military restrictions under the Treaty of Versailles, the return of the former German colonies in Africa, and a German zone of influence in Eastern Europe. Hitler found Bülow's goals to be too modest.[194] In speeches during this period, he stressed the peaceful goals of his policies and a willingness to work within international agreements.[195] At the first meeting of his cabinet in 1933, Hitler prioritised military spending over unemployment relief.[196] On 25 October 1936, an axis was declared between Italy and Germany. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference in October 1933.[197] In January 1935, over 90 per cent of the people of the Saarland, then under League of Nations administration, voted to unite with Germany.[198] That March, Hitler announced an expansion of the Wehrmacht to 600,000 members—six times the number permitted by the Versailles Treaty—including development of an air force (Luftwaffe) and an increase in the size of the navy (Kriegsmarine). Britain, France, Italy, and the League of Nations condemned these violations of the Treaty, but did nothing to stop it.[199][200] The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) of 18 June allowed German tonnage to increase to 35 per cent of that of the British navy. Hitler called the signing of the AGNA "the happiest day of his life", believing that the agreement marked the beginning of the Anglo-German alliance he had predicted in Mein Kampf.[201] France and Italy were not consulted before the signing, directly undermining the League of Nations and setting the Treaty of Versailles on the path towards irrelevance.[202] Germany reoccupied the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in March 1936, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Hitler also sent troops to Spain to support General Franco during the Spanish Civil War after receiving an appeal for help in July 1936. At the same time, Hitler continued his efforts to create an Anglo-German alliance.[203] In August 1936, in response to a growing economic crisis caused by his rearmament efforts, Hitler ordered Göring to implement a Four Year Plan to prepare Germany for war within the next four years.[204] The plan envisaged an all-out struggle between "Judeo-Bolshevism" and German national socialism, which in Hitler's view required a committed effort of rearmament regardless of the economic costs.[205] Count Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Mussolini's government, declared an axis between Germany and Italy, and on 25 November, Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. Britain, China, Italy, and Poland were also invited to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, but only Italy signed in 1937. Hitler abandoned his plan of an Anglo-German alliance, blaming "inadequate" British leadership.[206] At a meeting in the Reich Chancellery with his foreign ministers and military chiefs that November, Hitler restated his intention of acquiring Lebensraum for the German people. He ordered preparations for war in the East, to begin as early as 1938 and no later than 1943. In the event of his death, the conference minutes, recorded as the Hossbach Memorandum, were to be regarded as his "political testament".[207] He felt that a severe decline in living standards in Germany as a result of the economic crisis could only be stopped by military aggression aimed at seizing Austria and Czechoslovakia.[208][209] Hitler urged quick action before Britain and France gained a permanent lead in the arms race.[208] In early 1938, in the wake of the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair, Hitler asserted control of the military-foreign policy apparatus, dismissing Neurath as foreign minister and appointing himself as War Minister.[204] From early 1938 onwards, Hitler was carrying out a foreign policy ultimately aimed at war.[210] World War II Early diplomatic successes Alliance with Japan See also: Germany-Japan relations Hitler and the Japanese foreign minister, Yōsuke Matsuoka, at a meeting in Berlin in March 1941. In the background is Joachim von Ribbentrop. In February 1938, on the advice of his newly appointed foreign minister, the strongly pro-Japanese Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler ended the Sino-German alliance with the Republic of China to instead enter into an alliance with the more modern and powerful Empire of Japan. Hitler announced German recognition of Manchukuo, the Japanese-occupied state in Manchuria, and renounced German claims to their former colonies in the Pacific held by Japan.[211] Hitler ordered an end to arms shipments to China and recalled all German officers working with the Chinese Army.[211] In retaliation, Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek cancelled all Sino-German economic agreements, depriving the Germans of many Chinese raw materials.[212] Austria and Czechoslovakia On 12 March 1938, Hitler announced the unification of Austria with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss.[213][214] Hitler then turned his attention to the ethnic German population of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.[215] On 28-29 March 1938, Hitler held a series of secret meetings in Berlin with Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten German Party, the largest of the ethnic German parties of the Sudetenland. The men agreed that Henlein would demand increased autonomy for Sudeten Germans from the Czechoslovakian government, thus providing a pretext for German military action against Czechoslovakia. In April 1938 Henlein told the foreign minister of Hungary that "whatever the Czech government might offer, he would always raise still higher demands ... he wanted to sabotage an understanding by any means because this was the only method to blow up Czechoslovakia quickly".[216] In private, Hitler considered the Sudeten issue unimportant; his real intention was a war of conquest against Czechoslovakia.[217] October 1938: Hitler is driven through the crowd in Cheb (German: Eger), in the mostly German-populated Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, which had been annexed to Nazi Germany as part of the Munich Agreement In April Hitler ordered the OKW to prepare for Fall Grün (Case Green), the code name for an invasion of Czechoslovakia.[218] As a result of intense French and British diplomatic pressure, on 5 September Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš unveiled the "Fourth Plan" for constitutional reorganisation of his country, which agreed to most of Henlein's demands for Sudeten autonomy.[219] Henlein's party responded to Beneš' offer by instigating a series of violent clashes with the Czechoslovakian police that led to the declaration of martial law in certain Sudeten districts.[220][221] Germany was dependent on imported oil; a confrontation with Britain over the Czechoslovakian dispute could curtail Germany's oil supplies. This forced Hitler to call off Fall Grün, originally planned for 1 October 1938.[222] On 29 September Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, and Mussolini attended a one-day conference in Munich that led to the Munich Agreement, which handed over the Sudetenland districts to Germany.[223][224] Chamberlain was satisfied with the Munich conference, calling the outcome "peace for our time", while Hitler was angered about the missed opportunity for war in 1938;[225][226] he expressed his disappointment in a speech on 9 October in Saarbrücken.[227] In Hitler's view, the British-brokered peace, although favourable to the ostensible German demands, was a diplomatic defeat which spurred his intent of limiting British power to pave the way for the eastern expansion of Germany.[228][229] As a result of the summit, Hitler was selected Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.[230] In late 1938 and early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by rearmament forced Hitler to make major defence cuts.[231] In his "Export or die" speech of 30 January 1939, he called for an economic offensive to increase German foreign exchange holdings to pay for raw materials such as high-grade iron needed for military weapons.[231] On 15 March 1939, in violation of the Munich accord and possibly as a result of the deepening economic crisis requiring additional assets,[232] Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to invade Prague, and from Prague Castle he proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.[233] Start of World War II See also: Causes of World War II In private discussions in 1939, Hitler declared Britain the main enemy to be defeated and that Poland's obliteration was a necessary prelude for that goal.[234] The eastern flank would be secured and land would be added to Germany's Lebensraum.[235] Offended by the British "guarantee" on 31 March 1939 of Polish independence, he said, "I shall brew them a devil's drink".[236] In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship Tirpitz on 1 April, he threatened to denounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement if the British continued to guarantee Polish independence, which he perceived as an "encirclement" policy.[236] Poland was to either become a German satellite state or it would be neutralised in order to secure the Reich's eastern flank and prevent a possible British blockade.[237] Hitler initially favoured the idea of a satellite state, but upon its rejection by the Polish government, he decided to invade and made this the main foreign policy goal of 1939.[238] On 3 April, Hitler ordered the military to prepare for Fall Weiss ("Case White"), the plan for invading Poland on 25 August.[238] In a Reichstag speech on 28 April, he renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact.[239] Historians such as William Carr, Gerhard Weinberg, and Ian Kershaw have argued that one reason for Hitler's rush to war was his fear of an early death. He had repeatedly claimed that he must lead Germany into war before he got too old, as his successors might lack his strength of will.[240][241][242] Hitler portrayed on a 42 pfennig stamp from 1944. The term Grossdeutsches Reich (Greater German Reich) was first used in 1943 for the expanded Germany under his rule. Hitler was concerned that a military attack against Poland could result in a premature war with Britain.[237][243] Hitler's foreign minister and former Ambassador to London, Joachim von Ribbentrop, assured him that neither Britain nor France would honour their commitments to Poland.[244][245] Accordingly, on 22 August 1939 Hitler ordered a military mobilisation against Poland.[246] This plan required tacit Soviet support,[247] and the non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) between Germany and the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, included a secret agreement to partition Poland between the two countries.[248] Contrary to Ribbentrop's prediction that Britain would sever Anglo-Polish ties, Britain and Poland signed the Anglo-Polish alliance on 25 August 1939. This, along with news from Italy that Mussolini would not honour the Pact of Steel, prompted Hitler to postpone the attack on Poland from 25 August to 1 September.[249] Hitler unsuccessfully tried to manoeuvre the British into neutrality by offering them a non-aggression guarantee on 25 August; he then instructed Ribbentrop to present a last-minute peace plan with an impossibly short time limit in an effort to blame the imminent war on British and Polish inaction.[250][251] On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded western Poland under the pretext of having been denied claims to the Free City of Danzig and the right to extraterritorial roads across the Polish Corridor, which Germany had ceded under the Versailles Treaty.[252] In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September, surprising Hitler and prompting him to angrily ask Ribbentrop, "Now what?"[253] France and Britain did not act on their declarations immediately, and on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.[254] Hitler reviews troops on the march during the campaign against Poland. September 1939 The fall of Poland was followed by what contemporary journalists dubbed the "Phoney War" or Sitzkrieg ("sitting war"). Hitler instructed the two newly appointed Gauleiters of north-western Poland, Albert Forster of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland, to Germanise their areas, with "no questions asked" about how this was accomplished.[255] In Forster's area, ethnic Poles merely had to sign forms stating that they had German blood.[256] In contrast, Greiser agreed with Himmler and carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign towards Poles. Greiser soon complained that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as "racial" Germans and thus endangered German "racial purity".[255] Hitler refrained from getting involved. This inaction has been advanced as an example of the theory of "working towards the Führer", in which Hitler issued vague instructions and expected his subordinates to work out policies on their own.[255][257] Another dispute pitched one side represented by Heinrich Himmler and Greiser, who championed ethnic cleansing in Poland, against another represented by Göring and Hans Frank (governor-general of occupied Poland), who called for turning Poland into the "granary" of the Reich.[258] On 12 February 1940, the dispute was initially settled in favour of the Göring-Frank view, which ended the economically disruptive mass expulsions.[258] On 15 May 1940, Himmler issued a memo entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East", calling for the expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Europe into Africa and the reduction of the Polish population to a "leaderless class of labourers".[258] Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct",[258] and, ignoring Göring and Frank, implemented the Himmler-Greiser policy in Poland. Hitler visits Paris with architect Albert Speer (left) and sculptor Arno Breker (right), 23 June 1940 On 9 April, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. On the same day Hitler proclaimed the birth of the Greater Germanic Reich, his vision of a united empire of Germanic nations of Europe in which the Dutch, Flemish, and Scandinavians were joined into a "racially pure" polity under German leadership.[259] In May 1940, Germany attacked France, and conquered Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. These victories prompted Mussolini to have Italy join forces with Hitler on 10 June. France and Germany signed an armistice on 22 June.[260] Kershaw notes that Hitler's popularity within Germany - and German support for the war - reached its peak when he returned to Berlin on 6 July from his tour of Paris.[261] Following the unexpected swift victory, Hitler promoted twelve generals to the rank of field marshal during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony.[262][263] Boundaries of the Nazi planned Greater Germanic Reich Britain, whose troops were forced to evacuate France by sea from Dunkirk,[264] continued to fight alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler made peace overtures to the new British leader, Winston Churchill, and upon their rejection he ordered a series of aerial attacks on Royal Air Force airbases and radar stations in south-east England. On 7 September the systematic nightly bombing of London began. The German Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force in what became known as the Battle of Britain.[265] By the end of September, Hitler realised that air superiority for the invasion of Britain (in Operation Sea Lion) could not be achieved, and ordered the operation postponed. The nightly air raids on British cities intensified and continued for months, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry.[266] On 27 September 1940, the Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Saburō Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Italian foreign minister Ciano,[267] and later expanded to include Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, thus yielding the Axis powers. Hitler's attempt to integrate the Soviet Union into the anti-British bloc failed after inconclusive talks between Hitler and Molotov in Berlin in November, and he ordered preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union.[268] In early 1941, German forces were deployed to North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In February, German forces arrived in Libya to bolster the Italian presence. In April, Hitler launched the invasion of Yugoslavia, quickly followed by the invasion of Greece.[269] In May, German forces were sent to support Iraqi rebel forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete.[270] Path to defeat On 22 June 1941, contravening the Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, 4-5 million Axis troops attacked the Soviet Union.[271] This offensive (codenamed Operation Barbarossa) was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers.[272][273] The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic republics, Belarus, and West Ukraine. By early August, Axis troops had advanced 500 km (310 mi) and won the Battle of Smolensk. Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to temporarily halt its advance to Moscow and divert its Panzer groups to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kiev.[274] His generals disagreed with this change, having advanced within 400 km (250 mi) of Moscow, and his decision caused a crisis among the military leadership.[275][276] The pause provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilise fresh reserves; historian Russel Stolfi considers it to be one of the major factors that caused the failure of the Moscow offensive, which was resumed in October 1941 and ended disastrously in December.[274] During this crisis, Hitler appointed himself as head of the Oberkommando des Heeres, at the same time limiting its authority to the eastern front. Hitler, announcing the declaration of war against the United States to the Reichstag, on 11 December 1941 On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the American fleet based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later, Hitler declared war against the United States.[277] On 18 December 1941, Himmler asked Hitler, "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", to which Hitler replied, "als Partisanen auszurotten" ("exterminate them as partisans").[278] Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has commented that the remark is probably as close as historians will ever get to a definitive order from Hitler for the genocide carried out during the Holocaust.[278] In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein,[279] thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. Overconfident in his own military expertise following the earlier victories in 1940, Hitler became distrustful of his Army High Command and began to interfere in military and tactical planning, with damaging consequences.[280] In December 1942 and January 1943, Hitler's repeated refusal to allow their withdrawal at the Battle of Stalingrad led to the almost total destruction of the 6th Army. Over 200,000 Axis soldiers were killed and 235,000 were taken prisoner.[281] Thereafter came a decisive strategic defeat at the Battle of Kursk.[282] Hitler's military judgement became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated, as did Hitler's health.[283] The destroyed map room at the Wolf's Lair after the 20 July plot Following the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, Mussolini was removed from power by Victor Emmanuel III after a vote of no confidence of the Grand Council. Marshal Pietro Badoglio, placed in charge of the government, soon surrendered to the Allies.[284] Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944, the Western Allied armies landed in northern France in one of the largest amphibious operations in history, Operation Overlord.[285] Many German officers concluded that defeat was inevitable and that continuing under Hitler's leadership would result in the complete destruction of the country.[286] Between 1939 and 1945, there were many plans to assassinate Hitler, some of which proceeded to significant degrees.[287] The most well known, the 20 July plot, came from within Germany and was at least partly driven by the increasing prospect of a German defeat in the war.[288] In July 1944, in the 20 July plot, part of Operation Valkyrie, Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in one of Hitler's headquarters, the Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg. Hitler narrowly survived because staff officer Heinz Brandt moved the briefcase containing the bomb behind a leg of the heavy conference table, which deflected much of the blast. Later, Hitler ordered savage reprisals resulting in the execution of more than 4,900 people.[289] Defeat and death Main article: Death of Adolf Hitler By late 1944, both the Red Army and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. Recognising the strength and determination of the Red Army, Hitler decided to use his remaining mobile reserves against the American and British troops, which he perceived as far weaker.[290] On 16 December, he launched the Ardennes Offensive to incite disunity among the Western Allies and perhaps convince them to join his fight against the Soviets.[291] The offensive failed after some temporary successes.[292] With much of Germany in ruins in January 1945, Hitler spoke on the radio: "However grave as the crisis may be at this moment, it will, despite everything, be mastered by our unalterable will."[293] Acting on his view that Germany's military failures meant it had forfeited its right to survive as a nation, Hitler ordered the destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands.[294] Minister for Armaments Albert Speer was entrusted with executing this scorched earth policy, but he secretly disobeyed the order.[294][295] Hitler's hope to negotiate peace with the United States and Britain was encouraged by the death of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945, but contrary to his expectations, this caused no rift among the Allies.[291][296] On 20 April, his 56th birthday, Hitler made his last trip from the Führerbunker (Führer's shelter) to the surface. In the ruined garden of the Reich Chancellery, he awarded Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth, who were now fighting the Red Army at the front near Berlin.[297] By 21 April, Georgy Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the defences of General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights and advanced to the outskirts of Berlin.[298] In denial about the dire situation, Hitler placed his hopes on the undermanned and under-equipped Armeeabteilung Steiner (Army Detachment Steiner), commanded by Waffen SS General Felix Steiner. Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the salient, while the German Ninth Army was ordered to attack northward in a pincer attack.[299] Hitler on 20 April 1945 in his last public appearance, in the garden of the Reich Chancellery, ten days before he and Eva Braun committed suicide. Front page of the US Armed Forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes, 2 May 1945, announcing Hitler's death During a military conference on 22 April, Hitler asked about Steiner's offensive. He was told that the attack had not been launched and that the Soviets had entered Berlin. Hitler asked everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Hans Krebs, and Wilhelm Burgdorf to leave the room,[300] then launched into a tirade against the treachery and incompetence of his commanders, culminating in his declaration—for the first time—that "everything was lost".[271] He announ

Catholic" and "Catholicism" redirect here. For other uses, see Catholic Church (disambiguation) and Catholic (disambiguation). Emblem of the Holy See Catholic Church Latin: Ecclesia Catholica Saint Peter's Basilica Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City Polity Episcopal[1] Head Pope Francis Administration Roman Curia Dioceses Archdioceses: 640 Dioceses: 2,851 Parishes 221,700 Liturgy Particular churches and liturgical rites Headquarters Vatican City Founder Jesus Christ, according to Catholic tradition Origin 1st century Jerusalem, Judea Roman Empire[2][3] Members 1.285 billion[4] Clergy Bishops: 5,304 Priests: 415,656 Deacons: 45,255 Official website Holy See Emblem of the Papacy SE.svg Part of a series on the Catholic Church St. Peter's Basilica St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City Overview Pope: Francis Hierarchy History (Timeline) Theology Liturgy Sacraments Mary Background[show] Organisation[show] Theology[show] Philosophy[show] Worship[show] Rites[show] Controversies[show] Other topics[show] Links and resources[show] 046CupolaSPietro.jpg Catholicism portal v t e The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.29 billion members worldwide.[4] As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation.[5] Headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the church's doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed. Its central administration, the Holy See, is in the Vatican City, an enclave within Rome, Italy. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ,[6][7][note 1] that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the Pope is the successor to Saint Peter to whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ.[10] It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith, reserving infallibility, passed down by sacred tradition.[11] The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, and institutes such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders reflect a variety of theological and spiritual emphases in the church.[12][13] Of its seven sacraments the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in the Mass.[14] The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, honoured in dogmas and devotions.[15] Its teaching includes sanctification through faith and evangelisation of the Gospel and Catholic social teaching, which emphasises support for the sick, the poor, and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and health care in the world.[16] The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, culture, science, and art. The Catholic Church shared communion with the Eastern Orthodox Church until the East-West Schism in 1054, disputing particularly the authority of the Pope, as well as with the Oriental Orthodox churches prior to the Chalcedonian schism in 451 over differences in Christology. Catholics live all over the world through missions, diaspora, and conversions. Since the 20th century the majority reside in the southern hemisphere due to secularisation in Europe, and increased persecution in the Middle East. From the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Contents [hide] 1 Name 2 Organisation 2.1 Holy See, papacy, and the Roman Curia 2.2 Canon law 2.3 Latin and Eastern churches 2.4 Dioceses, parishes and religious institutes 2.5 Membership 3 Doctrine 3.1 Nature of God 3.2 Nature of the church 3.3 Final Judgment 3.4 Virgin Mary and devotions 4 Sacraments 4.1 Sacraments of Christian initiation 4.2 Sacraments of healing 4.3 Sacraments at the service of communion 5 Liturgy 5.1 Western rites 5.2 Eastern rites 6 Social and cultural issues 6.1 Catholic social teaching 6.2 Social services 6.3 Sexual morality 6.4 Holy orders and women 6.5 Sexual abuse cases 7 History 7.1 Apostolic era and papacy 7.2 Antiquity and Roman Empire 7.3 Medieval and Renaissance periods 7.4 Age of discovery 7.5 Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation 7.6 Enlightenment and modern period 7.7 20th century 7.8 21st century 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Bibliography 12 External links Name The first use of the term "Catholic Church" (literally meaning "universal church") was by the church father Saint Ignatius of Antioch in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans (circa 100 AD).[17] He died in Rome, with his relics located in the Basilica of San Clemente al Laterano. Further information: Catholic (term) and Roman Catholic (term) Catholic (from Greek: καθολικός, translit. katholikos, lit. 'universal') was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century.[18] The first known use of the phrase "the catholic church" (καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία he katholike ekklesia) occurred in the letter written about 110 AD from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans.[note 2] In the Catechetical Lectures (c. 350) of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name "Catholic Church" was used to distinguish it from other groups that also called themselves "the church".[19][20] The "Catholic" notion was further stressed in the edict De fide Catolica issued 380 by Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire, when establishing the state church of the Roman Empire.[21] Since the East-West Schism of 1054, the Eastern Church has taken the adjective "Orthodox" as its distinctive epithet (however, its official name continues to be the "Orthodox Catholic Church"[22]) and the Western Church in communion with the Holy See has similarly taken "Catholic", keeping that description also after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, when those who ceased to be in communion became known as "Protestants".[23][24] While the "Roman Church" has been used to describe the pope's Diocese of Rome since the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages (6th-10th century), the "Roman Catholic Church" has been applied to the whole church in English language since the Protestant Reformation in the late 16th century.[25] "Roman Catholic" has occasionally appeared also in documents produced both by the Holy See,[note 3] notably applied to certain national episcopal conferences, and local dioceses.[note 4] The name "Catholic Church" for the whole church is used in the 1990 Catechism of the Catholic Church, the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the documents of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, and numerous other official documents.[26][27][28] Organisation "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven." Jesus to Peter in the Gospel of Matthew, 16:19 The crossed gold and silver keys of the Holy See symbolise the keys of Simon Peter, representing the power of the papal office to loose and bind. The triple crown papal tiara symbolises the triple power of the Pope as "father of kings", "governor of the world" and "Vicar of Christ". The gold cross on a monde (globe) surmounting the tiara symbolises the sovereignty of Jesus. Main articles: Hierarchy of the Catholic Church and Catholic Church by country The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church.[29][30] There are three levels of clergy, the episcopate, composed of bishops who hold jurisdiction over a geographic area called a diocese or eparchy; the presbyterate, composed of priests ordained by bishops and who work in local diocese or religious orders; and the diaconate, composed of deacons who assist bishops and priests in a variety of ministerial roles. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, whose jurisdiction is called the Holy See. In parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both. Additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services. Holy See, papacy, and the Roman Curia Francis is the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church, a title he holds ex officio as Bishop of Rome, and sovereign of Vatican City. He was elected in the papal conclave, 2013. Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Cathedral for the Diocese of Rome Main articles: Holy See, Pope, and Roman Curia Further information: List of popes The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the pope (Latin: papa; "father"), who is the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church.[31] The current pope, Francis, was elected on 13 March 2013 by papal conclave.[32] The office of the pope is known as the papacy. The Catholic Church holds that Christ instituted the papacy upon giving the keys of Heaven to Saint Peter. His ecclesiastical jurisdiction is called the "Holy See" (Sancta Sedes in Latin), or the "Apostolic See" (meaning the see of the apostle Peter).[33][34] Directly serving the pope is the Roman Curia, the central governing body that administers the day-to-day business of the Catholic Church. The pope is also Sovereign of Vatican City,[35] a small city-state entirely enclaved within the city of Rome, which is an entity distinct from the Holy See. It is as head of the Holy See, not as head of Vatican City State, that the pope receives ambassadors of states and sends them his own diplomatic representatives.[36] The Holy See also confers orders, decorations and medals, such as the orders of chivalry in the Middle Ages. While the famous Saint Peter's Basilica is located in Vatican City, above the traditional site of Saint Peter's tomb, the papal cathedral for the Diocese of Rome is Saint John Lateran, located within the city of Rome, though enjoying extraterritorial privileges accredited to the Holy See. The position of cardinal is a rank of honour bestowed by popes on certain clergy, such as leaders within the Roman Curia, bishops serving in major cities and distinguished theologians. For advice and assistance in governing, the pope may turn to the College of Cardinals.[37] Following the death or resignation of a pope,[note 5] members of the College of Cardinals who are under age 80 act as electoral college, meeting in a papal conclave to elect a successor.[39] Although the conclave may elect any male Catholic as pope, since 1389 only cardinals have been elected.[40] Canon law Main article: Canon law of the Catholic Church The canon law of the Catholic Church is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities to regulate the church's external organisation and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics towards the church's mission.[41] In the Catholic Church, universal positive ecclesiastical laws, based upon either immutable divine and natural law, or changeable circumstantial and merely positive law, derive formal authority and promulgation from the office of pope who, as Supreme Pontiff, possesses the totality of legislative, executive and judicial power in his person.[42] It has all the ordinary elements of a mature legal system:[43] laws, courts, lawyers, judges,[43] a fully articulated legal code,[44] principles of legal interpretation[45] and coercive penalties that are limited to moral coercion.[46][47] Canon law concerns the Catholic Church's life and organisation and is distinct from civil law. In its own field it gives force to civil law only by specific enactment in matters such as the guardianship of minors.[48] Similarly, civil law may give force in its field to canon law, but only by specific enactment, as with regard to canonical marriages.[49] Currently, the 1983 Code of Canon Law is in effect primarily for the Latin Church.[50] The distinct 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO, after the Latin initials) applies to the autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches.[51] Latin and Eastern churches Emblem of the Papacy SE.svg Part of a series on Particular churches sui iuris of the Catholic Church Latin cross used in the western tradition Church Patriarchal cross used in eastern tradition Latin cross and Byzantine Patriarchal cross Particular churches are grouped by rite. Latin Rite Latin Alexandrian Rite Coptic Ethiopian Eritrean Armenian Rite Armenian Byzantine Rite Albanian Belarusian Bulgarian Croatian and Serbian Greek Hungarian Italo-Albanian Macedonian Melkite Romanian Russian Ruthenian Slovak Ukrainian East Syriac Rite Chaldean Syro-Malabar West Syriac Rite Maronite Syriac Syro-Malankara 046CupolaSPietro.jpg Catholicism portal USVA headstone emb-05.svg Eastern Christianity portal v t e Main articles: Catholic particular churches and liturgical rites, Latin Church, and Eastern Catholic Churches In the 2,000-year history of the church, several complementary expressions of the Christian faith emerged throughout the world, most prominently, the Western and Eastern Christian traditions. The Catholic Church continues these traditions, through constituent autonomous particular churches, also known as "churches sui iuris" (Latin: "of one's own right"). The largest and most well known is the Latin Church, with more than 1 billion members worldwide. Relatively small in terms of adherents compared to the Latin Church, are the 23 self-governing Eastern Catholic Churches with a combined membership of 17.3 million as of 2010.[52][53][54][55] The Latin Church is governed by the pope and diocesan bishops directly appointed by him. The pope exercises a direct patriarchal role over the Latin Church, which is considered to form the original and still major part of Western Christianity, a heritage of certain beliefs and customs originating in Europe and northwestern Africa, some of which are inherited by many Christian denominations that trace their origins to the Protestant Reformation.[56] The Eastern Catholic Churches follow the traditions and spirituality of Eastern Christianity and are Churches that have always remained in full communion with the Catholic Church or who have chosen to reenter full communion in the centuries following the East-West Schism and earlier divisions. These churches are communities of Catholic Christians whose forms of worship reflect distinct historical and cultural influences rather than differences in doctrine. A church sui iuris is defined in the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches as a "group of Christian faithful united by a hierarchy" that is recognised by the Pope in his capacity as the supreme authority on matters of doctrine within the church.[57] The term is an innovation of the CCEO to denote the relative autonomy of the Eastern Catholic Churches,[58] who remain in full communion with the Pope, but have governance structures and liturgical traditions separate from that of the Latin Church.[53] While the Latin Church's canons do not explicitly use the term, it is tacitly recognised as equivalent. Some Eastern Catholic Churches are governed by a patriarch who is elected by the synod of the bishops of that church,[59] others are headed by a major archbishop,[60] others are under a metropolitan,[61] and others are organised as individual eparchies.[62] Each church has authority over the particulars of its internal organisation, liturgical rites, liturgical calendar and other aspects of its spirituality, subject only to the authority of the Pope.[63] The Roman Curia has a specific department, the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, to maintain relations with them.[64] The pope does not generally appoint bishops or clergy in the Eastern Catholic Churches, deferring to their internal governance structures, but may intervene if he feels it necessary. See also: Catholic Church § Liturgy Dioceses, parishes and religious institutes See also: § Ordination, and § Women and ordination A map of Catholicism by population percentage (for absolute figures, see below) Countries by number of Catholics in 2010[65] More than 100 million More than 50 million More than 20 million More than 10 million More than 5 million More than 1 million Individual countries, regions, or major cities are served by particular churches known as dioceses in the Latin Church, or eparchies in the Eastern Catholic Churches, each overseen by a bishop. As of 2008, the Catholic Church has 2,795 dioceses.[66] The bishops in a particular country are members of a national or regional episcopal conference.[67] Dioceses are divided into parishes, each with one or more priests, deacons or lay ecclesial ministers.[68] Parishes are responsible for the day to day celebration of the sacraments and pastoral care of the laity.[69] As of 2016, there are 221,700 parishes worldwide.[70] In the Latin Church, Catholic men may serve as deacons or priests by receiving sacramental ordination. Men and women may serve as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, as readers (lectors); or as altar servers. Historically, boys and men have only been permitted to serve as altar servers; however, since the 1990s, girls and women have also been permitted.[71][note 6] Ordained Catholics, as well as members of the laity, may enter into consecrated life either on an individual basis, as a hermit or consecrated virgin, or by joining an institute of consecrated life (a religious institute or a secular institute) in which to take vows confirming their desire to follow the three evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience.[72] Examples of institutes of consecrated life are the Benedictines, the Carmelites, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Missionaries of Charity, the Legionaries of Christ and the Sisters of Mercy.[72] "Religious institutes" is a modern term encompassing both "religious orders" and "religious congregations" which were once distinguished in canon law.[73] The terms "religious order" and "religious institute" tend to be used as synonyms colloquially.[74] Membership Emblem of the Papacy SE.svg Part of a series on the Catholic Church by country Distribution of Catholics around the world Worldwide distribution of Catholics Africa[show] Asia[show] - including the Middle East[show] Europe[show] North America[show] Latin America[show] Oceania[show] 046CupolaSPietro.jpg Catholicism portal v t e Main article: Catholic Church by country Further information: List of Christian denominations by number of members Church membership at the end of 2014 was 1.272 billion, which is 17.8% of the world population.[75] Catholics represent about half of all Christians.[76] Geographic distribution of Catholics worldwide continues to shift, with 17% in Africa, 48% in the Americas, 11% Asia, 23% in Europe, and 1% in Oceania.[75] Catholic ministers include ordained clergy, lay ecclesial ministers, missionaries, and catechists. Also as of the end of 2014, there were 465,595 ordained clergy, including 5,237 bishops, 415,792 presbyters (diocesan and religious), and 44,566 deacons (permanent).[75] Non-ordained ministers included 3,157,568 catechists, 367,679 lay missionaries, and 39,951 lay ecclesial ministers.[77] Catholics who have committed to religious or consecrated life instead of marriage or single celibacy, as a state of life or relational vocation, include 54,559 male religious, 705,529 women religious. These are not ordained, nor generally considered ministers unless also engaged in one of the lay minister categories above.[75] Doctrine Main articles: Catholic theology and Catholic Bible Catholic doctrine has developed over the centuries, reflecting direct teachings of early Christians, formal definitions of heretical and orthodox beliefs by ecumenical councils and in papal bulls, and theological debate by scholars. The church believes that it is continually guided by the Holy Spirit as it discerns new theological issues and is protected infallibly from falling into doctrinal error when a firm decision on an issue is reached.[78][79] It teaches that revelation has one common source, God, and two distinct modes of transmission: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition,[80][81] and that these are authentically interpreted by the Magisterium.[82][83] Sacred Scripture consists of the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, consisting of 46 Old Testament and 27 New Testament writings. Sacred Tradition consists of those teachings believed by the church to have been handed down since the time of the Apostles.[84] Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are collectively known as the "deposit of faith" (depositum fidei). These are in turn interpreted by the Magisterium (from magister, Latin for "teacher"), the church's teaching authority, which is exercised by the pope and the College of Bishops in union with the pope, the bishop of Rome.[85] Catholic doctrine is authoritatively summarised in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published by the Holy See.[86][87] Nature of God C. 1210 manuscript version of the traditional Shield of the Trinity theological diagram Main article: Trinity The Catholic Church holds that there is one eternal God, who exists as a perichoresis ("mutual indwelling") of three hypostases, or "persons": God the Father; God the Son; and God the Holy Spirit, which together are called the "Holy Trinity".[88] Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is the "Second Person" of the Trinity, God the Son. In an event known as the Incarnation, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God became united with human nature through the conception of Christ in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Christ, therefore, is understood as being both fully divine and fully human, including possessing a human soul. It is taught that Christ's mission on earth included giving people his teachings and providing his example for them to follow as recorded in the four Gospels.[89] Jesus is believed to have remained sinless while on earth, and to have allowed himself to be unjustly executed by crucifixion, as sacrifice of himself to reconcile humanity to God; this reconciliation is known as the Paschal Mystery.[90] The Greek term "Christ" and the Hebrew "Messiah" both mean "anointed one", referring to the Christian belief that Jesus' death and resurrection are the fulfilment of the Old Testament's messianic prophecies.[91] The Catholic Church teaches dogmatically that "the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two principles but as from one single principle".[92] It holds that the Father, as the "principle without principle", is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that he, as Father of the only Son, is with the Son the single principle from which the Spirit proceeds.[93] This belief is expressed in the Filioque clause which was added to the Latin version of the Nicene Creed of 381 but not included in the Greek versions of the creed used in Eastern Christianity.[94] Nature of the church The Pentecost depicted in a 14th-century Missal Main article: Catholic ecclesiology The Catholic Church teaches that it is the "one true church",[6][95] "the universal sacrament of salvation for the human race",[96][97] and "the one true religion".[98] According to the Catechism, the Catholic Church is further described in the Nicene Creed as the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church".[99] These are collectively known as the Four Marks of the Church. The church teaches that its founder is Jesus Christ.[100][101] The New Testament records several events considered integral to the establishment of the Catholic Church, including Jesus' activities and teaching and his appointment of the apostles as witnesses to his ministry, suffering, and resurrection. The Great Commission, after his resurrection, instructed the apostles to continue his work. The coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, in an event known as Pentecost, is seen as the beginning of the public ministry of the Catholic Church.[102] The church teaches that all duly consecrated bishops have a lineal succession from the apostles of Christ, known as apostolic succession.[103] In particular, the Bishop of Rome (the pope) is considered the successor to the apostle Simon Peter, a position from which he derives his supremacy over the church.[104] Catholic belief holds that the church "is the continuing presence of Jesus on earth"[105] and that it alone possesses the full means of salvation.[106] Through the passion (suffering) of Christ leading to his crucifixion as described in the Gospels, it is said Christ made himself an oblation to God the Father in order to reconcile humanity to God;[107] the Resurrection of Jesus makes him the firstborn from the dead, the first among many brethren.[108] By reconciling with God and following Christ's words and deeds, an individual can enter the Kingdom of God.[109] The church sees its liturgy and sacraments as perpetuating the graces achieved through Christ's sacrifice to strengthen a person's relationship with Christ and aid in overcoming sin.[110] Final Judgment Before his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ grants salvation to souls by the Harrowing of Hell. Fresco, by Fra Angelico, c. 1430s. Main article: Last Judgment § Catholicism The Catholic Church teaches that, immediately after death, the soul of each person will receive a particular judgement from God, based on their sins and their relationship to Christ.[111][112] This teaching also attests to another day when Christ will sit in universal judgement of all mankind. This final judgement, according to the church's teaching, will bring an end to human history and mark the beginning of both a new and better heaven and earth ruled by God in righteousness.[113] Depending on the judgement rendered following death, it is believed that a soul may enter one of three states of afterlife: Heaven is a state of unending union with the divine nature of God, not ontologically, but by grace. It is an eternal life, in which the soul contemplates God in ceaseless beatitude.[114] Purgatory is a temporary condition for the purification of souls who, although destined for Heaven, are not fully detached from sin and thus cannot enter Heaven immediately.[115] In Purgatory, the soul suffers, and is purged and perfected. Souls in purgatory may be aided in reaching heaven by the prayers of the faithful on earth and by the intercession of saints.[116] Final Damnation: Finally, those who persist in living in a state of mortal sin and do not repent before death subject themselves to hell, an everlasting separation from God.[117] The church teaches that no one is condemned to hell without having freely decided to reject God.[118] No one is predestined to hell and no one can determine with absolute certainty who has been condemned to hell.[119] Catholicism teaches that through God's mercy a person can repent at any point before death, be illuminated with the truth of the Catholic faith, and thus obtain salvation.[120] Some Catholic theologians have speculated that the souls of unbaptised infants and non-Christians without mortal sin but who die in original sin are assigned to limbo, although this is not an official dogma of the church.[121] While the Catholic Church teaches that it alone possesses the full means of salvation,[106] it also acknowledges that the Holy Spirit can make use of Christian communities separated from itself to "impel towards Catholic unity"[122] and "tend and lead toward the Catholic Church",[122] and thus bring people to salvation, because these separated communities contain some elements of proper doctrine, albeit admixed with errors. It teaches that anyone who is saved is saved through the Catholic Church but that people can be saved outside of the ordinary means known as baptism of desire, and by pre-baptismal martyrdom, known as baptism of blood, as well as when conditions of invincible ignorance are present, although invincible ignorance in itself is not a means of salvation.[123] Virgin Mary and devotions Emblem of the Papacy SE.svg Part of a series on the Mariology of the Catholic Church Virgo det Josef Moroder The Immaculate Conception, by Murillo Overview[show] Prayers[show] Antiphons[show] Hymns to Mary[show] Devotional practices[show] 046CupolaSPietro.jpg Catholicism portal v t e The Blessed Virgin Mary is highly regarded in the Catholic Church, proclaiming her as Mother of God, free from original sin and an intercessor. Main articles: Veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church, Mariology of the Catholic Church, Mariology of the saints, Mariology of the popes, and Catholic devotions Further information: Mary, mother of Jesus Catholic Mariology deals with the doctrines and teachings concerning the life of the Mary, mother of Jesus, as well as the veneration of Mary by the faithful. Mary is held in special regard, declared the Mother of God (Greek: Θεοτόκος, translit. Theotokos, lit. 'God-bearer'), and believed as dogma to have remained a virgin throughout her life.[124] Further teachings include the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception (her own conception without the stain of original sin) and the Assumption of Mary (that her body was assumed directly into heaven at the end of her life). Both of these doctrines were defined as infallible dogma, by Pope Pius IX in 1854 and Pope Pius XII in 1950 respectively,[125] but only after consulting with the Catholic bishops throughout the world to ascertain that this is a Catholic belief.[126] Devotions to Mary are part of Catholic piety but are distinct from the worship of God.[127] Practices include prayers and Marian art, music, and architecture. Several liturgical Marian feasts are celebrated throughout the Church Year and she is honoured with many titles such as Queen of Heaven. Pope Paul VI called her Mother of the Church because, by giving birth to Christ, she is considered to be the spiritual mother to each member of the Body of Christ.[125] Because of her influential role in the life of Jesus, prayers and devotions such as the Hail Mary, the Rosary, the Salve Regina and the Memorare are common Catholic practices.[128] Pilgrimages to the sites of several Marian apparitions affirmed by the church, such as Lourdes, Fátima, and Guadalupe,[129] are also popular Catholic devotions.[130] Devotions are "external practices of piety" which are not part of the official liturgy of the Catholic Church but are part of the popular spiritual practices of Catholics.[131] Outside of Mariology, other devotional practices include the Stations of the Cross, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Holy Face of Jesus,[132] the various scapulars, novenas to various saints,[133] pilgrimages[134] and devotions to the Blessed Sacrament,[133] and the veneration of saintly images such as the santos.[135] The bishops at the Second Vatican Council reminded Catholics that "devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonise with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it, since, in fact, the liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them."[136] Sacraments Seven Sacraments Altarpiece by Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1448 Mass at the Grotto at Lourdes, France. The chalice is displayed to the people immediately after the consecration of the wine. Main article: Sacraments of the Catholic Church The Catholic Church teaches that it was entrusted with seven sacraments that were instituted by Christ. The number and nature of the sacraments were defined by several ecumenical councils, most recently the Council of Trent.[137][note 7] These are Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick (formerly called Extreme Unction, one of the "Last Rites"), Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony. Sacraments are visible rituals that Catholics see as signs of God's presence and effective channels of God's grace to all those who receive them with the proper disposition (ex opere operato).[138] The Catechism of the Catholic Church categorises the sacraments into three groups, the "sacraments of Christian initiation", "sacraments of healing" and "sacraments at the service of communion and the mission of the faithful". These groups broadly reflect the stages of people's natural and spiritual lives which each sacrament is intended to serve.[139] The liturgies of the sacraments are central to the church's mission. According to the Catechism: In the liturgy of the New Covenant every liturgical action, especially the celebration of the Eucharist and the sacraments, is an encounter between Christ and the Church. The liturgical assembly derives its unity from the "communion of the Holy Spirit" who gathers the children of God into the one Body of Christ. This assembly transcends racial, cultural, social - indeed, all human affinities.[140] According to church doctrine, the sacraments of the church require the proper form, matter, and intent to be validly celebrated.[141] In addition, the Canon Laws for both the Latin Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches govern who may licitly celebrate certain sacraments, as well as strict rules about who may receive the sacraments.[142] Notably, because the church teaches that Christ is present in the Eucharist,[143] those who are conscious of being in a state of mortal sin are forbidden to receive the sacrament until they have received absolution through the sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance).[144] Catholics are normally obliged to abstain from eating for at least an hour before receiving the sacrament.[144] Non-Catholics are ordinarily prohibited from receiving the Eucharist as well.[142][145] Catholics, even if they were in danger of death and unable to approach a Catholic minister, may not ask for the sacraments of the Eucharist, penance or anointing of the sick from someone, such as a Protestant minister, who is not known to be validly ordained in line with Catholic teaching on ordination.[146][147] Likewise, even in grave and pressing need, Catholic ministers may not administer these sacraments to those who do not manifest Catholic faith in the sacrament. In relation to the churches of Eastern Christianity not in communion with the Holy See, the Catholic Church is less restrictive, declaring that "a certain communion in sacris, and so in the Eucharist, given suitable circumstances and the approval of Church authority, is not merely possible but is encouraged."[148] Sacraments of Christian initiation Main article: Sacraments of initiation Baptism Baptism of Augustine of Hippo as represented in a sculptural group in Troyes Cathedral (1549), France As viewed by the Catholic Church, Baptism is the first of three sacraments of initiation as a Christian.[149] It washes away all sins, both original sin and personal actual sins.[150] It makes a person a member of the church.[151] As a gratuitous gift of God that requires no merit on the part of the person who is baptised, it is conferred even on children,[152] who, though they have no personal sins, need it on account of original sin.[153] If a new-born child is in a danger of death, anyone—be it a doctor, a nurse, or a parent—may baptise the child.[154] Baptism marks a person permanently and cannot be repeated.[155] The Catholic Church recognises as valid baptisms conferred even by people who are not Catholics or Christians, provided that they intend to baptise ("to do what the Church does when she baptises") and that they use the Trinitarian baptismal formula.[156] Confirmation Main article: Confirmation in the Catholic Church The Catholic Church sees the sacrament of confirmation as required to complete the grace given in baptism.[157] When adults are baptised, confirmation is normally given immediately afterwards,[158] a practice followed even with newly baptised infants in the Eastern Catholic Churches.[159] In the West confirmation of children is delayed until they are old enough to understand or at the bishop's discretion.[160] In Western Christianity, particularly Catholicism, the sacrament is called confirmation, because it confirms and strengthens the grace of baptism; in the Eastern Churches, it is called chrismation, because the essential rite is the anointing of the person with chrism,[161] a mixture of olive oil and some perfumed substance, usually balsam, blessed by a bishop.[161][162] Those who receive confirmation must be in a state of grace, which for those who have reached the age of reason means that they should first be cleansed spiritually by the sacrament of Penance; they should also have the intention of receiving the sacrament, and be prepared to show in their lives that they are Christians.[163] Eucharist Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the Eucharist at the canonisation of Frei Galvão in São Paulo, Brazil on 11 May 2007 Main article: Eucharist in the Catholic Church For Catholics, the Eucharist is the sacrament which completes Christian initiation. It is described as "the source and summit of the Christian life".[164] The ceremony in which a Catholic first receives the Eucharist is known as First Communion.[165] The Eucharistic celebration, also called the Mass or Divine liturgy, includes prayers and scriptural readings, as well as an offering of bread and wine, which are brought to the altar and consecrated by the priest to become the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, a change called transubstantiation.[166][note 8] The words of consecration reflect the words spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper, where Christ offered his body and blood to his Apostles the night before his crucifixion. The sacrament re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross,[167] and perpetuates it. Christ's death and resurrection gives grace through the sacrament that unites the faithful with Christ and one another, remits venial sin, and aids against committing moral sin (though mortal sin itself is forgiven through the sacrament of penance).[168] A Catholic believer prays in a church in Mexico Sacraments of healing The two sacraments of healing are the Sacrament of Penance and Anointing of the Sick. Penance Main article: Sacrament of Penance The Sacrament of Penance (also called Reconciliation, Forgiveness, Confession, and Conversion[169]) exists for the conversion of those who, after baptism, separate themselves from Christ by sin.[170] Essential to this sacrament are acts both by the sinner (examination of conscience, contrition with a determination not to sin again, confession to a priest, and performance of some act to repair the damage caused by sin) and by the priest (determination of the act of reparation to be performed and absolution).[171] Serious sins (mortal sins) should be confessed at least once a year and always before receiving Holy Communion, while confession of venial sins also is recommended.[172] The priest is bound under the severest penalties to maintain the "seal of confession", absolute secrecy about any sins revealed to him in confession.[173] Anointing of the sick The Seven Sacraments Altarpiece triptych painting of Extreme Unction (Anointing of the Sick) with oil being administered by a priest during last rites. Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1445. Main article: Anointing of the Sick in the Catholic Church While chrism is used only for the three sacraments that cannot be repeated, a different oil is used by a priest or bishop to bless a Catholic who, because of illness or old age, has begun to be in danger of death.[174] This sacrament, known as Anointing of the Sick, is believed to give comfort, peace, courage and, if the sick person is unable to make a confession, even forgiveness of sins.[175] The sacrament is also referred to as Unction, and in the past as Extreme Unction, and it is one of the three sacraments that constitute the last rites, together with Penance and Viaticum (Eucharist).[176] Sacraments at the service of communion According to the Catechism, there are two sacraments of communion directed towards the salvation of others: priesthood and marriage.[177] Within the general vocation to be a Christian, these two sacraments "consecrate to specific mission or vocation among the people of God. Men receive the holy orders to feed the Church by the word and grace. Spouses marry so that their love may be fortified to fulfill duties of their state".[178] Holy Orders Priests lay their hands on the ordinands during the rite of ordination. Main article: Holy orders in the Catholic Church The sacrament of Holy Orders consecrates and deputes some Christians to serve the whole body as members of three degrees or orders: episcopate (bishops), presbyterate (priests) and diaconate (deacons).[179][180] The church has defined rules on who may be ordained into the clergy. In the Latin Church, the priesthood is generally restricted to celibate men, and the episcopate is always restricted to celibate men.[181] Men who are already married may be ordained in certain Eastern Catholic churches in most countries,[182] and the personal ordinariates and may become deacons even in the Western Church[183][184] (see Clerical marriage). But after becoming a Catholic priest, a man may not marry (see Clerical celibacy) unless he is formally laicised. All clergy, whether deacons, priests or bishops, may preach, teach, baptise, witness marriages and conduct funeral liturgies.[185] Only bishops and priests can administer the sacraments of the Eucharist, Reconciliation (Penance) and Anointing of the Sick.[186][187] Only bishops can administer the sacrament of Holy Orders, which ordains someone into the clergy.[188] Matrimony Wedding mass in the Philippines Main article: Marriage in the Catholic Church See also: Catholic teachings on sexual morality The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is a social and spiritual bond between a man and a woman, ordered towards the good of the spouses and procreation of children; according to Catholic teachings on sexual morality, it is the only appropriate context for sexual activity. A Catholic marriage, or any marriage between baptised individuals of any Christian denomination, is viewed as a sacrament. A sacramental marriage, once consummated, cannot be dissolved except by death.[189][note 9] The church recognises certain conditions, such as freedom of consent, as required for any marriage to be valid; In addition, the church sets specific rules and norms, known as canonical form, that Catholics must follow.[192] The church does not recognise divorce as ending a valid marriage and allows state-recognised divorce only as a means of protecting the property and well being of the spouses and any children. However, consideration of particular cases by the competent ecclesiastical tribunal can lead to declaration of the invalidity of a marriage, a declaration usually referred to as an annulment.[193] Remarriage following a divorce is not permitted unless the prior marriage was declared invalid.[193] Liturgy Main article: Catholic liturgy Catholic religious objects—Holy Bible, crucifix and rosary Among the 24 autonomous (sui iuris) churches, numerous liturgical and other traditions exist, called rites, which reflect historical and cultural diversity rather than differences in belief.[194] In the definition of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, "a rite is the liturgical, theological, spiritual, and disciplinary patrimony, culture and circumstances of history of a distinct people, by which its own manner of living the faith is manifested in each Church sui iuris".[195] The liturgy of the sacrament of the Eucharist, called the Mass in the West and Divine Liturgy or other names in the East, is the principal liturgy of the Catholic Church.[196] This is because it is considered the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ himself.[197] The most widely used is the Roman Rite, usually in its ordinary form promulgated by Paul VI in 1969, but also in its authorised extraordinary form, the Tridentine Mass as in the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal. Eastern Catholic Churches have their own rites. The liturgies of the Eucharist and the other sacraments vary from rite to rite based on differing theological emphasis. Western rites Main articles: Roman Rite and Latin liturgical rites Emblem of the Papacy SE.svg Part of a series on Roman Rite mass of the Catholic Church Missale Romanum.jpg Roman Missal: Chalice (with purificator, paten and pall), crucifix, and lit candle A. Introductory rites Entrance Greeting of the altar Act of penitence Kyrie Eleison Gloria Collect B. Liturgy of the Word Lectionary readings Responsorial psalm Homily Profession of faith Prayer of the Faithful C. Liturgy of the Eucharist See also: Eucharist (Catholic Church) Preparation of the gifts Prayer over the offerings Eucharistic Prayer Communion rite: The Lord's Prayer Rite of peace Fraction Reception of Communion D. Concluding rites "Ite, missa est!" 046CupolaSPietro.jpg Catholicism portal v t e The Roman Rite is the most common rite of worship used by the Catholic Church. Its use is found worldwide, originating in Rome and spreading throughout Europe, influencing and eventually supplanting local rites.[198] The present ordinary form of Mass in the Roman Rite, found in the post-1969 editions of the Roman Missal, is usually celebrated in the local vernacular language, using an officially approved translation from the original text in Latin. An outline of its major liturgical elements can be found in the side bar. Elevation of the chalice before an altar after the consecration during a Solemn Mass of Tridentine Mass In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI affirmed the continued use of the 1962 Roman Missal as an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite ("a Forma extraordinaria"), speaking of it also as an usus antiquior (older use), and issued new permissive norms for its employment.[199] An instruction issued four years later spoke of the two forms or usages of the Roman Rite approved by the pope as the ordinary form and the extraordinary form ("the forma ordinaria" and "the forma extraordinaria").[200] The 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, published a few months before the Second Vatican Council opened, was the last that presented the Mass as standardised in 1570 by Pope Pius V at the request of the Council of Trent and that is therefore known as the Tridentine Mass.[143] Pope Pius V's Roman Missal was subjected to minor revisions by Pope Clement VIII in 1604, Pope Urban VIII in 1634, Pope Pius X in 1911, Pope Pius XII in 1955, and Pope John XXIII in 1962. Each successive edition was the ordinary form of the Roman Rite Mass until superseded by a later edition. When the 1962 edition was superseded by that of Paul VI, promulgated in 1969, its continued use at first required permission from bishops;[201] but Pope Benedict XVI's 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum allowed free use of it for Mass celebrated without a congregation and authorised parish priests to permit, under certain conditions, its use even at public Masses. Except for the scriptural readings, which Pope Benedict allowed to be proclaimed in the vernacular language, it is celebrated exclusively in liturgical Latin.[202] Since 2014, clergy in the small personal ordinariates set up for groups of former Anglicans under the terms of the 2009 document Anglicanorum Coetibus[203] are permitted to use a variation of the Roman Rite called "Divine Worship" or, less formally, "Ordinariate Use",[204] which incorporates elements of the Anglican liturgy and traditions.[note 10] In the Archdiocese of Milan, with around five million Catholics the largest in Europe,[205] Mass is celebrated according to the Ambrosian Rite. Other Latin Church rites include the Mozarabic[206] and those of some religious institutes.[207] These liturgical rites have an antiquity of at least 200 years before 1570, the date of Pope Pius V's Quo primum, and were thus allowed to continue.[208] Eastern rites East Syrian Rite wedding crowning celebrated by a bishop of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India, one of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Pope and the Catholic Church. Main article: Catholic particular churches and liturgical rites § Eastern rites The Eastern Catholic Churches share common patrimony and liturgical rites as their counterparts, including Eastern Orthodox and other Eastern Christian churches who are no longer in communion with the Holy See. These include churches that historically developed in Russia, Caucasus, the Balkans, North Eastern Africa, India and the Middle East. The Eastern Catholic Churches are groups of faithful who have either never been out of communion with the Holy See or who have restored communion with it at the cost of breaking communion with their associates of the same tradition.[209] The rites used by the Eastern Catholic Churches include the Byzantine Rite, in its Antiochian, Greek and Slavonic varieties; the Alexandrian Rite; the Syriac Rite; the Armenian Rite; the Maronite Rite and the Chaldean Rite. Eastern Catholic Churches have the autonomy to set the particulars of their liturgical forms and worship, within certain limits to protect the "accurate observance" of their liturgical tradition.[210] In the past some of the rites used by the Eastern Catholic Churches were subject to a degree of liturgical Latinisation. However, in recent years Eastern Catholic Churches have returned to traditional Eastern practices in accord with the Vatican II decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum.[211] Each church has its own liturgical calendar.[212] Social and cultural issues See also: Criticism of the Catholic Church Part of a series on the Catholic social teaching Emblem of the Holy See Emblem of the Holy See Overview Social teachings of the Popes Distributism Solidarity Subsidiarity Tranquillitas ordinis Pope Leo XIII[show] Pope Pius XI[show] Pope Pius XII[show] Pope John XXIII[show] Vatican II[show] Pope Paul VI[show] Pope John Paul II[show] Pope Benedict XVI[show] Pope Francis[show] Other figures[show] 046CupolaSPietro.jpg Catholicism portal v t e Catholic social teaching Main article: Catholic social teaching Catholic social teaching, reflecting the concern Jesus showed for the impoverished, places a heavy emphasis on the corporal works of mercy and the spiritual works of mercy, namely the support and concern for the sick, the poor and the afflicted.[213][214] Church teaching calls for a preferential option for the poor while canon law prescribes that "The Christian faithful are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor."[215] Its foundations are widely considered to have been laid by Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical letter Rerum novarum which upholds the rights and dignity of labor and the right of workers to form unions. Catholic teaching regarding sexuality calls for a practice of chastity, with a focus on maintaining the spiritual and bodily integrity of the human person. Marriage is considered the only appropriate context for sexual activity.[216] Church teachings about sexuality have become an issue of increasing controversy, especially after the close of the Second Vatican Council, due to changing cultural attitudes in the Western world described as the sexual revolution. The church has also addressed stewardship of the natural environment, and its relationship to other social and theological teachings. In the document Laudato si', dated 24 May 2015, Pope Francis critiques consumerism and irresponsible development, and laments environmental degradation and global warming.[217] The pope expressed concern that the warming of the planet is a symptom of a greater problem: the developed world's indifference to the destruction of the planet as humans pursue short-term economic gains.[218] Social services Main articles: Catholic Church and health care and Catholic education Saint Teresa of Calcutta advocated for the sick, the poor and the needy by practising the acts of corporal works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world.[16] In 2010, the Catholic Church's Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers said that the church manages 26% of health care facilities in the world, including hospitals, clinics, orphanages, pharmacies and centres for those with leprosy.[219] Religious institutes for women have played a particularly prominent role in the provision of health and education services,[220] as with orders such as the Sisters of Mercy, Little Sisters of the Poor, the Missionaries of Charity, the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul.[221] The Catholic nun Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work among India's poor.[222] Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo won the same award in 1996 for "work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor".[223] The church is also actively engaged in international aid and development through organisations such as Catholic Relief Services, Caritas International, Aid to the Church in Need, refugee advocacy groups such as the Jesuit Refugee Service and community aid groups such as the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.[224] Sexual morality Main articles: Catholic theology of sexuality, Catholic theology of the body, and Marriage in the Catholic Church Allegory of chastity by Hans Memling The Catholic Church calls all members to practise chastity according to their state in life. Chastity includes temperance, self-mastery, personal and cultural growth, and divine grace. It requires refraining from lust, masturbation, fornication, pornography, prostitution and, especially, rape. Chastity for those who are not married requires living in continence, abstaining from sexual activity; those who are married are called to conjugal chastity.[225] In the church's teaching, sexual activity is reserved to married couples, whether in a sacramental marriage among Christians, or in a natural marriage where one or both spouses are unbaptised. Even in romantic relationships, particularly engagement to marriage, partners are called to practise continence, in order to test mutual respect and fidelity.[226] Chastity in marriage requires in particular conjugal fidelity and protecting the fecundity of marriage. The couple must foster trust and honesty as well as spiritual and physical intimacy. Sexual activity must always be open to the possibility of life;[227] the church calls this the procreative significance. It must likewise always bring a couple together in love; the church calls this the unitive significance.[228] Contraception and certain other sexual practices are not permitted, although natural family planning methods are permitted to provide healthy spacing between births, or to postpone children for a just reason.[229] Pope Francis said in 2015 that he is worried that the church has grown "obsessed" with issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception and has criticised the Catholic Church for placing dogma before love, and for prioritising moral doctrines over helping the poor and marginalised.[230][231] Divorce and declarations of nullity Main article: Declaration of nullity Further information: Divorce law by country Canon law makes no provision for divorce between baptised individuals, as a valid, consummated sacramental marriage is considered to be a lifelong bond.[232] However, a declaration of nullity may be granted when proof is produced that essential conditions for contracting a valid marriage were absent from the beginning—in other words, that the marriage was not valid due to some impediment. A declaration of nullity, commonly called an annulment, is a judgement on the part of an ecclesiastical tribunal determining that a marriage was invalidly attempted.[233] In addition, marriages among unbaptised individuals may be dissolved with papal permission under certain situations, such as a desire to marry a Catholic, under Pauline or Petrine privilege.[190][191] An attempt at remarriage following divorce without a declaration of nullity places "the remarried spouse [...] in a situation of public and permanent adultery". An innocent spouse who lives in continence following divorce, or couples who live in continence following a civil divorce for a grave cause, do not sin.[234] Worldwide, diocesan tribunals completed over 49000 cases for nullity of marriage in 2006. Over the past 30 years about 55 to 70% of annulments have occurred in the United States. The growth in annulments has been substantial; in the United States, 27,000 marriages were annulled in 2006, compared to 338 in 1968. However, approximately 200,000 married Catholics in the United States divorce each year; 10 million total as of 2006.[235][note 11] Divorce is increasing in some predominantly Catholic countries in Europe.[237] In some predominantly Catholic countries, it is only in recent years that divorce was introduced (i.e. Italy (1970), Portugal (1975), Brazil (1977), Spain (1981), Ireland (1996), Chile (2004) and Malta (2011), while the Philippines and the Vatican City have no procedure for divorce. (The Philippines does, however, allow divorce for Muslims.) Contraception Main article: Christian views on contraception § Catholic Church See also: Catholic Church and HIV/AIDS and Religious response to assisted reproductive technology § Catholicism Pope Paul VI issued Humanae vitae on 25 July 1968. The church teaches that sexual intercourse should only take place between a married man and woman, and should be without the use of birth control or contraception. In his encyclical Humanae vitae[238] (1968), Pope Paul VI firmly rejected all contraception, thus contradicting dissenters in the church that saw the birth control pill as an ethically justifiable method of contraception, though he permitted the regulation of births by means of natural family planning. This teaching was continued especially by John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, where he clarified the church's position on contraception, abortion and euthanasia by condemning them as part of a "culture of death" and calling instead for a "culture of life".[239] Many Western Catholics have voiced significant disagreement with the church's teaching on contraception.[240] Catholics for Choice, a political lobbyist group which is not associated with the Catholic Church, stated in 1998 that 96% of U.S. Catholic women had used contraceptives at some point in their lives and that 72% of Catholics believed that one could be a good Catholic without obeying the church's teaching on birth control.[241] Use of natural family planning methods among United States Catholics purportedly is low, although the number cannot be known with certainty.[note 12] As Catholic health providers are among the largest providers of services to patients with HIV/AIDS worldwide, there is significant controversy within and outside the church regarding the use of condoms as a means of limiting new infections, as condom use ordinarily constitutes prohibited contraceptive use.[244] Similarly, the Catholic Church opposes in vitro fertilisation (IVF), saying that the artificial process replaces the love between a husband and wife.[245] In addition, it opposes IVF because it might cause disposal of embryos; Catholics believe an embryo is an individual with a soul who must be treated as such.[246] For this reason, the church also opposes abortion.[247] Homosexuality Main article: Homosexuality and the Catholic Church The Catholic Church also teaches that "homosexual acts" are "contrary to the natural law", "acts of grave depravity" and "under no circumstances can they be approved", but that persons experiencing homosexual tendencies must be accorded respect and dignity.[248] According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.... Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.[249] This part of the Catechism was quoted by Pope Francis in a 2013 press interview in which he remarked, when asked about an individual: I think that when you encounter a person like this [the individual he was asked about], you must make a distinction between the fact of a person being gay from the fact of being a lobby, because lobbies, all are not good. That is bad. If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, well who am I to judge them?[250] This remark and others made in the same interview were seen as a change in the tone, but not in the substance of the teaching of the church,[251] which includes opposition to same-sex marriage.[252] Certain dissenting Catholic groups oppose the position of the Catholic Church and seek to change it.[253] Holy orders and women Main articles: Ordination of women in the Catholic Church and Women in the Catholic Church Women and men religious engage in a variety of occupations, from contemplative prayer, to teaching, to providing health care, to working as missionaries.[220][254] While Holy Orders are reserved for men, Catholic women have played diverse roles in the life of the church, with religious institutes providing a formal space for their participation and convents providing spaces for their self-government, prayer and influence through many centuries. Religious sisters and nuns have been extensively involved in developing and running the church's worldwide health and education service networks.[255] Efforts in support of the ordination of women to the priesthood led to several rulings by the Roman Curia or Popes against the proposal, as in Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (1976), Mulieris Dignitatem (1988) and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994). According to the latest ruling, found in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II affirmed that the Catholic Church "does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination."[256] In defiance of these rulings, opposition groups such as Roman Catholic Womenpriests have performed ceremonies they affirm as sacramental ordinations (with, reputedly, an ordaining male Catholic bishop in the first few instances) which, according to canon law, are both illicit and invalid and considered mere simulations[257] of the sacrament of ordination.[258][note 13] The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responded by issuing a statement clarifying that any Catholic bishops involved in ordination ceremonies for women, as well as the women themselves if they were Catholic, would automatically receive the penalty of excommunication (latae sententiae, literally "with the sentence already applied", i.e. automatically), citing canon 1378 of canon law and other church laws.[259] Sexual abuse cases Main article: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases From the 1990s, the issue of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy and other church members has become the subject of civil litigation, criminal prosecution, media coverage and public debate in countries around the world. The Catholic Church has been criticised for its handling of abuse complaints when it became known that some bishops had shielded accused priests, transferring them to other pastoral assignments where some continued to commit sexual offences. In response to the scandal, formal procedures have been established to help prevent abuse, encourage the reporting of any abuse that occurs and to handle such reports promptly, although groups representing victims have disputed their effectiveness.[260] In 2014, Pope Francis instituted the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors for the safeguarding of minors.[261] History Main article: History of the Catholic Church Further information: History of early Christianity and Historiography of early Christianity Painting a haloed Jesus Christ passing keys to a kneeling man. This fresco (1481-82) by Pietro Perugino in the Sistine Chapel shows Jesus giving the keys of heaven to Saint Peter. The Last Supper, a late 1490s mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci, depicting the last supper of Jesus and his twelve apostles on the eve of his crucifixion. Most apostles are buried in Rome, including Saint Peter. The Christian religion is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, who lived and preached in the 1st century AD in the province of Judea of the Roman