Anuu Cheeki Breeki IV Damke

86) Ukrainian Genocide [p.833]

"The Holodomor" was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932-33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country. During the Holodomor millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine and 24 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government. Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials varied greatly; anywhere from 1.8 to 12 million ethnic Ukrainians were said to have perished as a result of the famine. Recent research has since narrowed the estimates to between 2.4 and 7.5 million. The exact number of deaths is hard to determine, due to a lack of records. According to the findings of the Court of Appeal of Kiev in 2010, the demographic losses due to the famine amounted to 10 million, with 3.9 million direct famine deaths, and a further 6.1 million birth deficit. Some scholars believe that the famine was planned by Joseph Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement. Using Holodomor in reference to the famine emphasizes its man-made aspects, arguing that actions such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs, and restriction of population movement confer intent, defining the famine as genocide; the loss of life has been compared to the Holocaust.

Commodore Matthew Perry

, representing the U.S. government, sailed into Tokyo Bay, Japan, with a squadron of four vessels on July 8, 1853. For a time, Japanese officials refused to speak with Perry, but under threat of attack by the superior American ships they accepted letters from President Millard Fillmore, making the United States the first Western nation to establish relations with Japan since it had been declared closed to foreigners two centuries before. Only the Dutch and the Chinese were allowed to continue trade with Japan after 1639, but this trade was restricted and confined to the island of Dejima at Nagasaki. After giving Japan time to consider the establishment of external relations, Commodore Perry returned to Tokyo with nine ships in March 1854. On March 31, he signed the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade and permitting the establishment of a U.S. consulate in Japan. In April 1860, the first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power in over 200 years reached Washington, D.C., and remained in the U.S. capital for several weeks, discussing expansion of trade with the United States. Treaties with other Western powers followed soon after, contributing to the collapse of the shogunate and ultimately the modernization of Japan.

74) Rasputin*

A Siberian-born muzhik, or peasant, who underwent a religious conversion as a teenager and proclaimed himself a healer with the ability to predict the future, won the favor of Czar Nicholas II and Czarina Alexandra through his ability to stop the bleeding of their hemophiliac son, Alexei, in 1908. From then on, though he was widely criticized for his lechery and drunkenness, Rasputin exerted a powerful influence on the ruling family of Russia, infuriating nobles, church orthodoxy, and peasants alike. He particularly influenced the czarina, and was rumored to be her lover. When Nicholas departed to lead Russian forces in World War I, Rasputin effectively ruled the country through Alexandra, contributing to the already-existing corruption and disorder of Romanov Russia. Fearful of Rasputin's growing power (among other things, it was believed by some that he was plotting to make a separate peace with the Germans), a group of nobles, led by Prince Felix Youssupov, the husband of the czar's niece, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Nicholas's first cousin, lured Rasputin to Youssupov Palace on the night of December 29, 1916. First, Rasputin's would-be killers gave the monk food and wine laced with cyanide. When he failed to react to the poison, they shot him at close range, leaving him for dead. A short time later, however, Rasputin revived and attempted to escape from the palace grounds, whereupon his assailants shot him again and beat him viciously. Finally, they bound Rasputin, still miraculously alive, and tossed him into a freezing river. His body was discovered several days later and the two main conspirators, Youssupov and Pavlovich were exiled. Not long after, the Bolshevik Revolution put an end to the imperial regime. Nicholas and Alexandra were murdered, and the long, dark reign of the Romanovs was over.

57) Mandate System [p.815]

A mandate was an authorization granted by the League of Nations to a member nation to govern a former German or Turkish colony. The territory was called a mandated territory, or mandate. Following the defeat of Germany and Ottoman Turkey in World War I, their Asian and African possessions, which were judged not yet ready to govern themselves, were distributed among the victorious Allied powers under the authority of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations (itself an Allied creation). The mandate system was a compromise between the Allies' wish to retain the former German and Turkish colonies and their pre-Armistice declaration (November 5, 1918) that annexation of territory was not their aim in the war. The mandates were divided into three groups on the basis of their location and their level of political and economic development and were then assigned to individual Allied victors (mandatory powers, or mandatories). Theoretically, exercise of the mandates was supervised by the League's Permanent Mandates Commission, but the commission had no real way to enforce its will on any of the mandatory powers. The mandate system was replaced by the UN trusteeship system in 1946.

79) Russian Civil War [p.809]

A multi-party war in the former Russian Empire immediately after the Russian Revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army, fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which included diverse interests favoring monarchism, capitalism and alternative forms of socialism, each with democratic and antidemocratic variants. In addition, rival militant socialists and non-ideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites. Eight foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied Forces and the pro-German armies. The Red Army defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine and the army led by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak in Siberia in 1919. The remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser battles of the war continued on the periphery for two more years, and minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into 1923. Armed national resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until 1934. There were an estimated 7,000,000-12,000,000 casualties during the war, mostly civilians. The Russian Civil War has been described by some as the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen. Many pro-independence movements emerged after the break-up of the Russian Empire and fought in the war. Several parts of the former Russian Empire—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine—were established as sovereign states, with their own civil wars and wars of independence. Some of them re-established their independence, previously lost to Russia. The rest of the former Russian Empire was consolidated into the Soviet Union shortly afterwards.

41) Zionism [p.806]

A nationalist and political movement of Jews and Jewish culture that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel (roughly corresponding to Palestine, Canaan or the Holy Land). Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in central and eastern Europe as a national revival movement. Soon after this most leaders of the movement associated the main goal with creating the desired state in Palestine, then an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Until 1948, the primary goals of Zionism were the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, ingathering of the exiles, and liberation of Jews from the anti-Semitic discrimination and persecution that occurred in their Diaspora. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism continues primarily to advocate on behalf of Israel and address threats to its continued existence and security.

19) Nationalism [p.756]

A political ideology that stresses people's membership in a nation - a community defined by a common culture and history as well as by territory. In the late 18th century and early 19th centuries, this was a force for unity in Western Europe. In the late 19th century it hastened the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. In the 20th century it provided the ideological foundation for scores of independent countries emerging from colonialism.

61) Sykes-Picot Agreement*

A secret agreement between the governments of the Britain and France, with the assent of Russia, defining their proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East should the Triple Entente succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The negotiation of the treaty occurred between November 1915 and March 1916. The agreement was concluded on May 16, 1916. The agreement effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of future British and French control or influence. An "international administration" was proposed for Palestine. The terms were negotiated by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton Sir Mark Sykes. The Russian Tsarist government was a minor party to the Sykes-Picot agreement, and when, following the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the Bolsheviks exposed the agreement.

73) April Theses [p.807]

A series of ten directives issued by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin upon his return to Petrograd from his exile in Switzerland via Germany and Finland. The Theses were mostly aimed at fellow Bolsheviks in Russia and returning to Russia from exile. He called for soviets (workers' councils) to take power (as seen in the slogan "all power to the soviets"), denounced liberals and social revolutionaries in the Provisional Government, called for Bolsheviks not to cooperate with the government, and called for new communist policies. The April Theses influenced the July Days and October Revolution in the next months and are identified with Leninism.

3) Submarine telegraph cables [p.744]

A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean. The first submarine communications cables, laid in the 1850s, carried telegraphy traffic. Subsequent generations of cables carried telephone traffic, then data communications traffic. Modern cables use optical fiber technology to carry digital data, which includes telephone, Internet and private data traffic. A transatlantic telegraph cable is an undersea cable running under the Atlantic Ocean used for telegraph communications. The first was laid across the floor of the Atlantic from Telegraph Field in western Ireland to eastern Newfoundland. The first communications occurred August 16, 1858, reducing the communication time between North America and Europe from ten days - the time it took to deliver a message by ship - to a much shorter time. Transatlantic telegraph cables have been replaced by transatlantic telecommunications cables.

85) Kulaks [p.833]

A wealthy or prosperous peasant, generally characterized as one who owned a relatively large farm and several head of cattle and horses and who was financially capable of employing hired labor and leasing land. Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, the kulaks were major figures in the peasant villages. They often lent money, provided mortgages, and played central roles in the villages' social and administrative affairs. During the War Communism period (1918-21), the Soviet government undermined the kulaks' position by organizing committees of poor peasants to administer the villages and to supervise the requisitioning of grain from the richer peasants. But the introduction in 1921 of the New Economic Policy favored the kulaks. Although the Soviet government considered the kulaks to be capitalists and, therefore, enemies of socialism, it adopted various incentives to encourage peasants to increase agricultural production and enrich themselves. The most successful peasants (less than 4 percent) became kulaks and assumed traditional roles in the village social structure, often rivaling the authority of the new Soviet officials in village affairs. In 1927 the Soviet government began to shift its peasant policy by increasing the kulaks' taxes and restricting their right to lease land; in 1929 it began a drive for rapid collectivization of agriculture. The kulaks vigorously opposed the efforts to force the peasants to give up their small privately owned farms and join large cooperative agricultural establishments. At the end of 1929 a campaign to "liquidate the kulaks as a class" ("dekulakization") was launched by the government. By 1934, when approximately 75 percent of the farms in the Soviet Union had been collectivized, most kulaks—as well as millions of other peasants who had opposed collectivization—had been deported to remote regions of the Soviet Union or arrested and their land and property confiscated.

49) Armistice Day [p.808]

Agreement that ended the fighting on the Western Front. It went into effect at 11 a.m. Paris time on November 11, 1918 (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month), and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not formally a surrender. The Germans were responding to the policies proposed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points of January 1918. The actual terms, largely written by French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, included the cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of German troops to behind their own borders, the preservation of infrastructure, the exchange of prisoners, a promise of reparations, the disposition of German warships and submarines, and conditions for prolonging or terminating the armistice. Although the armistice ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty, the Treaty of Versailles.

12) Labor union [p.753]

Also known as a trade union, it is an organization of workers who have come together to achieve common goals such as protecting the integrity of its trade, improving safety standards, achieving higher pay and benefits such as health care and retirement, increasing the number of employees an employer assigns to complete the work, and better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labor contracts (collective bargaining) with employers. The most common purpose of these associations or unions is "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment". This may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies. Originating in Great Britain, trade unions became popular in many countries during the Industrial Revolution.

77) Bolshevik/October/November Revolution (November 1917) [p.807]

Also known as the October Uprising, this was a seizure of state power instrumental in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) traditionally dated to October 25, 1917. It followed and capitalized on the February Revolution of the same year, which overthrew the Tsarist autocracy and established a provisional government composed predominantly of former nobles and aristocrats. The October Revolution in Petrograd was led by Vladimir Lenin, who overthrew the provisional government and gave the power to the local soviets. This immediately initiated the establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state. As the revolution was not universally recognized, there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War (1917-1922) and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922.

15) Communist Manifesto [p.753-55]

An 1848 political pamphlet by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London just as the revolutions of 1848 began to erupt, the Manifesto was later recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and present) and the problems of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms. The Communist Manifesto summarizes Marx and Engels' theories about the nature of society and politics, that in their own words, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then finally communism.

42) Theodore Herzl [p.806]

An Austro-Hungarian journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer. He was one of the fathers of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish migration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state (Israel).

22) Camillo Cavour [p.756]

An Italian statesman and a leading figure in the movement toward Italian unification. Cavour put forth several economic reforms in his native region of Piedmont in his earlier years, and founded the political newspaper Il Risorgimento. After being elected to the Chamber of Deputies, he quickly rose in rank through the Piedmontese government and after initiating a large rail system expansion program, Cavour became prime minister of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1852. As prime minister, Cavour successfully negotiated Piedmont's way through the Crimean War, the Second Italian War of Independence, and Garibaldi's expeditions, managing to maneuver Piedmont diplomatically to become a new great power in Europe, controlling a nearly united Italy that was five times as large as Piedmont had been before he came to power. After the declaration of a united Kingdom of Italy, Cavour took office as the first Prime Minister of Italy; he died after only three months in office, and thus did not live to see Venetia or Rome added to the new Italian nation.

9) "Separate Spheres" [p.750]

An ideology that defines and prescribes separate spheres for women and men. Culturally located in Europe and North America, it emerged as a distinct ideology during the Industrial Revolution, although the basic idea of gendered separation of spheres is much older. The notion of separate spheres dictates that men, based primarily on their biological makeup as well as the will of God, inhabit the public sphere - the world of politics, economy, commerce, and law. Women's "proper sphere", according to the ideology, is the private realm of domestic life, child-rearing, housekeeping, and religious education. The separate spheres ideology presumes that women and men are inherently different and that distinctive gender roles are natural.

89) Animal Farm & 1984*

Animal Farm is a short political fable by George Orwell based on Joseph Stalin's betrayal of the Russian Revolution. Orwell wrote it because he wished to destroy what he called the "Soviet myth". Like Nineteen Eighty-Four, the story is one of the most famous political allegories in the world. It is about a group of animals who rebel against the humans from the farm they live on and run it themselves with hopes of being equal, free, and happy. In the end, however, the new rule becomes a cruel tyranny of its own led by the pigs. Written during World War II and published in 1945, it was not well received at first, but is widely accepted as a classic today.

11) Socialism [p.753]

Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy. It is also the stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which the means of production are collectively owned but a completely classless society has not yet been achieved. By the late 19th century, and after further articulation and advancement by Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels as the culmination of technological development outstripping the economic dynamics of capitalism, "socialism" had come to signify opposition to capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production. By the 1920s, social democracy and Communism became the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement. Then socialism proceeded to become the most influential secular worldwide movement and political-economic worldview of the 20th century, and while the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally socialist state led to socialism's widespread association with the Soviet economic model, many economists and intellectuals have argued that the model represented a form of dictatorship, state capitalism or a non-planned command economy in practice.

31) Archduke Franz Ferdinand [p.799]

Archduke of Austro-Hungarian Empire, and from 1896 until his death, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Historians have disagreed on how to characterize the political philosophies of Franz Ferdinand, some attributing generally liberal views on the empire's nationalities while others have emphasized his dynastic centralism, Catholic conservatism, and tendency to clash with other leaders. He advocated granting greater autonomy to ethnic groups within the Empire and addressing their grievances, especially the Czechs in Bohemia and the south Slavic peoples in Croatia and Bosnia, who had been left out of the Austro-Hungarian compromise of 1867. Yet his feelings towards the Hungarians were less generous, often described as antipathy. He also advocated a careful approach towards Serbia - repeatedly locking horns with Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Vienna's hard-line Chief of the General Staff, warning that harsh treatment of Serbia would bring Austria-Hungary into open conflict with Russia, to the ruin of both Empires. The archduke traveled to Sarajevo in June 1914 to inspect the imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, former Ottoman territories in the turbulent Balkan region that were annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908 to the indignation of Serbian nationalists, who believed they should become part of the newly independent and ambitious Serbian nation. The date scheduled for his visit, June 28, coincided with the anniversary of the First Battle of Kosovo in 1389, in which medieval Serbia was defeated by the Turks. Despite the fact that Serbia did not truly lose its independence until the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448, June 28 was a day of great significance to Serbian nationalists, and one on which they could be expected to take exception to a demonstration of Austrian imperial strength in Bosnia. June 28 was also Franz Ferdinand's wedding anniversary. His beloved wife, Sophie, a former lady-in-waiting, was denied royal status in Austria due to her birth as a poor Czech aristocrat, as were the couple's children. In Bosnia, however, due to its limbo status as an annexed territory, Sophie could appear beside him at official proceedings. On June 28, 1914, then, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were touring Sarajevo in an open car, with surprisingly little security, when Serbian nationalist Nedjelko Cabrinovic threw a bomb at their car; it rolled off the back of the vehicle and wounded an officer and some bystanders. Later that day, on the way to visit the injured officer, the archduke's procession took a wrong turn at the junction of Appel quay and Franzjosefstrasse, where one of Cabrinovic's cohorts, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, happened to be loitering. Seeing his opportunity, Princip fired into the car, shooting Franz Ferdinand and Sophie at point-blank range. Princip then turned the gun on himself, but was prevented from shooting it by a bystander who threw himself upon the young assassin. A mob of angry onlookers attacked Princip, who fought back and was subsequently wrestled away by the police. Meanwhile, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie lay fatally wounded in their limousine as it rushed to seek help; they both died within the hour. The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand and Sophie set off a rapid chain of events: Austria-Hungary, like many in countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Slav nationalism once and for all. As Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention-which would likely involve Russia's ally, France, and possibly Britain as well. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe's great powers collapsed. Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

13) Karl Marx [p.753]

As a university student, Karl Marx (1818-1883) joined a movement known as the Young Hegelians, who strongly criticized the political and cultural establishments of the day. He became a journalist, and the radical nature of his writings would eventually get him expelled by the governments of Germany, France and Belgium. In 1848, Marx and fellow German thinker Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto which introduced their concept of socialism as a natural result of the conflicts inherent in the capitalist system. Marx later moved to London, where he would live for the rest of his life. In 1867, he published the first volume of Das Kapital, in which he laid out his vision of capitalism and its inevitable tendencies toward self-destruction, and took part in a growing international workers' movement based on his revolutionary theories.

75) Provisional Government (March 14, 1917 - November 7, 1917) [p.807]

Based in the capital, Petrograd, the Provisional Government was first led by Rodzyanko and was formed in response to the fear that the old tsarist government in Petrograd would call in frontline troops to put down the rebellion that had occurred in the city. When Grand Duke Michael refused to take on the crown after the abdication of Nicholas II, the Provisional Government became the de facto government in Russia. Government ministers had sworn an oath of loyalty to Nicholas. Now that the royal family was no longer in existence, these men had no authority. The Provisional Government was to last for 8 months. It was immediately recognized as the legitimate government of Russia by the Allies - not necessarily because they approved of the collapse of the Romanovs, but because they needed the Russians to keep open the Eastern Front so that the German Army was split and thus weakened. The Provisional Government kept Russia in the war - this was to be a huge error of judgment. Within Russia, the Provisional Government 'inherited' a dire situation. The Duma had always been a chamber for discussion but it had never been in a position to make policy and then carry it out. The old established props of the tsarist regime, such as the civil service, crumbled away. The Provisional Government had a few competent people in it but not many. Laws were passed that seem to promise a new era for Russia - universal suffrage was introduced, Poland was given its independence, all people were declared equal and all government officials had to be elected by the people. But none of these got to grips with the immediate problems that Russia was experiencing and the leaders of the Provisional Government argued amongst themselves as to the way ahead. This lack of unity led to Rodzyanko resigning. Prince Lvov replaced him. Lvov clashed with Kerensky over the issue of land being given to the peasants and he resigned in May. Kerensky became leader of the Provisional Government in July. By now, Lenin had returned to Petrograd. Though the Bolsheviks were not the biggest political party in Petrograd, they had a leader who had a very clear idea as to what was needed. Lenin called for land to be given to the peasants, an end to the war, complete power to the soviets and bread for the workers in the cities. Kerensky offered the people Russia's continued participation in the war and no land deals for the peasants. In September, the Bolsheviks won a majority on the Petrograd Soviet. The rise in their power could only be at the expense of Kerensky's power. In a last ditch effort to save his position and weaken that of Lenin's, Kerensky issued a decree that called for an election to a constituent assembly, which would meet in January 1918. Lenin had no guarantee that the Bolsheviks would win this election. This pushed him into seizing power in November 7, 1917.

32) Gavrilo Princip [p.799]

Bosnian Serb and Yugoslav nationalist associated with the movement Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia) which predominantly consisted of Serbs, but also Bosniaks and Croats, who assassinated the Archduke of Austria and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. He and his accomplices were arrested and implicated by several members of the Serbian military, leading Austria-Hungary to issue a démarche to Serbia. This was used as pretext for Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, which then led to World War I.

38) Lusitania [p.803]

British ocean liner which was briefly the world's largest ship. She was launched in 1906, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade. In 1915 she was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat, causing the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew. Germany had declared the seas around the United Kingdom to be a war-zone, and the German embassy in the United States had placed a newspaper advertisement warning people not to sail on the ocean liner. In firing on a non-military ship without warning, the Germans had breached the international laws known as the Cruiser Rules. Although the Germans had reasons for treating the ocean liner as a naval vessel, including that the ship was carrying war munitions and that the British had also been breaching the Cruiser Rules, the sinking caused a storm of protest in the United States, as 128 Americans were among the dead. It also influenced the decision by the US to declare war in 1917.

Liberalism

Classical liberalism is a political ideology and a branch of liberalism which advocates civil liberties and political freedom with representative democracy under the rule of law and emphasizes economic freedom. Classical liberalism developed in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. Although classical liberalism built on ideas that had already developed by the end of the 18th century, it advocated a specific kind of society, government and public policy as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization. Notable individuals whose ideas have contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo. It drew on the economics of Adam Smith and on a belief in natural law, utilitarianism, and progress.

26) Otto von Bismarck [p.758]

Conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. In 1862 King Wilhelm I appointed Bismarck as Minister President of Prussia, a position he would hold until 1890. He provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria and France, aligning the smaller German states behind Prussia in defeating his arch-enemy France. In 1871 he formed the German Empire with himself as Chancellor, while retaining control of Prussia. His diplomacy of realpolitik and powerful rule at home gained him the nickname the "Iron Chancellor." German unification and its rapid economic growth was the foundation to his foreign policy. He disliked colonialism but reluctantly built an overseas empire when it was demanded by both elite and mass opinion. Juggling a very complex interlocking series of conferences, negotiations and alliances, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain Germany's position and used the balance of power to keep Europe at peace in the 1870s and 1880s. Bismarck distrusted democracy and ruled through a strong, well-trained bureaucracy with power in the hands of a traditional Junker elite that comprised the landed nobility of the east. Under Wilhelm I, Bismarck largely controlled domestic and foreign affairs, until he was removed by young Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890. As the leader of what historians call "revolutionary conservatism," Bismarck became a hero to German nationalists; they built hundreds of monuments glorifying the iconic symbol of powerful conservative leadership. Historians generally praise him as a statesman of moderation and balance who kept the peace in Europe, and was primarily responsible for the unification of Germany and building its world-renowned bureaucracy and army.

68) Duma [p.764]

Elected legislative body that, along with the State Council, constituted the imperial Russian legislature from 1906 until its dissolution at the time of the March 1917 Revolution. The Duma constituted the lower house of the Russian parliament, and the State Council was the upper house. Initiated as a result of the 1905 revolution, the Duma was established by Tsar Nicholas II in his October Manifesto (Oct. 30, 1905), which promised that it would be a representative assembly and that its approval would be necessary for the enactment of legislation. But the Fundamental Laws, issued in April 1906, before the First Duma met (May 1906), deprived it of control over state ministers and portions of the state budget and limited its ability to initiate legislation effectively.

64) Russo-Japanese War [p.764-765]

Following the Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launches a surprise naval attack against Port Arthur, a Russian naval base in China. The Russian fleet was decimated. During the subsequent Russo-Japanese War, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians, who underestimated the military potential of its non-Western opponent. In January 1905, the strategic naval base of Port Arthur fell to Japanese naval forces under Admiral Heihachiro Togo; in March, Russian troops were defeated at Shenyang, China, by Japanese Field Marshal Iwao Oyama; and in May, the Russian Baltic fleet under Admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski was destroyed by Togo near the Tsushima Islands. These three major defeats convinced Russia that further resistance against Japan's imperial designs for East Asia was hopeless, and in August 1905 U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt mediated a peace treaty at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (He was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this achievement.) Japan emerged from the conflict as the first modern non-Western world power and set its sights on greater imperial expansion. However, for Russia, its military's disastrous performance in the war was one of the immediate causes of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

37) Western Front [p.803]

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. After the Battle of the Marne, the tide of the advance was dramatically turned. Following the race to the sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France. This line remained essentially unchanged for most of the war. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several major offensives along this front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. However, a combination of entrenchments, machine gun nests, barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties on the attackers and counterattacking defenders. As a result, no significant advances were made.

28) First Sino-Japanese War (1894 - 1895) [p.765]

Fought between the Qing Empire of China and the Empire of Japan, primarily over control of Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the Chinese port of Weihaiwei, the Qing government sued for peace in February 1895. The war demonstrated the failure of the Qing Empire's attempts to modernize its military and fend off threats to its sovereignty, especially when compared with Japan's successful Meiji Restoration. For the first time, regional dominance in East Asia shifted from China to Japan; the prestige of the Qing Empire, along with the classical tradition in China, suffered a major blow. The humiliating loss of Korea as a vassal state sparked an unprecedented public outcry. Within China, the defeat was a catalyst for a series of political upheavals led by Sun Yat-sen and Kang Youwei, culminating in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution.

76) Alexander Kerensky [p.806]

From 1912 to 1917, Kerensky was a member of the Duma where he stood as a democratic socialist. He was also voted in as the deputy chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, therefore, despite his middle class background, Kerensky did develop a positive relationship with the working class of St Petersburg. After the abdication of Nicholas II in March 1917, Kerensky was made Minister of Justice in the Provisional Government. In May, he was promoted to Minister of War and in July he became Prime Minister. His rise to power was swift but Kerensky had developed a reputation for effective leadership in whatever area of government he worked in. However, as Prime Minister he made two major errors. He ensured that Russia stayed in a war that was detested in the country itself. The overwhelming bulk of the population wanted Russia to withdraw from the war. There must have been few families, especially among the poor, who had not experienced personal tragedy between 1914 and 1917. His second mistake was not to offer the peasants land. Lenin did just this and immediately got the support he and the Bolsheviks needed at the expense of Kerensky. To undermine the support of the Bolsheviks, Kerensky ordered that elections should take place for a constituent assembly. The elections were to be held in January 1918. Lenin had called for such elections earlier in 1917, so he could not object to this. As Kerensky argued, it was simply an extension of the democratic process denied to the people by the Romanovs. However, all the evidence indicated that the Bolsheviks would have done less well than other groups - including the Mensheviks. Spurred into action by the near certainty of defeat in the January elections, Lenin ordered a coup d'état on November 7th, 1917. Brilliantly successful, the November Revolution ended the Provisional Government and the power of Kerensky. He fled to France, moved to Australia and then spent 24 years living in America. Alexander Kerensky died in 1970.

14) Friedrich Engels [p.753]

German socialist philosopher, the closest collaborator of Karl Marx in the foundation of modern communism. They coauthored The Communist Manifesto (1848), and Engels edited the second and third volumes of Das Kapital after Marx's death.

36) Triple Entente' [p.800]

In 1904 Britain began talks with Russia and decided that it should come out of its 'splendid isolation', joining the Entente Cordiale ('Friendly Agreement'). By 1907, Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey negotiated Britain into the Triple Entente, and united three old enemies. In contrast to the Triple Alliance, the terms of the Entente did not require each country to go to war on behalf of the others, but stated that they had a 'moral obligation' to support each other. France and Russia had fought the Napoleonic wars, and France and Britain had been fighting off and on for hundreds of years. Russia and Britain were also cautious partners as Britain was allied with Japan who had defeated Russia in 1904. All three had been in competition for colonies in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. But all were united in their suspicions of German plans to dominate Europe. Rather than discussing plans and settling disputes, most countries in Europe sought peace through military superiority. No one would attack the country with the largest army and/or navy, because they knew they couldn't win. The Entente was created to balance the growing power of Germany by being more powerful itself.

16) Bourgeoisie [p.753]

In Marxist philosophy the bourgeoisie is the social class that came to own the means of production during modern industrialization and whose societal concerns are the value of property and the preservation of capital, to ensure the perpetuation of their economic supremacy in society.

56) Hyperinflation [p.811-812]

In economics, this occurs when a country experiences very high and usually accelerating rates of rapidly eroding real value of the local currency, and causing the population to minimize their holdings of the local money. The population normally switch to holding relatively stable foreign currencies. Under such conditions, the general price level within an economy increases rapidly as the official currency quickly loses real value. The value of economic items remains relatively more stable in terms of foreign currencies. However, relative prices do change over the course of the period; for instance food prices in Germany during 1913-1923 rose 43% less than those of clothing, whereas they increased 80 times more than rents and 24 times more than the price index of shares.

Thomas Edison [p.746]

In his 84 years, Thomas Edison acquired a record number of 1,093 patents (singly or jointly) and was the driving force behind such innovations as the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb and one of the earliest motion picture cameras. He also created the world's first industrial research laboratory. Known as the "Wizard of Menlo Park," for the New Jersey town where he did some of his best-known work, Edison had become one of the most famous men in the world by the time he was in his 30s. In addition to his talent for invention, Edison was also a successful manufacturer and businessman who was highly skilled at marketing his inventions-and himself-to the public

60) Arab Revolt [p.818]

Instigated by the Arab bureau of the British Foreign Office, the Arab Revolt started with the help of Britain in June 1916 at the Battle of Mecca, led by Sherif Hussein of Mecca whose aim was securing independence from the ruling Ottoman Turks and creating a single unified Arab state spanning from Syria to Yemen. Though the revolt has tended to be regarded as a revolt rooted in a secular Arab nationalist sentiment, in June 1916, the Sherif did not present it in those terms; rather, he accused the Young Turks of violating the sacred tenets of Islam and called Arab Muslims to sacred rebellion against the ostensibly "impious" Ottoman government. At the end of the war, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force had seized Palestine, Transjordan, Lebanon, large parts of the Arabian peninsula and southern Syria. Medina, cut off from the rest of the Ottoman Empire, would not surrender until January 1919. The United Kingdom agreed that it would support Arab independence if they revolted against the Ottomans. The two sides had different interpretations of this agreement. In any event, the United Kingdom and France reneged on the original deal and divided up the area in ways that the Arabs felt was unfavorable to them under the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement. The Hedjaz region of western Arabia became an independent state under Hussein's control, until 1925, when, abandoned and isolated by the British policy-which had shifted support to the al Saud family-it was conquered by Ibn Saud and renamed Saudi Arabia.

24) Giuseppe Garibaldi [p.756]

Italian patriot and military leader who helped free the Italians from foreign rule and unify the country. He was a master of guerrilla warfare and raised volunteers beginning in 1848 to conduct daring military campaigns to overcome the rule of Imperial Austria. In 1860, Garibaldi's thousand "red shirts" took Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. Thousands of volunteers then rushed to join Garibaldi's army. In August, he crossed to the mainland to march on Naples, where he was greeted by jubilant crowds singing the national anthem, now known as "Garibaldi's Hymn." After turning over the city to Victor Emmanuel II, Garibaldi resumed a humble life on the island of Caprera. In 1861, as a result of his daring military leadership and the political leadership of fellow patriots, Giuseppe Mazzini and Camillo Cavour, the independent Kingdom of Italy was finally proclaimed.

62) Kibbutzim [p.820]

Jewish collective settlement, usually agricultural and often also industrial, in which all wealth is held in common. Profits are reinvested in the settlement after members have been provided with food, clothing, and shelter and with social and medical services. Adults have private quarters, but children are generally housed and cared for as a group. Cooking and dining are in common. The settlements have edged toward greater privacy with regard to person and property since the formation of Israel in 1948.

30) Japanese Annexation of Korea (1910) [p.]

Korea under Japanese rule began with the end of the Joseon dynastic monarchy in Korea in 1910 and ended at the conclusion of World War II in 1945. Japanese rule of Korea was the outcome of a process that began with the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1876, whereby a complex coalition of Meiji government, military, and business officials sought to integrate Korea both politically and economically into the Empire of Japan. A major stepping-stone towards Japanese occupation of Korea was the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905, in which the then-Empire of Korea was declared a protectorate of Japan. The annexation of Korea by Japan was set up in the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1910, which was never actually signed by the Korean regent, Gojong. The United Kingdom had already acquiesced to the annexation of Korea by Japan, via the British connection to Imperial Japan via the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. Japanese administration of the Korean Peninsula was directed through the General Government. After the Japanese withdrawal from the Korean Peninsula followed by the Japanese surrender to Allied forces at the end of the Second World War, Korea returned to self-government, albeit under two separate governments and economic systems backed (in the north) by the USSR and (in the south) by the United States. The industrialization of the Korean Peninsula began with the Joseon dynasty (in particular with King, and later Emperor, Gojong) while Korea was still independent but accelerated under Japanese occupation. It continues to be the subject of controversy between the two Koreas and Japan. The manner of the acceleration of industrialization under Japanese occupation, especially utilization of industrialization only for the purposes of benefiting Japan, the exploitation of the Korean people in their own country, the marginalization of Korean history and culture, the environmental exploitation of the Korean Peninsula, and its long-term negative repercussions for modern-day North and South Korea are among the most provocative aspects of the controversy. Imperial Japanese rule over Korea ended in 1945, when American and Soviet forces captured the peninsula. In 1965 the unequal treaties between Joseon-ruled Korea and Imperial Japan, especially those of 1905 and 1910, were declared "already null and void" at the time of their promulgation (i.e. "dead on arrival", implicitly a declaration of their illegality) by the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea.

25) Prussia [p.757]

Largest of the German states in what would become the central and eastern part of Germany. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 moved to Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership.

71) Vladimir Lenin [p.806]

Lenin was one of the leading political figures and revolutionary thinkers of the 20th century, who masterminded the Bolshevik take-over of power in Russia in 1917, and was the architect and first head of the USSR. Expelled from university for his radical policies, Lenin completed his law degree as an external student in 1891. He moved to St Petersburg and became a professional revolutionary. Like many of his contemporaries, he was arrested and exiled to Siberia, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his Siberian exile, Lenin - the pseudonym he adopted in 1901 - spent most of the subsequent decade and a half in Western Europe, where he emerged as a prominent figure in the international revolutionary movement and became the leader of the 'Bolshevik' faction of the Russian Social Democratic Worker's Party. In 1917, exhausted by World War One, Russia was ripe for change. Assisted by the Germans, who hoped that he would undermine the Russian war effort, Lenin returned home and started working against the provisional government that had overthrown the tsarist regime. He eventually led what was soon to be known as the October Revolution, but was effectively a coup d'etat. Almost three years of civil war followed. The Bolsheviks were victorious and assumed total control of the country. During this period of revolution, war and famine, Lenin demonstrated a chilling disregard for the sufferings of his fellow countrymen and mercilessly crushed any opposition. Although Lenin was ruthless he was also pragmatic. When his efforts to transform the Russian economy to a socialist model stalled, he introduced the New Economic Policy, where a measure of private enterprise was again permitted, a policy that continued for several years after his death. In 1918, Lenin narrowly survived an assassination attempt, but was severely wounded. His long term health was affected, and in 1922 he suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered. In his declining years, he worried about the bureaucratization of the regime and also expressed concern over the increasing power of his eventual successor Joseph Stalin. Lenin died on January 24, 1924. His corpse was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square.

50) David Lloyd George [p.808]

Liberal British statesman who became prime minister during World War I. He became minister of munitions early in World War I, eventually taking over as war minister before becoming prime minister in December 1916. At Versailles, Lloyd George put his prodigious energies to winning the peace for Britain, but, although harsher on Germany than the idealistic American president, Woodrow Wilson, neither could moderate France's appetite for retribution. Lloyd George wanted Germany to pay substantial reparations. But, unlike the French (under Clemanceau) he didn't want to bankrupt Germany totally. He saw Germany as an important trading partner and felt it would be dangerous to bankrupt German industry. Nevertheless he pressed for significant amounts of reparations. For this, the economist, John Maynard Keynes criticized Lloyd George for his short sightedness in sowing the seeds of future conflict. Radical elements across the Rhine, notably Adolf Hitler's fascists, would prosper on promises to reverse Versailles.

70) Bolsheviks [p.806]

Members of a wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, which, led by Lenin, seized control of the government in Russia (October 1917) and became the dominant political power. The group originated at the party's second congress (1903) when Lenin's followers, insisting that party membership be restricted to professional revolutionaries, won a temporary majority on the party's central committee and on the editorial board of its newspaper Iskra. They assumed the name Bolsheviks and dubbed their opponents the Mensheviks ("Those of the Minority"). Although both factions participated together in the Russian Revolution of 1905 and went through periods of apparent reconciliation (about 1906 and 1910), their differences increased. The Bolsheviks continued to insist upon a highly centralized, disciplined, professional party. They boycotted the elections to the First State Duma (Russian parliament) in 1906 and refused to cooperate with the government and other political parties in subsequent Dumas. Furthermore, their methods of obtaining revenue (including robbery) were disapproved of by the Mensheviks and non-Russian Social Democrats. In 1912 Lenin, leading a very small minority, formed a distinct Bolshevik organization, decisively (although not formally) splitting the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party. His determination to keep his own faction strictly organized, however, had also alienated many of his Bolshevik colleagues, who had wished to undertake non-revolutionary activities or who had disagreed with Lenin on political tactics and on the infallibility of orthodox Marxism. No outstanding Russian Social Democrats joined Lenin in 1912. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks became increasingly popular among urban workers and soldiers in Russia after the February Revolution (1917), particularly after April, when Lenin returned to the country, demanding immediate peace and that the workers' councils, or Soviets, assume power. By October the Bolsheviks had majorities in the Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and Moscow Soviets; and when they overthrew the Provisional Government, the second Congress of Soviets (devoid of peasant deputies) approved the action and formally took control of the government.

69) Mensheviks [p.806]

Members of the non-Leninist wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, which evolved into a separate organization. It originated when a dispute over party membership requirements arose at the 1903 congress of the Social-Democratic Party. One group, led by L. Martov, opposed Lenin's plan for a party restricted to professional revolutionaries and called for a mass party modelled after western European social-democratic parties.

35) Triple Alliance [p.800]

Military alliance among Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, (as opposing the Triple Entente which consisted of an alliance between Britain, France and Russia), that lasted from May 20, 1882 until World War I in 1914. Each member promised mutual support in the event of an attack by any other great power, or for Germany and Italy, an attack by France alone. In a supplementary declaration, Italy specified that its undertakings could not be regarded as being directed against Great Britain. Shortly after renewing the Alliance in June 1902, Italy secretly extended a similar guarantee to France. By a particular agreement, neither Austria-Hungary nor Italy would change the status quo in the Balkans without previous consultation

51) Georges Clemenceau [p.808]

Nicknamed "The Tiger". Clemenceau became premier in November 1917 and remained in the post until 1920. Having become prime minister for the second time he formed a coalition cabinet, serving as minister of war himself. Clemenceau worked to revive French morale in the country at large, and persuaded the Allies to agree to a unified military command under Ferdinand Foch; he energetically pursued the war until its conclusion in November 1918. At the Paris Peace Conference Clemenceau insisted upon the complete humiliation of Germany, requiring German disarmament and severe reparations; France also won back Alsace-Lorraine. Even so, he remained unsatisfied with the Treaty, often coming into conflict with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, whom he viewed as too idealistic. With his desire for poetic justice, he insisted that the Treaty of Versailles be signed (June 28, 1919) in the Hall of Mirrors of the Versailles palace where, in 1871, Kaiser William I had had himself proclaimed German emperor. In the presidential elections of January 1920 Clemenceau was defeated, ironically after facing charges that he was too lenient in his treatment of Germany at the Treaty.

55) "War Guilt Clause" [p.809]

Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required "Germany [to] accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage" during the war (the other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles). This article, Article 231, later became known as the War Guilt clause.

65) Bloody Sunday [p.764]

On January 5, 1905, Father George Gapon led a sizable but peaceful demonstration of workers in St. Petersburg. The demonstrators appealed to Nicholas II to improve working conditions and establish a popular assembly. Troops opened fire on the demonstrators, killing more than a thousand people in what would come to be called the infamous "Bloody Sunday." In reaction, indignant workers throughout Russia went on strike. As peasants all over Russia sympathized with the workers' cause, thousands of uprisings took place and were suppressed by Nicholas II's troops, serving to further increase tensions. Although he believed himself to be an absolute ruler as ordained by God, Nicholas II was eventually forced to concede to creating an elected legislature, called the Duma. Despite this concession, Nicholas II still stubbornly continued to resist government reform, included those suggested by the newly elected minister of the interior, Peter Stolypin.

44) Balfour Declaration [p.806]

On November 2, 1917, Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour writes a letter to Britain's most illustrious Jewish citizen, Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild, expressing the British government's support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Britain's public acknowledgement and support of the Zionist movement emerged from its growing concern surrounding the direction of the First World War. Against this backdrop, the government of Prime Minister David Lloyd George—elected in December 1916—made the decision to publicly support Zionism, a movement led in Britain by Chaim Weizmann, a Russian Jewish chemist who had settled in Manchester. The motives behind this decision were various: aside from a genuine belief in the righteousness of the Zionist cause, held by Lloyd George among others, Britain's leaders hoped that a formal declaration in favor of Zionism would help gain Jewish support for the Allies in neutral countries, in the United States and especially in Russia, where the powerfully anti-Semitic czarist government had just been overthrown with the help of Russia's significant Jewish population. Finally, despite Britain's earlier agreement with France dividing influence in the region after the presumed defeat of the Ottoman Empire, Lloyd George had come to see British dominance in Palestine—a land bridge between the crucial territories of India and Egypt—as an essential post-war goal. The establishment of a Zionist state there—under British protection—would accomplish this, while seemingly following the stated Allied aim of self-determination for smaller nations. On November 2, Balfour sent a letter to Lord Rothschild, a prominent Zionist and a friend of Chaim Weizmann, stating that: "His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." Nonetheless, the influence of the Balfour Declaration on the course of post-war events was immediate: According to the "mandate" system created by the Versailles Treaty of 1919, Britain was entrusted with the temporary administration of Palestine, with the understanding that it would work on behalf of both its Jewish and Arab inhabitants. Many Arabs, in Palestine and elsewhere, were angered by their failure to receive the nationhood and self-government they had been led to expect in return for their participation in the war against Turkey. In the years after the war, the Jewish population in Palestine increased dramatically, along with the instances of Jewish-Arab violence. The area's instability led Britain to delay making a decision on Palestine's future. In the aftermath of World War II and the terrors of the Holocaust, however, growing international support for Zionism led to the official declaration in 1948 of the State of Israel.

27) "Blood & Iron" [p.758]

Title of a speech by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck given in 1862 about the unification of the German territories. Although he was an outstanding diplomat, the phrase has become a popular description of his foreign policy partly because he did on occasion resort to war in a highly effective manner to aid in the unification of Germany and the expansion of its continental power.

40) Faisal [p.806]

On October 23, 1916 in Wadi Safra, Emir Faisal met Captain T. E. Lawrence, a junior British intelligence officer from Cairo. Lawrence, who envisioned an independent post-war Arabian state, sought the right man to lead the Arab forces and achieve this. In 1916-18, Faisal headed the army of rebellion that confronted the Turks in what was to become Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. After a 30-month-long siege he conquered Medina, defeating the defense organized by Fakhri Pasha and looting the city. Emir Faisal also worked with the Allies during World War I in their conquest of Greater Syria and the capture of Damascus in October 1918. Faisal became part of a new Arab government at Damascus, formed after the capture of that city in 1918. Faisal became King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria or Greater Syria in 1920, and was King of Iraq from 23 August 1921 to 1933. He was a member of the Hashemite dynasty. Faisal fostered unity between Sunni and Shiite Muslims to encourage common loyalty and promote pan-Arabism in the goal of creating an Arab state that would include Iraq, Syria and the rest of the Fertile Crescent. While in power, Faisal tried to diversify his administration by including different ethnic and religious groups in offices. However, Faisal's attempt at pan-Arab nationalism may have contributed to the isolation of certain religious groups.

53) Treaty of Versailles [p.809]

One of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties. Although the armistice, signed on November 11, 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required "Germany [to] accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage" during the war (the other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles). This article, Article 231, later became known as the War Guilt clause. The treaty forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers.

82) Joseph Stalin [p.809]

Overview: Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign. Born into poverty, Stalin became involved in revolutionary politics, as well as criminal activities, as a young man. After Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) died, Stalin outmaneuvered his rivals for control of the party. Once in power, he collectivized farming and had potential enemies executed or sent to forced labor camps. Stalin aligned with the United States and Britain in World War II (1939-1945) but afterward engaged in an increasingly tense relationship with the West known as the Cold War (1946-1991). After his death, the Soviets initiated a de-Stalinization process. Rise to Power: In 1912, Lenin, then in exile in Switzerland, appointed Joseph Stalin to serve on the first Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. Three years later, in November 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia. The Soviet Union was founded in 1922, with Lenin as its first leader. During these years, Stalin had continued to move up the party ladder, and in 1922 he became secretary general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, a role that enabled him to appoint his allies to government jobs and grow a base of political support. After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin eventually outmaneuvered his rivals and won the power struggle for control of the Communist Party. By the late 1920s, he had become dictator of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union under Stalin: Starting in the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin launched a series of five-year plans intended to transform the Soviet Union from a peasant society into an industrial superpower. His development plan was centered on government control of the economy and included the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, in which the government took control of farms. Millions of farmers refused to cooperate with Stalin's orders and were shot or exiled as punishment. The forced collectivization also led to widespread famine across the Soviet Union that killed millions. Stalin ruled by terror and with a totalitarian grip in order to eliminate anyone who might oppose him. He expanded the powers of the secret police, encouraged citizens to spy on one another and had millions of people killed or sent to the Gulag system of forced labor camps. During the second half of the 1930s, Stalin instituted the Great Purge, a series of campaigns designed to rid the Communist Party, the military and other parts of Soviet society from those he considered a threat. Additionally, Stalin built a cult of personality around himself in the Soviet Union. Cities were renamed in his honor. Soviet history books were rewritten to give him a more prominent role in the revolution and mythologize other aspects of his life. He was the subject of flattering artwork, literature and music, and his name became part of the Soviet national anthem. His government also controlled the Soviet media.

63) Nicholas II [p.806]

Overview: Nicholas II was born on May 6, 1868 (from the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia until 1918) in Pushkin, Russia. He inherited the throne when his father, Alexander III, died in 1894. Although he believed in autocracy, he was eventually forced to create an elected legislature. Nicholas II's handling of Bloody Sunday and World War I incensed his subjects and led to his abdication. Bolsheviks executed him and his family on the night of July 16-17, 1918, in Yekaterinburg, Russia. At the beginning of World War I, Russia's armies performed poorly. In response, Nicholas II appointed himself commander-in-chief, so he could take direct control of the military from Grand Duke Nicholas, against the advice of his ministers. Nicholas II spent much of late 1915 through August 1917 away from Tsarskoe Selo in Saint Petersburg. In his absence, the empress grew increasingly withdrawn and ever more dependent on Rasputin, who heavily influenced her political view on matters at home. Nicholas II's ministers consequently resigned in rapid succession and were replaced by Alexandra's chosen candidates, as influenced by Rasputin until his 1916 murder by nobles. Over the course of WWI, Russia endured major losses and was subject to extreme poverty and high inflation. The Russian public blamed Nicholas II for his poor military decisions, and Empress Alexandra for her ill-advised role in government. Because Alexandra was originally from Germany, suspicion spread that she might have even deliberately sabotaged Russia, ensuring its defeat in the war. By February of 1917, Nicholas II's subjects were in such an uproar that riots broke out in St. Petersburg. Nicholas was still headquartered at Mogilev at the time. When he tried to get home to Petrograd, the Duma, who had by then turned on him, prevented him from boarding the train. After the Duma elected their own provisional committee built of progressive bloc members, and the soldiers sent to quash the St. Petersburg riots mutinied, Nicholas II had no other choice but to step down from the monarchy. On March 15, 1917 he abdicated the throne. He and his family were then taken to the Ural Mountains and placed under house arrest. In the fall of 1917 Russia's provisional government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks. In the spring of 1918 Russia was engaged in a civil war. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nicholas II and his family were murdered by Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin, in Yekaterinburg, Russia, thus ending more than three centuries of the Romanov dynasty's rule. Historians have long speculated as to whether Nicholas II's daughter, Anastasia, might have survived the shooting but in 2007, a DNA analysis conclusively identified her body.

45) Treaty of Brest-Litovsk [p.807]

Peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the new government of Russia (the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey), that ended Russia's participation in World War I. In the treaty, Bolshevik Russia ceded the Baltic States to Germany, and its province of Kars Oblast in the south Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire. It also recognized the independence of Ukraine. Russia also agreed to pay six billion German gold mark in reparations. The treaty was practically gone by November 1918, when Germany in effect surrendered to the Allies. However, it did provide some relief to the revolutionary Russian government, already fighting the Russian Civil War, by renouncing Russia's claims on Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania.

18) Anarchists [p.755]

People subscribing to the political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups.

87) The Great Purge [p.834]

Purge trials, also called Great Purge, three widely publicized show trials and a series of closed, unpublicized trials held in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s, in which many prominent Old Bolsheviks were found guilty of treason and executed or imprisoned. All the evidence presented in court was derived from preliminary examinations of the defendants and from their confessions. It was subsequently established that the accused were innocent, that the cases were fabricated by the secret police (NKVD), and that the confessions were made under pressure of intensive torture and intimidation. The trials successfully eliminated the major real and potential political rivals and critics of Stalin. The trials were the public aspect of the widespread purge that sent millions of alleged "enemies of the people" to prison camps in the 1930s. In addition to the so-called show trials, a series of closed trials of top Soviet military leaders was held in 1937-38, in which a number of prominent military leaders were eliminated; the closed trials were accompanied by a massive purge throughout the Soviet armed forces. Stalin's liquidation of experienced military leadership during this purge was one of the major factors contributing to the poor performance of Soviet forces in the initial phase of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. It has been estimated between 600,000 and 3 million people died at the hands of the Soviet government during the Purge.

Railroads

Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods, by way of wheeled vehicles running on rails. It is also commonly referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a prepared flat surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks on which they run. Track usually consists of steel rails, installed on ties (sleepers) and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels, moves. Other variations are also possible, such as slab track where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of the power in the 18th and 19th centuries. With steam engines, it was possible to construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution. Also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with shipping, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for "national markets" in which prices varied very little from city to city. The invention and development of the railway in Europe was one of the most important technological inventions of the late 19th century; for the United States, it is estimated that without rail, GDP would have been lower by 7% in 1890.

83) Five-Year Plans [p.832]

Stalin realized that if Russia was to become a key player in the global market, the country needed to industrialize rapidly and increase production. To do this, Stalin introduced the Five-year Plans. Stalin's chief aim was to expand industrial production. For this, he developed three Five-year Plans between 1928 and 1938. Gosplan, the state planning agency, drew up targets for production for each factory. The first two plans concentrated on improving heavy industry - coal, oil, steel and electricity. Some keen young Communists, called Pioneers, went into barren areas and set up new towns and industries from nothing. There were champion workers called Stakhanovites, named after a coal miner who broke the record for the amount of coal dug up in a single shift. Education schemes were introduced to train skilled, literate workers. The Soviet Union also gave opportunities to women - crèches were set up so they could also work. Women became doctors and scientists, as well as canal diggers and steel workers. At the same time, many of the workers were slave workers and kulaks from the gulag. Strikers were shot, and wreckers (slow workers) could be executed or imprisoned. Thousands died from accidents, starvation or cold. Housing and wages were terrible, and no consumer goods were produced for people. But the improvements in production between 1928 and 1937 were phenomenal: Coal - from 36 million tons to 130 million tons; Iron - from 3 million tons to 15 million tons; Oil - from 2 million tons to 29 million tons; Electricity - from 5,000 million to 36,000 million kilowatts; and completion of the Turkestan-Siberian Railroad, the Dneiper Dam, and the Belomor Canal.

10) Suffragists [p.751]

Suffragettes were members of women's organizations in the late 19th and early 20th century which advocated the extension of the franchise to women. Suffragist is a more general term for members of the suffrage movement. The term "suffragette" is particularly associated with activists in the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), led by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, who were influenced by Russian methods of protest such as hunger strikes. New Zealand was the first self-governing country to grant all women the right to vote in 1893 when all women over the age of 21 were permitted to vote in parliamentary elections. Women in South Australia achieved the same right and also became the first to obtain the right to stand for Parliament in 1895. In the United States, white women over the age of 21 were allowed to vote in the western territories of Wyoming from 1869 and in Utah from 1870, and in most states outside the South by 1919. With the ratification in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment the suffrage was extended to white women across the United States in time for the 1920 presidential election. Women over 21 were allowed to vote in Canada (except Quebec) from 1919.Women and men in Britain over the age of 30, meeting certain property qualifications, were given the right to vote in 1918, and in 1928 suffrage was extended to all women over the age of 21.

46) Woodrow Wilson [p.807]

The 28th U.S. President, served in office from 1913 to 1921 and led America through World War I (1914-1918). Wilson tried to keep the United States neutral during World War I but ultimately called on Congress to declare war on Germany in 1917. America's participation helped bring about victory for the Allies, and on November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed by the Germans. At the Paris Peace Conference, which opened in January 1919 and included the heads of the British, French and Italian governments, Wilson helped negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. The agreement included the charter for the League of Nations, an organization intended to arbitrate international disputes and prevent future wars. Wilson had initially advanced the idea for the League in a January 1918 speech to the U.S. Congress in which he outlined his "Fourteen Points" for a postwar peace settlement. When Wilson returned from Europe in the summer of 1919, he encountered opposition to the Versailles treaty from isolationist Republicans in Congress who feared the League could limit America's autonomy and draw the country into another war. In September of that year, the president embarked on a cross-country speaking tour to promote his ideas for the League directly to the American people. On the night of September 25, on a train bound for Wichita, Kansas, Wilson collapsed from mental and physical stress, and the rest of his tour was cancelled. On October 2, he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. Wilson's condition was kept largely hidden from the public, and his wife worked behind the scenes to fulfill a number of his administrative duties. The Senate voted on the Treaty of Versailles first in November 1919 and again in March 1920. Both times it failed to gain the two-thirds vote required for ratification. The treaty's defeat was partly blamed on Wilson's refusal to compromise with the Republicans. The League of Nations held its first meeting in January 1920; the United States never joined the organization. However, in December 1920, Wilson received the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to include the Covenant of the League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles.

29) Boxer Rebellion/Uprising

The Boxer Rebellion, Boxer Uprising was an anti-imperialist uprising which took place in China towards the end of the Qing dynasty between 1899 and 1901. It was initiated by the Militia United in Righteousness known in English as the "Boxers", and was motivated by proto-nationalist sentiments and opposition to foreign imperialism and associated Christian missionary activity. The Great Powers intervened and defeated the Chinese forces. The uprising took place against a background of severe drought and the disruption caused by the growth of foreign spheres of influence. After several months of growing violence against the foreign and Christian presence in Shandong and the North China plain, in June 1900, Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan "Support Qing government and exterminate the foreigners." Foreigners and Chinese Christians sought refuge in the Legation Quarter. In response to reports of an armed invasion to lift the siege, the initially hesitant Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers and on June 21 declared war on the foreign powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians and soldiers as well as Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter were placed under siege by the Imperial Army of China and the Boxers for 55 days. Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favoring conciliation, led by Prince Qing. The supreme commander of the Chinese forces, the Manchu General Ronglu (Junglu), later claimed that he acted to protect the besieged foreigners. The Eight-Nation Alliance, after being initially turned back, brought 20,000 armed troops to China, defeated the Imperial Army, and captured Beijing on August 14, lifting the siege of the Legations. Uncontrolled plunder of the capital and the surrounding countryside ensued, along with the summary execution of those suspected of being Boxers. The Boxer Protocol of September 7, 1901 provided for the execution of government officials who had supported the Boxers, provisions for foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and 450 million taels of silver—more than the government's annual tax revenue—to be paid as indemnity over the course of the next thirty-nine years to the eight nations involved.

48) Fourteen Points [p.807]

The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for world peace that was to be used for peace negotiations after World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. Europeans generally welcomed Wilson's points but his main Allied colleagues (Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy) were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism. The United States had joined the Allied Powers in fighting the Central Powers on April 6, 1917. Its entry into the war had in part been due to Germany's resumption of submarine warfare against merchant ships trading with France and Britain. However, Wilson wanted to avoid the United States' involvement in the long-standing European tensions between the great powers; if America was going to fight, he wanted to try to unlink the war from nationalistic disputes or ambitions. The need for moral aims was made more important, when after the fall of the Russian government, the Bolsheviks disclosed secret treaties made between the Allies. Wilson's speech also responded to Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Peace of November 1917, immediately after the October Revolution, which proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war, called for a just and democratic peace that was not compromised by territorial annexations, and led to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918. The speech made by Wilson took many domestic progressive ideas and translated them into foreign policy (free trade, open agreements, democracy and self-determination). The Fourteen Points speech was the only explicit statement of war aims by any of the nations fighting in World War I.

52) League of Nations [p.809]

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded on January 10, 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. Other issues in this and related treaties included labor conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants, human and drug trafficking, arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities in Europe. At its greatest extent from September 1934 to February 1935, it had 58 members. After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. Germany withdrew from the League, as did Japan, Italy, Spain, and others. The onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, which was to prevent any future world war. The League lasted for 26 years; the United Nations (UN) replaced it after the end of the Second World War on April 20, 1946 and inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League.

33) "Sick Man of Europe" [p.800]

The Ottoman Empire in 1914 was commonly known as 'the sick man of Europe', a sign that the once-great power was crumbling. The Turks had dominated the Eastern Mediterranean for half a millennium, controlling vast swathes of Central Europe, Arab lands as far down as Egypt and had at one stage been knocking on the doors of Vienna and Venice. By the 20th century all that remained in Ottoman hands outside Turkey was Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and parts of the Arabian Peninsula.

39) Armenian Genocide [p.805]

The Ottoman government's systematic extermination of its Armenian Christian minority subjects from their historic homeland within the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. The starting date is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day Ottoman authorities rounded up and arrested some 250 intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. The killing was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labor, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million. Other indigenous and Christian ethnic groups such as the Assyrians, the Greeks and other minorities were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government, and their treatment is considered by many historians to be part of the same extermination policy. The majority of diaspora communities around the world from this ethnic group came into being as a direct result of this attempted extermination.

84) Collectivization [p.832]

The Soviet Union enforced the collectivization of its agricultural sector between 1928 and 1940 during the ascendancy of Joseph Stalin. It began during and was part of the first five-year plan. The policy aimed to consolidate individual landholdings and labor into collective farms. The Soviet leadership confidently expected that the replacement of individual peasant farms by collective ones would immediately increase the food supply for the urban population, the supply of raw materials for processing industry, and agricultural exports. Planners regarded collectivization as the solution to the crisis of agricultural distribution (mainly in grain deliveries) that had developed from 1927. This problem became more acute as the Soviet Union pressed ahead with its ambitious industrialization program. In the early 1930s over 91% of agricultural land became "collectivized" as rural households entered collective farms with their land, livestock, and other assets. The sweeping collectivization often involved tremendous human and social costs.

8) Victorian Age [p.750]

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 1837 until her death in 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain. Within the fields of social history and literature, Victorianism refers to the study of late-Victorian attitudes and culture with a focus on the highly moralistic, straitlaced language and behavior of Victorian morality. Culturally there was a transition toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and arts. In international relations the era was a long period of peace, known as the Pax Britannica, and economic, colonial, and industrial consolidation, temporarily disrupted by the Crimean War in 1854. The end of the period saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of gradual political reform, industrial reform and the widening of the voting franchise.

34) Young Turks [p.800]

The Young Turks were a political reform movement in the early 20th century, favoring replacement of the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Empire with a constitutional monarchy. Later, their leaders led a rebellion against the absolute rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. With this revolution, the Young Turks helped to establish the Second Constitutional Era in 1908, ushering in an era of multi-party democracy for the first time in the country's history. After 1908, the Young Turks' initial umbrella political party, the Committee of Union and Progress, began a series of modernizing military and political reforms across the Ottoman Empire. However, the CUP soon began to splinter as many of the more liberal and pro-decentralization Young Turks left to form an opposition party in late 1911, the Freedom and Accord Party. The struggle between the two groups of Young Turks ended in January 1913, when the top leadership of the CUP seized personal power from Freedom and Accord. The subsequent CUP-led government was headed by interior minister and Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha. Working with him were war minister Enver Pasha and naval minister Djemal Pasha. These "Three Pashas", as they came to be known, exercised absolute control over the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1918, bringing the country closer to Germany, signing the Ottoman-German Alliance to enter the Empire into World War I on the side of the Central Powers, and carrying out the Armenian Genocide.

80) NEP-New Economic Policy [p.809]

The economic policy of the government of the Soviet Union from 1921 to 1928, representing a temporary retreat from its previous policy of extreme centralization and doctrinaire socialism. The policy of War Communism, in effect since 1918, had by 1921 brought the national economy to the point of total breakdown. The Kronshtadt Rebellion of March 1921 convinced the Communist Party and its leader, Vladimir Lenin, of the need to retreat from socialist policies in order to maintain the party's hold on power. Accordingly, the 10th Party Congress in March 1921 introduced the measures of the New Economic Policy. These measures included the return of most agriculture, retail trade, and small-scale light industry to private ownership and management while the state retained control of heavy industry, transport, banking, and foreign trade. Money was reintroduced into the economy in 1922 (it had been abolished under War Communism). The peasantry were allowed to own and cultivate their own land, while paying taxes to the state. The New Economic Policy reintroduced a measure of stability to the economy and allowed the Soviet people to recover from years of war, civil war, and governmental mismanagement. The small businessmen and managers who flourished in this period became known as NEP men. But the NEP was viewed by the Soviet government as merely a temporary expedient to allow the economy to recover while the Communists solidified their hold on power. By 1925 Nikolay Bukharin had become the foremost supporter of the NEP, while Leon Trotsky was opposed to it and Joseph Stalin was noncommittal at first. The NEP was dogged by the government's chronic inability to procure enough grain supplies from the peasantry to feed its urban work force. In 1928-29 these grain shortages prompted Joseph Stalin, by then the country's paramount leader, to forcibly eliminate the private ownership of farmland and to collectivize agriculture under the state's control, thus ensuring the procurement of adequate food supplies for the cities in the future. This abrupt policy change, which was accompanied by the destruction of several million of the country's most prosperous private farmers, marked the end of the NEP. It was followed by the reimposition of state control over all industry and commerce in the country by 1931.

78) The Cheka [p.807]

The first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created on December 20, 1917, after a decree issued by Vladimir Lenin. Many thousands of dissidents, deserters, or other people were arrested, tortured or executed by various Cheka groups. From its founding, being the military and security arm of the Bolshevik communist party, the Cheka was instrumental in the Red Terror. In 1921 the Troops for the Internal Defense of the Republic (a branch of the Cheka) numbered at least 200,000. These troops policed labor camps; ran the Gulag system; conducted requisitions of food; subjected political opponents to secret arrest, detention, torture and summary execution; and put down rebellions and riots by workers or peasants, and mutinies in the desertion-plagued Red Army.

72) February/March (1917) Revolution [p.806]

The first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was centered on Petrograd (now known as St. Petersburg), then the Russian capital, on Women's Day in March (late February in the Julian calendar). The revolution was confined to the capital and its vicinity, and lasted less than a week. It involved mass demonstrations and armed clashes with police and gendarmes, the last loyal forces of the Russian monarchy. In the last days, mutinous Russian Army forces sided with the revolutionaries. The immediate result of the revolution was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire. The Tsar was replaced by a Russian Provisional Government under Prince Georgy Lvov. The Provisional Government was an alliance between liberals and socialists who wanted political reform. They set up a democratically-elected executive and constituent assembly. At the same time, socialists also formed the Petrograd Soviet, which ruled alongside the Provisional Government, an arrangement termed Dual Power. This revolution appeared to break out spontaneously, without any real leadership or formal planning. Russia had been suffering from a number of economic and social problems, which were compounded by the impact of World War I. Bread rioters and industrial strikers were joined on the streets by disaffected soldiers from the city's garrison. As more and more troops deserted, and with loyal troops away at the Front, the city fell into chaos, leading to the overthrow of the Tsar. The February Revolution was followed in the same year by the October Revolution, bringing Bolshevik rule and a change in Russia's social structure, and paving the way for the Soviet Union.

7) Business cycle [p.747]

The fluctuations in economic activity that an economy experiences over a period of time. A business cycle is basically defined in terms of periods of expansion or recession. During expansions, the economy is growing in real terms (i.e. excluding inflation), as evidenced by increases in indicators like employment, industrial production, sales and personal incomes. During recessions, the economy is contracting, as measured by decreases in the above indicators. Expansion is measured from the trough (or bottom) of the previous business cycle to the peak of the current cycle, while recession is measured from the peak to the trough.

67) October Manifesto [p.764]

The magnitude of the Revolution of 1905 strikes finally convinced Nicholas to act. He issued the October Manifesto (October 30, 1905), which promised a constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature (Duma). These concessions did not meet the radical opposition's demands for an assembly or a republic. The revolutionaries refused to yield; even the liberals declined to participate in Witte's government. But some moderates were satisfied, and many workers, interpreting the October Manifesto as a victory, returned to their jobs. This was enough to break the opposition's coalition and to weaken the St. Petersburg soviet. The uprising failed to replace the tsarist autocracy with a democratic republic or even to convoke a constituent assembly, and most of the revolutionary leaders were placed under arrest. It did, however, force the imperial regime to institute extensive reforms, the most important of which were the Fundamental Laws (1906), which functioned as a constitution, and the creation of the Duma, which fostered the development of legal political activity and parties.

88) Gulag [p.834]

The term "GULAG" is an acronym for the Soviet bureaucratic institution, Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh LAGerei (Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps), that operated the Soviet system of forced labor camps in the Stalin era. Since the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago in 1973, the term has come to represent the entire Soviet forced labor penal system. Concentration camps were created in the Soviet Union shortly after the 1917 revolution, but the system grew to tremendous proportions during the course of Stalin's campaign to turn the Soviet Union into a modern industrial power and to collectivize agriculture in the early 1930s. Gulag camps existed throughout the Soviet Union, but the largest camps lay in the most extreme geographical and climatic regions of the country from the Arctic north to the Siberian east and the Central Asian south. Prisoners were engaged in a variety of economic activities, but their work was typically unskilled, manual, and economically inefficient. The combination of endemic violence, extreme climate, hard labor, meager food rations and unsanitary conditions led to extremely high death rates in the camps. While the Gulag was radically reduced in size following Stalin's death in 1953, forced labor camps and political prisoners continued to exist in the Soviet Union right up to the Gorbachev era.

17) Proletariat [p.753]

The term used in Marxist theory to name the social class that does not have ownership of the means of production and whose only means of subsistence is to sell their labor power for a wage or salary. Marxism sees the proletariat and bourgeoisie (capitalist class) as occupying conflicting positions, since workers automatically wish their wages to be as high as possible, while owners and their proxies wish for wages (costs) to be as low as possible.

5) Electricity [p.746]

The theoretical and practical basis for the harnessing of electric power was laid by the scientist and experimentalist Michael Faraday. Through his research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current, Faraday established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of the practical use of electricity in technology. In 1881, Sir Joseph Swan, inventor of the first feasible incandescent light bulb, supplied about 1,200 Swan incandescent lamps to the Savoy Theatre in London, which was the first theatre, and the first public building in the world, to be lit entirely by electricity. Swan's light bulb had already been used in 1879 to light up Mosley Street, the first electrical street lighting installation in the world. This set the stage for the electrification of industry and the home. The first large scale central distribution supply plant was opened in London in 1882 and later at Pearl Street Station in New York.

81) Leon Trotsky [p.809]

Trotsky embraced Marxism as a teenager and in 1898, he was arrested for his revolutionary activities and sent to prison. In 1900, he was exiled to Siberia. In 1902, he escaped to England using a forged passport under the name of Leon Trotsky (his original name was Lev Davidovich Bronshtein). In London, he collaborated with Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin but later sided with the Menshevik factions that advocated a democratic approach to socialism. With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Trotsky returned to Russia and was again exiled to Siberia when the revolution collapsed. In 1907, he again escaped. He returned to Russia at the outbreak of the revolution in 1917. Trotsky played a leading role in the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, conquering most of Petrograd before Lenin's triumphant return in November. Appointed Lenin's secretary of foreign affairs, he negotiated with the Germans for an end to Russian involvement in World War I. In 1918, he became war commissioner and set about building up the Red Army, which succeeded in defeating anti-communist opposition in the Russian Civil War. In the early 1920s, Trotsky seemed the heir apparent of Lenin, but he lost out in the struggle of succession after Lenin fell ill in 1922. In 1924, Lenin died, and Joseph Stalin emerged as leader of the USSR. Against Stalin's stated policies, Trotsky called for a continuing world revolution that would inevitably result in the dismantling of the increasingly bureaucratic Soviet state. He also criticized the new regime for suppressing democracy in the Communist Party and for failing to develop adequate economic planning. In response, Stalin and his supporters launched a propaganda counterattack against Trotsky. In 1925, he was removed from his post in the war commissariat. One year later, he was expelled from the Politburo and in 1927 from the Communist Party. In January 1928, Trotsky was deported by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Alma-Ata in remote Soviet Central Asia. He lived there in internal exile for a year before being banished from the USSR forever by Stalin. In 1936 Trotsky was granted asylum in Mexico. Settling with his family in a suburb of Mexico City, he was found guilty of treason in absentia during Stalin's purges of his political foes. He survived a machine gun attack carried out by Stalinist agents, but on August 20, 1940, he was fatally wounded by an ice-ax-wielding assassin at his compound. Ramón Mercader, a Spanish communist who had won the confidence of the Trotsky household was the suspected assassin. The Soviet government denied responsibility, and Mercader was sentenced to 20 years in prison by Mexican authorities.

47) Unrestricted submarine warfare [p.807]

Type of naval warfare in which submarines sink vessels such as freighters and tankers without warning, as opposed to attacks per prize rules (also known as "cruiser rules"). Prize rules call for submarines to surface and search for merchantmen and place crews in "a place of safety" (for which lifeboats did not qualify, except under particular circumstances) before sinking them, unless the ship has shown "persistent refusal to stop ... or active resistance to visit or search". Following the use of this warfare by Germany in the First World War, countries tried to limit or even abolish submarines. Instead, the London Naval Treaty required submarines to abide by prize rules. These regulations did not prohibit arming merchantmen, but arming them or having them report contact with submarines (or raiders) made them de facto naval auxiliaries and removed the protection of the prize rules. This rendered the limitations on submarines effectively useless. While such tactics increase the combat effectiveness of the submarine and improve its chances of survival, they are considered by some to be a breach of the rules of war, especially when employed against neutral country vessels in a war zone.

66) 1905 Revolution [p.764]

Uprising that was instrumental in convincing Tsar Nicholas II to attempt the transformation of the Russian government from an autocracy into a constitutional monarchy. For several years before 1905 and especially after the humiliating Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), diverse social groups demonstrated their discontent with the Russian social and political system. Their protests ranged from liberal rhetoric to strikes and included student riots and terrorist assassinations. These efforts, coordinated by the Union of Liberation, culminated in the massacre of peaceful demonstrators in the square before the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, on Bloody Sunday. In St. Petersburg and other major industrial centers, general strikes followed. Nicholas responded in February by announcing his intention to establish an elected assembly to advise the government. But his proposal did not satisfy the striking workers, the peasants (whose uprisings were spreading), or even the liberals of the zemstvos (local government organs) and of the professions, who by April were demanding that a constituent assembly be convened. The revolt spread to non-Russian parts of the empire, particularly to Poland, Finland, the Baltic provinces, and Georgia, where it was reinforced by nationalist movements. In some areas the rebellion was met by violent opposition from the antirevolutionary Black Hundreds, who attacked the socialists and staged pogroms against the Jews. But the armed forces joined in on the side of the revolt as well: army units situated along the Trans-Siberian Railroad line rioted, and in June the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutinied in the harbor at Odessa in the Crimea. The first workers' council, or soviet, acting as a strike committee, was formed at Ivanovo-Vosnesensk; another, the St. Petersburg soviet, was formed on October 13 (October 26). It initially directed the general strike; but, as social democrats, especially Mensheviks, joined, it assumed the character of a revolutionary government. Similar soviets were organized in Moscow, Odessa, and other cities. The magnitude of the strike finally convinced Nicholas to act. He issued the October Manifesto (October 17, 1905), which promised a constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature (Duma).

Maghrib

Usually defined as much or most of the region of western North Africa or Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. The traditional definition as the region including the Atlas Mountains and the coastal plains of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, was later superseded, especially following the 1989 formation of the Arab Maghreb Union, by the inclusion of Mauritania and of the disputed territory of Western Sahara (mostly controlled by Morocco).

23) King Victor Emmanuel [p.756]

Victor Emmanuel II was king of Sardinia-Piedmont and became the first king of a united Italy. Ascending the throne on his father's abdication, Victor Emmanuel II consolidated his position by suppressing the republican left and paying an indemnity to Austria. In 1852 he made the decision to turn the government over to the able, determined Count Cavour, whose skillful maneuvers over the next few years made Emmanuel king of Italy. Always at war, Emmanuel secured Venetia and Rome for Italy.

54) Reparations [p.809]

World War I reparations were compensation imposed during the Paris Peace Conference upon the Central Powers following their defeat in the First World War by the Allied and Associate Powers. Each of the defeated powers was required to make payments in either cash or kind. Because of the financial situation Austria, Hungary, and Turkey found themselves in after the war, few to no reparations were paid and the requirements for reparations were cancelled. Bulgaria, having paid only a fraction of what was required, saw her reparation figure reduced and then cancelled. Historians have recognized the German requirement to pay reparations as the "chief battleground of the post-war era" and "the focus of the power struggle between France and Germany over whether the Versailles Treaty was to be enforced or revised". The German people saw reparations as a national humiliation; the German Government worked to undermine the validity of the Treaty of Versailles and the requirement to pay. Between 1919 and 1932, Germany paid less than 21 billion marks in reparations. The consensus of contemporary historians is that reparations were not as intolerable as the Germans or Keynes had suggested and were within Germany's capacity to pay had there been the political will to do so.

58) Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) [p.815-816]

World War I: As a young man, Mustafa Kemal became a member of the Young Turks, a revolutionary movement of intellectuals. He participated in the Young Turk Revolution of July 1908, which successfully deposed Sultan Abdülhamid II. From 1909 to 1918, Mustafa Kemal held a number of posts in the Ottoman army. He fought against Italy in the Balkan Wars from 1911 to 1912, and in the second Balkan War he became chief of staff before being posted at the Turkish embassy in Bulgaria. He made a name for himself as the commander of the 19th Division, where his bravery and strategic prowess helped thwart the Allied invasion of the Dardanelles in 1915 at Gallipoli, and received repeated promotions until the Armistice of Mudros ended the fighting in 1918. Although the battles had ended, the treaty gave the Allies the right to occupy forts that controlled major waterways, as well as any territory that might pose a threat to security. In 1919, Ataturk organized resistance to these forces, and when the Treaty of Sèvres was signed at the end of World War I, divvying up the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal demanded complete independence for Turkey. The Great National Assembly—the new Turkish parliament—engaged in a series of battles with Greek and Armenian forces until Mustafa signed the Treaty of Lausanne on October 29, 1923. This established the Republic of Turkey, and Mustafa Kemal became the country's first president. Atuturk as President: Even before he became president, Greece agreed to send some 380,000 Muslims to Turkey in exchange for over 1 million Greek Orthodox practitioners. Meanwhile, under Mustafa Kemal, the forced emigration of Armenians continued. Although Turkey was now almost homogeneously Muslim, Mustafa Kemal deposed the caliph, the theoretical successor to the prophet Muhammad and spiritual leader of the worldwide Muslim community. He also closed all religious courts and schools, prohibited the wearing of headscarves among public sector employees, abolished the ministry of canon law and pious foundations, lifted a ban on alcohol, adopted the Gregorian calendar in place of the Islamic calendar, made Sunday a day of rest instead of Friday, changed the Turkish alphabet from Arabic letters to Roman ones, mandated that the call to prayer be in Turkish rather than Arabic and even forbade the wearing of fez hats. Mustafa Kemal's government espoused industrialization and adopted new law codes based on European models. "The civilized world is far ahead of us," he told an audience in October 1926. "We have no choice but to catch up." Eight years later, he required all Turks to choose a surname, selecting Atatürk (literally Father Turk) as his own. By that time, Atatürk's government had joined the League of Nations, improved literacy rates and given women the right to vote, though in practice he essentially imposed single-party rule. He also closed opposition newspapers, suppressed leftist workers' organizations and bottled up any attempts at Kurdish autonomy.

21) Giuseppe Mazzini [p.756]

Writer and political activist who strived to found a unified democratic republic of Italy. Throughout his life, he founded and supported revolutionary groups such as the secret revolutionary society Young Italy (1832), who sought to free Italy of foreign powers and unite the different states. During his lifetime, his aspirations were only partially fulfilled, and he considered himself to have failed. But, when Italy was finally united, Mazzini was credited with playing a significant role. Mazzini also helped define early ideas of a united Europe and was a leading figure in the European movement for popular democracy in a republican state. Mazzini has been referred to as 'The Soul of Italy'.

43) Chaim Weizmann [p.806]

Zionist leader and Israeli statesman who served as President of the Zionist Organization and later as the first President of Israel. He was elected on February 16, 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann convinced the United States government to recognize the newly formed state of Israel.

4) Steel [p.745]

are alloys of iron and other elements, primarily carbon, widely used in construction and other applications because of their high tensile strengths and low costs. Although steel had been produced in bloomery furnaces for thousands of years, steel's use expanded extensively after more efficient production methods were devised in the 17th century for blister steel and then crucible steel. With the invention of the Bessemer process in the mid-19th century, a new era of mass-produced steel began. This was followed by Siemens-Martin process and then Gilchrist-Thomas process that refined the quality of steel. With their introductions, mild steel replaced wrought iron. Further refinements in the process, such as basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS), largely replaced earlier methods by further lowering the cost of production and increasing the quality of the metal. Today, steel is one of the most common materials in the world, with more than 1.3 billion tons produced annually. It is a major component in buildings, infrastructure, tools, ships, automobiles, machines, appliances, and weapons.