Uconn History 1400

Blitzkrieg (1939 - 1940)

"Lightning war" inflicted by German armored Panzer divisions and Stuka dive bombers on Poland in September 1939 and then Denmark and Norway in April 1940 and finally the Netherlands, Belgium and France in May 1940, producing stunning victories for Germany, leaving it in control of most of Northern Europe

NATO (1949)

A mutual defense alliance led by the United States that united the USA, Belgium, Great Britain, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and later West Germany, Greece and Turkey (though France left) for mutual military defense against Soviet invasion, an act that effectively brought Western Europe under USA's nuclear protection. Later duplicated in other regional security pacts line CENTO and SEATO

The Lives of Others (2006)

Academy Award winning German motion picture that brilliantly captured the debilitating life style promoted by the Communist regime in the former communist East Germany under its secret police, the Stasi, a reminder of the repressive political regimes that were overthrown in Eastern Europe as a result of the fall of communism.

European Economic Community (1957)

Agreement that created the Western European "Common Market" by breaking down trade barriers and standardizing commodities among its members in effort to create a huge free trade area consisting of 165 million people, making Western Europe larger exporter of finished products and largest importer of raw materials in the world, a development that facilitated Western Europe's amazing post-World War II economic recovery.

Axis Powers (1936)

Alliance formed by the Rome-Berlin Axis in 1936 by Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany in 1936 to support the two nation's shared economic, political and military interests, later including Japan as result of the Tripartite Pact of 1940, thereby creating the three-way military coalition that fostered the aggression in Europe and Asia that precipitated World War II

Cross-channel Invasion (D-Day) (June 6, 1944)

Allied amphibious landing on France's Normandy beach on June 6, 1944, a daring landing which established a "second front" in the Allied war in Western Europe, marking another "turning point" that led to Allied advance from the West and the ultimate defeat of Germany on May 7, 1945

Marshall Plan (1948 - 1952)

American program committing $13 billion for the reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II with the goal of restoring social stability and staving off communist advance, a program that was both immensely popular and immensely successful

Albert Speer (1942 - 1945)

Architect recruited by Adolf Hitler to run Nazi Germany's Ministry of Armaments and Munitions during 1942-1945, where he helped the Nazi regime to avoid civilian German mobilization by eliminating waste, rationalizing procedures, and tripling industrial war production, but pleaded with Hitler to convert consumer industries to a war footing to meet military needs, something that was not done until 1944, when it was too late to save Germany's cause, if it could have been saved

German Expressionism (1910s - 1920s)

Art movement begun before the Great War that was greatly affected by the war itself by reflecting the horror and devastation of that conflict and the widespread feeling that civilization was going to pieces

Surrealism (1910s - 1930s)

Art movement of the interwar period that sought to capture a reality beyond the sensible world that resided in people's unconscious state, a reality that was irrational and unrecognizable, as typified in the works of Spaniard Salvador Dali

Dadaism (1910s - 1920s)

Art movement that expressed contempt for Western culture in the 1920s and conveyed the feeling that life was insane and that everything in life was useless, although artists like Hannah Hoch used the style as a vehicle for cultural criticism

Postmodernism (1970s - 1990s)

Artistic and literary style that prevailed in Western Europe and the United States that rejected the Western belief in objective truth and focused instead on the relative nature of reality and knowledge, as reflected in philosophic works of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, the innovative art of Robert Smithson, and novels of Czech writer Milan Kundera such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984).

German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (1939)

August 1939 agreement between Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union not to go to war against each other, an agreement sought by Germany to avoid a two-front war (against England and France plus the Soviets), if and when Germany invaded Poland to capture the city of Danzig. Stunned observers around the world as a cynical pact between enemies, thereby destroying the Popular Front movement. Resulted in German and Soviet partition of Poland in September 1939

Pope John Paul II (1978 - 2005)

Born Karol Wojtyla in Poland, became the first non-Italian pope since the sixteenth century, and reasserted traditional Roman Catholic teachings on birth control, women in the priesthood, and clerical celibacy, alienating some Europeans with liberal outlooks, but winning many others over with his charismatic style, and strengthening Europe's spiritual heritage in contrast to its robust consumer society.

John Maynard Keynes (1939)

British economist whose 1936 book A General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money laid the groundwork for a more interventionist government approach to recessions and depressions in modern industrial economies, specifically by countering economic downturns with government spending on public works and other programs to increase consumer ability to buy products and stimulate industrial output. Not accepted in principle by politicians during the Depression, but signaled a rejection of free market liberalism that many would exhibit later on.

Youth Protest (1960s)

Cultural protest by young people and students across Western Europe and the United States that questioned the political and social values of the older Cold War generation, particularly materialism, militaristic foreign policy, and undemocratic bureaucratic government, symbolized by American folk singer Bob Dylan's song, "The Times, they are a-changin."

Prague Spring (1968)

Democratic movement led by Czechoslovakian leader Alexander Dubcek to introduce democratic reforms such free speech, freedom to travel, and lessening of secret police presence as a way to create "communism with a human face," but crushed by the Red Army in August 1968, staving possibilities for reform in the communist world, at least for the time being

Battle of Britain (1940)

Devastating aerial campaign by the German Luftwaffe (literally "air weapon" or air force) in fall 1940 in effort to destroy Great Britain's air force and force British surrender, but ultimately failed due to Britain's ability to quickly rebuild its air power, partly with American aid.

Vaclav Havel (1989, 1993)

Dissident playwright turned politician who was elected president of the new non-communist Czechoslovakian republic when it overthrew communist rule in 1989, and emerged as a spokesman for spreading democracy throughout formerly communist Eastern Europe, getting elected as the first president of the Czech Republic in 1993 when it split from Slovakia.

Reagan-Gorbachev Rapprochement (1987)

Easing of Soviet-U.S. tensions under the leadership of American president Ronald Reagan and Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev as manifested in such acts as the anti-nuclear-weapon INF treaty in 1987, signaling the coming demise of the U.S.S.R and the reunification of Western society.

European Union (1994)

Economic union formed by the European Community plus Austria, Sweden and Finland under the Maastricht Treaty in 1995 in an attempt to create a true economic and monetary union of member European nations, resulting in the creation of a common currency, the "Euro," in place of national currencies, and creating a trading entity of some 370 million people, the largest in the world

Great Depression (1929 - 1939)

European economic collapse that began in the United States in 1929 and swept through Europe in 1931 due to the collapse of the Viennese Credit Anstalt (bank) caused by American bankers' withdrawal of funds, resulting in staggering drops in industrial production and massive unemployment, including one quarter of the British labor force and 40 percent of the German labor force, with huge social and political ramifications.

Franco's Spain (1936 - 1939)

Fascist government created in Spain as a product of the Spanish Civil War (1936- 1939) in which General Francisco Franco's Nationalists staged a military coup and triumphed over Republicans, thereby setting up an extremely nationalistic totalitarian regime based on monarchy, military rule, an agrarian economy and Roman Catholicism

"Night Witches" (1942 - 1943)

Female aviators recruited for service for bombing raids in the Battle of Stalingrad by the Soviet Union during 1943-1943, showing the Soviets' willingness to accept new roles for women in the USSR's desperate fight against Nazi German forces, including mass recruitment of women into Soviet munitions industries and enlistment in the armed forces as snipers and bomber crew members

Potsdam Conference (1945)

Final meeting of the "Big Three" in July 1945, now with Atlee replacing Churchill and Truman replacing Roosevelt, wherein the Americans (having just exploded the first atomic bomb with plans to use that weapon to end the war in Japan) pressed Stalin to fulfill the promise to hold free elections in Poland, an action that Stalin refused, marking the start of Cold War

Persian Gulf War (1991)

First post-Cold War military conflict led by the United States and a coalition of Arab and European nations to oust the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and protect Saudi Arabia from the threat of an Iraqi invasion. Significantly fought without Soviet involvement on the eve of the Soviet Union's collapse, signally the rise of a new global geopolitical order.

Containment (1947 - 1991)

Foreign policy doctrine formulated by American diplomat George F. Kennan in his 1947 "Mr. X" Foreign Affairs article which described the Soviet regime as inherently expansionist and consequently urged "adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy," becoming formal U.S. policy in 1948.

Fascism (1919)

Form of authoritarian politics that emerged in Italy during the 1920s and Spain in the 1930s, wherein strong charismatic leaders like Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco created political dictatorships with support of industrialists, large landholders, and middle-class citizens fearful of socialist or communist revolutions, using both repressive "police state" methods and manipulation of the mass media to incorporate ordinary masses of people into psychological identification with and support of Fascist regimes.

Totalitarian State (1921 -1945)

Form of authoritative government that emerged in Italy, USSR, Germany, and Spain in 1920s and 1930s in which government assumed total control of business, politics, news media and even popular culture.

Grand Alliance (1941 - 1945)

Formal alliance among 26 allied nations made right after the United States joined the war on the allied side in December 1941. Committed the signatories to "unconditional surrender" of Nazi forces. Led by the "Big Three" (Great Britain, USA and the USSR) who put aside political differences to win military victory

Vladimir Putin (1999)

Former Soviet KGB head who assumed the Russian presidency from an ailing Boris Yeltsin in 1999, whereupon he centralized control, but continued market reforms, while attempting to put down a rebellion in Chechnya

Nikita Khrushchev (1953 - 1964)

Former miner and Communist Party operative who emerged as a member of the collective leadership who led the Soviet Union after Stalin's death and then rose as the central Soviet leader on his own, embarking then on a campaign to "deStalinize" Soviet policy, renounce Stalin's oppression, end Stalinistic work camps, and shift the Soviet economy more toward the production of consumer goods and the improvement the Soviet standard of living, although he ordered a harsh crushing of the independence movement in Hungary in 1956.

The Pacific War (1945)

Fought mainly by the United States against Japan though "island hopping" and "leap frogging" across Pacific islands until finally converging on Japan itself in 1945, where the war ended as a result of the American decision to use atomic weapons to force Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945

Simone de Beauvoir (1949)

French feminist whose book The Second Sex (1949) questioned the ideological place of women in western society as a subordinated sex defined on the basis of its difference from men, marking the changing role of women in western life and laying groundwork for the modern women's movement that would develop in western Europe and the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.

Petra Kelly (1979)

German environmentalist and activist who co-founded Die Gruenen (Green Party), reflecting the going role of women in European public affairs, including political protest.

Herman Hesse (1919)

German novelist who demonstrated the influence of new psychological theories and Eastern religions on literature, especially in Demian (1919) and Steppenwolf (1927), mirroring the psychological confusion of modern existence.

Technological World (1990s - Present)

Global society in which wireless cellular, mobile telephones began spreading, creating a "global communications craze" and a society dependent on information disseminated by mobile, wireless devices.

Battle of Kursk (1943 July)

Great tank battle of armored German and Soviet units in Western Soviet Union, ending in total Soviet victory over German forces and the German's retreat back into Germany where they were finally defeated

Mohandas Gandhi (1910s - 1940s)

Indian leader who promoted a movement of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience to pressure British colonial rulers to improve the plight of India's massive population of poor people and grant India independence as a sovereign nation, a movement that gained considerable momentum during the Great Depression years and World War II.

Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

International diplomatic conflict created by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's order to ship and install nuclear missiles in Communist Fidel Castro's Cuba, causing a very intense standoff until an American naval blockade ordered by American president John F. Kennedy stopped the shipments, and the two sides worked out a deal to have the missiles removed in return the USA's promise not to invade the island, an event that seemingly avoided nuclear war

Blitz (1940)

Massive bombing of English cities by Germany during the Battle of Britain in 1940, symbolizing the efforts of both the Allies and Axis powers to destroy urban industrial infrastructure and wreck civilian morale, a horribly destructive strategy that was not particularly effective on either account

Tehran Conference (1943)

Meeting of "Big Three" during November 1943, wherein the 1944 Allied crosschannel invasion was agreed to, with the important consequence that Europe would be divided along a north-south line, with the Soviet Red Army left occupying Eastern Europe and the Allied armies liberating France and Western Europe, in effect drawing out the outline of the divided Europe that would mark the postWorld War II Cold War.

Yalta Conference (1945)

Meeting of the "Big Three" leaders in February 1945, wherein crucial compromises were agreed to in return for Soviet promise to join the war against Japan three months after victory in Europe, including the surrender of Japanese Sakhalin and Kurile Islands to the USSR, the partition of post-war Germany into four occupied zones, and most importantly the reorganization of Poland and Eastern Europe into a Soviet "sphere of interest" where the Allied policy of "free elections" was to be upheld, an impossibly contradictory plan.

Warsaw Pact (1955)

Military alliance that united Eastern European Soviet satellite countries East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria with the Soviet Union to provide mutual defense of those nations against alleged western aggression, an action that countered the formation of NATO and brought Eastern European countries under the Soviet's nuclear umbrella.

Joseph Goebbels (1933 - 1945)

Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany who saw movies and other new media as "the most modern and scientific means of influencing the masses." He created a special film section in the Propaganda ministry that produced documentaries and feature films that conveyed the Nazi message.

Green Movement (1970s - Today)

Movement in Germany and other Western European countries to curb environmental hazards such as air pollution and nuclear power accidents, evolving into a formal political party that held parliamentary seats in Germany during the 1980s, demonstrating the growing importance of environmental politics in Europe.

Decolonization (1947 - 1962)

Movement in which nearly every pre-World War II European colony secured independence and statehood, though in same instances this left intense regional conflicts

Feminist Movement (1960s - 1970s)

Movement of women in United States and Europe for equal treatment in the workforce and governance, the elevation of women's issues, and the end to sexually harassing treatment by men.

Kraft Durch Freude (1930s)

Nazi program that controlled the German population by coordinating the working class's leisure time in Nazi sponsored activities, such as concerts, operas, films, guided tours, sporting events and inexpensive vacations on Mediterranean cruises or visits to German sites

Holocaust (1939 - 1945)

Nazi program to eliminate Jews in Poland and throughout Europe, first of mass relocation, then by the "final solution"-- mass executions conducted by the SS special unit called the Einsatzgruppen, and eventually in death camps across Germany and Poland that was responsible horribly for the killing of 5-6 million Jews and 6 million Gypsies, Poles, White Russians and homosexuals in a cold industrial way

Solidarity (1988 in Poland)

Non-communist political coalition that was suppressed by communist military government in Poland during the early-1980s, but was allowed to form a new government in 1988 as a result of rising popular protests against Poland's Soviet style regime, electing shipyard worker and activist Lech Walesa as president in 1990.

Munich Conference (1938)

Notorious meeting held hastily in September 1938 to resolve crisis over Germany's claims to the Sudetenland province of Czechoslovakia, resulting in allied British, French and Italian concessions for Germany to occupy that western territory with the hopes that such "appeasement" would prevent war to defend the Sudetenland and other provinces in Czechoslovakia. In effect, persuaded Hitler of allies' unwillingness to resist his advances, thereby encouraging even more aggression. Totally discredited the "appeasement" policy.

Battle of Stalingrad (1942 - 1943)

One of several "turning point" battles in World War II wherein the Soviets valiantly held off German efforts to capture Stalingrad, and began the long campaign to push German forces out of the Soviet Union back into Germany where they were finally defeated, exposing German forces to great hardships and disillusionment with the Nazi regime.

Reparations (1921)

Payment required by Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty that required Germany pay $33 billion to France and other allies as a penalty for allegedly starting the Great War, a huge financial burden that Germany met only once in 1921, though later scaled back by the 1924 Dawes Plan, creating an unsound international finance system that worked only so long as American bankers loaned money to Germany, something that stopped in 1931.

Act of Terrorism (1990s - Present Age)

Period following the Cold War when violent individuals and groups, rather nation-states, became the main groups threatening world peace. Included the Irish-Republican army, the German Baader-Meinhof gang and al-Qaeda, the group that commandeered airlines and crashed them into the Twin Towers in New York City in 2001.

Brezhnev Doctrine (1968)

Policy implemented by Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev that affirmed the right of the Soviet Union to intervene in allied countries if cause of socialism was threatened, such as in the U.S.S.R's crushing of the democracy movement in Czechoslovakia in 1968, demonstrating Soviet communist leaders' determination to retain control over East Europe.

Detente (1970s)

Policy of lessening tensions between western countries led by the United States and leading communist nations led by the USSR and the People's Republic of China, as symbolized by the Antiballistic Missile Treaty negotiated by USA and the USSR in 1972 and the Helsinki Accords recognizing Eastern European communist national boundaries in 1975, a policy that did not survive the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979

Nazism (1921)

Political movement founded in Germany by Austrian-born Adolf Hitler in 1921 that assumed power by parliamentary means in 1933, but quickly seized dictatorial control based on the ideology of an "Aryan racial state" with support of right-wing elites in industry, agriculture, the military and bureaucracy, using terror and mass psychology to retain support of the German masses, including social groups like the Hitler Youth, mass rallies, and charismatic speeches by Hitler who claimed to embody the aspirations of all of the German people

New Nazi Order (1939 - 1942)

Political, social and military scheme that Nazi Germany tried to create in occupied areas after early victories in World War II involving the establishment of direct Nazi administration or collaborationist regimes, the relocation and enslavement of "inferior" Latin and Slavic populations, and the resettlement of supposedly "superior" German Aryans in eastern zones

Mass Culture (1920s - 1930s)

Popular culture that reached a broad population across Europe after the Great War in the 1920s as a product of the new media of mass rallies, radio, motion pictures, and jazz music as well as increasing time for leisure activities

Reunification of Germany (1989 Berlin Wall torn down, 1990 Germany reunified)

Process by which East Germany reunited with West Germany in 1990, after residents on both sides tore down the Berlin Wall and the Communist government collapsed in East Germany, symbolizing the end of the Cold War that had divided Germany and Europe after World War II.

Paris Student Revolt (1968)

Rebellion by students at University of Nanterre and University of Paris demanding greater student voice in school affairs that led to a workers' strike and a crack down by the rightest government of President Charles de Gaulle, illuminating student restlessness during the 1960s.

Boris Yeltsin (1991)

Russian leader who defied communist hardliners and got elected as the first Russian president after the fall of the Soviet Union, upon which occasion he implemented reforms to move Russia more toward political democracy and market capitalism, a messy process worsened by his deteriorating health until he resigned in 1999.

Uncertainty Principle (1927)

Scientific principle proposed by German physicist Werner Heisenberg that claimed that paths of electrons were indeterminable by human investigation, capturing the growing intellectual doubts and confusion of western society in the 1920s and 1930s

French Headscarf Controversy (2004)

Social turmoil created by a French ban on women's wearing Hijabs or head scarves in public, provoking complaints about that such a ban denied Muslim women religious freedom and expressions of ethnic identity, one reflection of growing ethnic conflicts in Europe, especially between those with Judeo-Christian heritages and those who were Muslims.

"Kitchen Debate" (1950s - 1960s)

Soviet Premier Khrushchev got a tour of the American exhibit in Moscow from Vice President Nixon in 1959, provoking a fierce debate that illuminated the way in which consumerism came to play a role in the Cold War.

Collectivization (1928)

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's program introduced in his 1928 five-year plan which forced peasants off of small land holdings onto 250,000 large state-run collective farms (with some allowances for small private garden plots) to boost agricultural output in support of Stalin's plan of rapid industrialization, brutally crushing peasant resistance and causing mass starvation, especially in the Ukraine.

Triumph of the Wall (1934)

Stunning film of the German Nazi Party's June 1934 Nuremburg rally by producer Leni Riefenstahl which--in aiming to show popular support for the Nazi regime--also brilliantly demonstrated the character of Nazi mass politics, the Nazi's manipulation of the modern new media, and the mesmerizing quality of Adolf Hitler's leadership

Korean War (1950)

War resulting from North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950, after the end of World War II had left Korea partitioned between communist and western zones. Seen by the United States through lens of Cold War, causing the USA to secure intervention under auspices of the United Nations, but prompted intervention of Chinese communists as well in November 1950, leading to a protracted war until an armistice was approved in 1953.

Guest Workers (1950s - Present)

Workers recruited from Turkey, Eastern and Southern Europe, and even Africa, the Caribbean and Asia to labor in European factories, when a worker shortage developed, especially after World War II, dramatically changing the ethnic and racial composition of Europe, and creating large ethnic minorities.

Globalization (1990s - Present)

Worldwide civilization in which Europe became immersed in the 1990s, marked by the flow of people, goods and ideas across borders, the increasing interdependency of people and institutions across national boundaries, the rise of global ecological problems like global warming, and the emergence of NGOs (nongovernmental actors) in world affairs.

Mikhail Gorbachev (1985)

Young member of Soviet Central Committee elected Communist Party Secretary and premier in 1985, followed by his efforts to reform (and save) the Soviet Communist system with program of perestroika and glasnost, resulting in political and economic restructuring of the Soviet Union and the election of Gorbachev as the first president, but ultimately the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 after a failed coup by communist hardliners.

Ethnic Cleansing (1993)

The Serbian policy of killing or removing Bosnian Muslims from Bosnia after the Serbia army occupied Bosnia following the breakup of Yugoslavia in mid-1993 after the end of the Cold War, a policy horribly reminiscent of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen, but suppressed by NATO forces led by the United States in 1995.

Lebensraum (1933 - 1942)

The concept of "living space" that Adolf Hitler and other Nazis asserted as part of German foreign policy to expand German territory mainly to the South and East (but even into Africa, as seen below) and to give Germany's allegedly superior Aryan racial state room to cultivate its purportredly superior civilization

Consumer Society (1950s - 1960s)

The social order that emerged mainly in Western Europe after world War II in which focus of life was not nationalism or religion, but the production and consumption of consumer goods such as automobiles, televisions, household appliances, increased leisure activities and tourism, something eastern Europeans looked at with envy, and that filled to filled a spiritual void suggested by artistic and literary trends like abstract expressionism, the theater of the absurd, and existentialism

Thatcherism (1979 - 1990)

Triumph of hardnosed conservative government in Great Britain under longserving prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the "iron lady" who lowered taxes, limited social welfare benefits, broke labor unions, conducted a muscular foreign policy, bringing about uneven economic recovery after hard times.