20th Century History Final Exam Review: In Progress Version 1 - 05/09/13
The population of the earth roughly tripled in the 20th century.
The major French goal in Africa during the period from about 1870 to 1914 was to control territories
stretching from the west coast to the east coast, while the major British goal was to control territories
stretching from Egypt to South Africa.
World War I began when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
Great Britain relied on native Indian officials to govern India.
The U.S. never gained control of colonies in China in the 1800s and early 1900s Instead, it pursued an
Open Door policy in China.
Much of the 1920s was characterized by recovery and prosperity in Europe and the U.S.
Following Marx and Engels' publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848, there were several
unsuccessful communist revolutions in Europe. The first successful communist revolution occurred in
Russia in November 1917.
Germany and Great Britain passed social welfare measures in the late nineteenth century to head off
the growing popularity of Marxist parties in their respective countries.
Unlike most other members of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong believed that the Chinese
Communist revolution must be based upon impoverished rural peasants.
Two of every five persons killed during World War II were Soviet citizens.
As a consequence of World War II, European hegemony over the rest of the world came to an end.
Most countries in the world today are, to varying degrees, democratic.
One of the major issues of the Korean peninsula at the beginning of the twenty-first century was North
Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.
The Egyptian advocate of Pan-Arabism and the architect of the United Arab Republic was General Gamal
Abdul Nasser.
The only nation in the Middle East that has firmly established democratic institutions is Israel.
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According to University of Hawaii Professor R. J. Rummell, roughly 38 million soldiers died in wars and
169 million civilians died in government sponsored persecutions, mass murders, and genocides during
the twentieth century.
Beliefs of 19th century liberals include: 1) political democracy, 2) governments should protect civil
liberties, 3) governments should have limited powers, 4) there should be property qualifications for
voting, 5) liberal capitalism (government should not get involved in the regulation of business)
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Reasons for the rapid expansion of imperialism in the late 1800s include 1) the development of a
prophylactic for malaria, 2) advances in transportation technology (steamship, railroad), 3) a desire for
raw materials, natural resources, and protected markets.
The countries with the two largest overseas empires by 1900 were Great Britain and France.
The ideology that brought about the most change throughout the world in the nineteenth century was
nationalism.
In 1900, there were about 50 countries in the world. In 2000, there were about 18.
The only African states free of European rule by 1914 were Ethiopia and Liberia.
The European leaders who created a private association for the purpose of extracting resources for his
personal gain was King Leopold II.
In Age of Extremes, Eric Hobsbawm argues that we should delineate a “short twentieth century” lasting
from 1914 - 1991 that began with the outbreak of World War I and ended with the disintegration of the
Soviet Union.
For the British, India was the “jewel of the British Crown,” and controlling the Suez Canal was crucial to
maintaining access to it.
According to most historians, Austria-Hungary and Germany deserve most of the blame for starting
World War I.
The country with the largest land empire in the early twentieth century was Russia.
The country famously described as the “sick man of Europe” in the early 1900s was the Ottoman
Empire.
Factors contributing to the outbreak of World War I include: 1) the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne; 2) alliances that emboldened European powers to wage
war; 3) competition for imperial possessions; 4) an arms race in the late 1800s and early 1900s spurred by
nationalism and the belief that war was a necessary evil; and 5) Britain's fear of Germany's growing naval
and commercial power.
Otto von Bismarck: 1) was the architect behind German unification; 2) coined the term geopolitik
referring to a global foreign policy strategy based on realpolitik (pragmatic considerations rather than
ideological considerations); 3) was able to forge public and secret alliances and arrangements that helped
maintain peace in Europe; and 4) was forced by Kaiser Wilhelm to resign in 1890.
Some of Britain's imperial possessions: 1) India (the jewel of the British crown), 2) Hong Kong, 3)
Egypt, and 4) Gibraltar. Controlling Egypt and Gibraltar allowed the British to control two important
straits necessary to maintain quicker access to India (the Strait of Gibraltar between Egypt and Spain, and
the Suez Canal between Egypt and Arabia).
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Major Allied powers during World War I: Serbia, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the
U.S.
Major Central Powers: Austria-Hungary, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria
The factor leading the U.S. into World War I was Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine
warfare in 1917.
During World War I, about 10 million people were killed, and 20 million people were wounded.
World War II resulted in 60 to 80 million total deaths (including civilians). Based on the figure of 60
million, that's 2.5 percent of the world's population at the time. The Soviet Union suffered the most total
deaths: 26 million (9 million war dead, and 17 million civilian dead.
The ideas of both Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche, which became popular after World War I,
argued that human beings were essentially irrational.
Major contributions of Albert Einstein to science in the early twentieth century include: 1) The force
guiding smaller heavenly bodies towards a large heavenly body is a pushing force produced by warped
space surrounding the larger heavenly body; 2) A small amount of mass can produce tremendous
amounts of energy, paving the way for the development of the nuclear bomb; 3) Time is affected by how
fast a body travels through space.
Self-governing dominions of Great Britain by 1914 included (but were not limited to) Canada, Australia,
and the Union of South Africa. Dominions were self-governing areas of the British Empire. After 1930,
dominions became independent from Britain at different times. Those areas that kept the British royal line
and British royal succession became Commonwealth Nations (i.e., Canada, Australia, New Zealand).
Others became independent republics (i.e., Ireland).
Social Darwinists argued that certain races, countries, and world regions are predisposed to dominate
other races, countries and world regions.
Terms of the Treaty of Versailles included: 1) the provision that Germany’s armed forces be greatly
limited; 2) the provision that the Rhineland region of Germany remain demilitarized; 3) The provision
that Germany pay a large amount of war reparations; and 4) Germany and its allies had to admit guilt for
the war (this is the term of the Treaty of Versailles that Germans hated the most).
The two countries most severely affected by the Great Depression of October 1929 were the U.S. and
Germany.
The Zionist Movement was the movement to found a state for Jews in Palestine.. The first Zionist
Congress met in 1897 in Switzerland. It was founded by the author and playwright Theodor Herzl. It
began during a time of extreme anti-Semitism in European history.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels concept of Scientific Socialism: 1) focuses on economics as the driving
force in history; 2) argues that conflict between diametrically opposed classes in society will lead from
one stage of history to the next; 3) argues that capitalism has to fully develop before a successful
communist revolution can occur
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After World War I, the League of Nations assigned much of the former Ottoman Empire in the Middle
East as mandates. These are areas put under a foreign power's control until that area is ready for
independence. France was assigned Syria and Lebanon. Britain was assigned Palestine, Transjordan, and
Iraq.
Turkey fought and won its war of independence (1919 - 1922) against the Allies and became an
independent country in 1922. Turkey's first president was Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). He was one of the
Young Turks who had forced the Ottoman sultan to allow the creation of a constitution and parliament,
and to grant people more rights. During World War I, he become famous for successfully leading the
defense of Gallipoli. He led Turkey to become a Western-style state that tried to separate church and
state.
The first major genocide of the twentieth century occurred was conducted by Ottoman authorities against
Armenian Christians during World War I.
The country that didn't join the League of Nations, dooming it to failure was the U.S.
The world's first successful communist revolution occurred in Russia.
Most Latin American nations gained independence from Spain in the early 1800s.
The type of government prevalent in Latin America during the 1800s was military dictatorship.
Cuba gained its independence from Spain as a result of the Spanish-American War.
Benito Mussolini, the founder of the Fascist Movement in Italy, 1) was a socialist prior to World War I,
2) became an ardent nationalist after World War I, and 3) was offered an important position in the Italian
government after staging a march on Rome, and 4) gave control of the Vatican to the Roman Catholic
Church.
Multi-party democratic states at the end of World War I included Italy, France, and Germany.
The two countries whose independent unification movements were complete by 1871 were Germany and
Italy.
Two countries created by the treaties that ended World War I that disintegrated in the 1990s were
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.
In 1867, Japan began modernizing along Western lines as a result of the Meiji Restoration.
One of V. I. Lenin’s major contribution to Marxist thought was the idea that socialist revolution could
only be successful if led by a vanguard of revolutionaries.
By 1939 the only two major democratic states in Europe were France and Great Britain.
The leader of India’s nonviolent independence movement of the early 20th century was Mahatma Gandhi.
In response to the terms of the treaties that ended World War I, Ho Chi Minh led an independence
movement in Vietnam.
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By the 1920s, the British response to the various groups of Indian nationalists was to give some Indians a
somewhat greater role in the governing process.
The royal dynasty which came to power in Iran in 1925 was the Pahlavi dynasty which ruled Iran until
1979.
The 1917 statement that pledged British support for the establishment of a “national home” for Jews in
Palestine was the Balfour Declaration.
The Middle Eastern nation where vast oil reserves were discovered in 1938 was Saudi Arabia.
The Comintern was an organization of Communist parties committed to world revolution.
The Nationalist Party leader whose international efforts were instrumental to the 1911 revolution that
ended the Qing Dynasty was Sun Yat-sen.
The event that led Mao Zedong to become the leader of the Communists in China was the Long March of
1934 - 1935.
In Latin America, as a result of World War I, the United States increased its role in the local economies.
By the end of World War II, South America's major industrial power was, and is now Brazil.
The Mexican politician who redistributed 44 million acres of land and who took over and nationalized the
foreign oil interests was Lazaro Cardenas (president from 1934 - 1940).
The dominant party in Mexican politics from the end of the Mexican Revolution to the election of 2000
was the PRI.
One of the differences between the new totalitarian states and traditional authoritarian monarchies is that
totalitarianism demanded the active loyalty and commitment of the citizens.
The Nazi party had success in the 1920s, but grew significantly as the result of the Great Depression.
The Enabling Act of March, 1933, suspended the constitution for four years in order to give Hitler the
power to solve Germany's many problems.
By the late 1930s, Nazi Germany's chief fascist ally in Europe was Italy.
World War II began in Europe on September 1, 1939, with a Nazi invasion of Poland.
On June 22, 1941, in spite of a non-aggression agreement, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
On Europe's eastern front, the turning point in World War II was at the Battle of Stalingrad.
The United States gained naval superiority in the Pacific at the Battle of Midway.
History's greatest naval invasion occurred at Normandy.
The "Final Solution" was ultimately carried out in death camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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Approximately 100 new countries were created during the period 1945 - 1965, mostly from the great
overseas empires.
The Truman Doctrine said that the United States would support free peoples resisting Communist
aggression.
By 1948, the fate of which of the following European nations had become a source of bitter contention
between the Soviet Union and the West:
The European Recovery Program of 1947 is better known as the Marshall Plan.
The Soviet response to the Marshall plan was to reject it because it was an example of American
economic and political imperialism.
The Eastern European communist states organized a formal military alliance called the Warsaw Pact.
After being defeated by the Communists, Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists fled to Taiwan.
In the Chinese Civil War, the United States gave limited military aid to the Nationalists.
In 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to temporarily divide the Korean peninsula at the
38th parallel.
The People's Republic of China entered the Korean War in fear that hostile American military forces
would be stationed on the Chinese frontier.
The Geneva agreement of 1954 temporarily divided Vietnam into a communist north and a noncommunist south.
Stalin’s first Five Year Plan (1928 - 1932) all of the above.
The closest the world came to nuclear war was the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).
The U.S.’ worst foreign policy failure of the Cold War was The Vietnam War.
Détente refers to the lessening of tensions after the Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States and
the Soviet Union.
In 1979, some observers mistakenly believed that the Soviet Union hoped to ultimately extend its power
into the Persian Gulf oil fields by invading Afghanistan.
The terrorist group responsible for the tragedy of September 11, 2001, was al-Qaeda.
Traditionally, the nations of Latin America relied economically on the export of raw materials.
During the 1960s, almost all economically advanced South American countries experienced domestic
strife and military despotism.
of the causes of the economic failures in Latin America during the 1970s and early 1980s was the failure
of a number of governments to pay interest on their debts to foreign banks.
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The Organization of American States (OAS), established in 1948, promised
Under the leadership of Juan Peron, Argentina took over the railways, banking, insurance, and the
communications industries.
Under General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean government refused to return the previously seized copper
industry to its original U.S. owners.
The Great Leap Forward was a movement to rapidly collectivize agriculture and industrialize China
lasting from 1958 to 1961 that cost many millions of lives due to starvation.
Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976 had as its major goal to reinvigorate
revolutionary zeal in Cina’s population.
Following Mao Zedong’s deaht in 1976, China’s leader Deng Xiaoping added elements of capitalism to
China’s economy.
Women in Communist China were given equal rights with men.
The allied general responsible for the political and social rehabilitation of Japan after World War II was
Douglas MacArthur.
Tre characteristic of the "Japanese miracle" include 1) the Japanese life expectancy is among the highest
in the world. 2) it is the world's greatest exporting nation. 3) the literacy rate in Japan approaches 100
percent. 4) it established one of the world's most advanced economies.
A problem facing Japan in the immediate future is a declining birth rate.
The leader of the People's Republic of Korea who ruled from the 1950s to the 1990s was Kim Il Sung.
Under the leadership of Chung Hee Park, South Korea instituted a series of five years plans which created
a strong industrial base.
One of the differences between the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China was
that unlike the mainland, Taiwan actively maintained Chinese traditions and a respect for Confucian
values.
The most crucial issue in Taiwan's future is its political and constitutional relationship with Communist
China.
The nation that ruled Singapore and Hong Kong throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries was Great Britain.
The major region of violent confrontation between India and Pakistan has been Kashmir.
Independent India's political system was organized on the model of Great Britain.
Under Nehru, India's foreign policy maintained a position of neutrality in the Cold War.
The breakup of Pakistan in 1971 created the new nation of Bangladesh.
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In recent decades, the Indian government has relied increasingly on the free market.
Issues of caste in India continue to have considerable significance in spite of constitutional guarantees of
equality.
In India today, urban women often play a modern role in the marketplace but a more traditional role at
home.
In July 1946, the United States granted independence to the Philippines.
By 1950, United States pressure on the Dutch led to the independence of Indonesia.
After achieving independence, most of the nations of Southeast Asia modeled their new governments on
Western democratic models.
The event that finally drove Indonesia's Suharto from power in 1998 was an army coup.
The reunification of Vietnam under Communist rule in 1975 led to the emergence of a brutal
revolutionary regime in Cambodia.
The political organization and its leader which ultimately massacred more than one million Cambodians
were the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.
The Southeast Asian nation that remains isolated from recent trends and developments is
Myanmar/Burma.
The Western colonial presence in Africa resulted in 1) improved sanitation and medical care. 2) little
improvement in living conditions for most Africans. 3) little change in Africa's reliance on the export of
raw materials. 4) a limited introduction of Western political systems.
Political organizations demanding rights for Africans first began after World War I.
Most political organizations demanding rights for Africans were headed by Western-educated Africans
who believed in non-violent change.
The ANC in South Africa 1) was originally led by Western-inclined intellectuals who had little popular
support. 2) was initially aimed at achieving full equality for the educated native population through
peaceful means. 3) was initially aimed at achieving full equality for the educated native population
through peaceful means.4) was not met with cooperative reactions from the white majority who held
power. 5) In time, its policies became more prone to the use of violence to achieve its goals.
Egypt in the twentieth century 1) was a British protectorate for several decades. 2) Saw the establishment
of the Wafd, an independence party, in 1918. 3) saw a military coup that established an independent
republic in 1952. 4) saw opposition from its intellectuals to the royal government, as well as the British.
The French colony in Africa which experienced wide-spread violence in the 1950s and which achieved
independence in 1962 was Algeria.
Independence came to Africa later than to Asia because in Africa there were fewer coherent states with a
sense of cultural and ethnic unity.
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Most African leaders in newly independent countries in the twentieth century accepted the Western model
of political organization.
One of the most critical issues facing independent Africa was the countries' boundaries had been
artificially drawn by the colonial powers.
The organization established in Addis Ababa in 1963 to further continental unity was the Organization of
African Unity (OAU).
The pluralistic governments established in most African states at the time of independence gave way to
military regimes and one-party governments.
Most newly independent African states relied on the export of a single crop or natural resource.
The first president of post-apartheid South Africa was Nelson Mandela.
One of the wealthiest countries in Africa is Nigeria because of its oil reserves.
In recent decades Nigeria has experienced 1) military rulers. 2) tension between Christians and Moslems.
3) struggles between pastoralists and farmers. 4) considerable political and military violence. Prosperity
from oil resources has not been spread to the whole population.
In 1994, a violent conflict of holocaust dimensions between the minority Tutsis and the Hutu majority
occurred in Rwanda and Burundi.
After a generation or so of Communist party rule, most Communist states began to suffer from economic
stagnation low productivity, and underemployment.
Because of its economic successes, in the 1990s the main supporter and advocate of the global economic
marketplace was the United States.
In order for a European state to take part in the unification envisioned by the Maastricht Treaty of 1991,
the nation must comply with the economic requirements to reduce government deficits and inflation.
By the end of the twentieth century, the "East Asian miracle" had become less miraculous after the
financial crisis of 1997.
The disastrous symbol of environmental destruction caused by uncontrolled industrial pollution occurred
at Chernobyl, Ukraine.
The highest levels of industrial pollution are found today in China.
It is predicted that by 2050 the world's population will have reached 9 billion.
In spite of other differences, the one issue which the Arab states in the Middle East could agree upon in
recent decades was the issue of Palestine.
Israel defeated the Arab states in 1948 because the Arabs suffered from internal divisions.
The Middle Eastern state whose delicate balance between Christians and Muslims was upset by the influx
of Palestinian refugees after the 1948 war was Lebanon.
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After Egypt's Abdul Gamal Nasser seized power in his own right in 1954, he nationalized the Suez Canal.
The Palestine Liberation Organization, founded in 1964, stated that native Palestinians were the only
rightful successors to the British mandate.
In the 1967 war, Israel added one million Palestinians to its population when it took over the West Bank
and Golan Heights. It also gained East Jerusalem, which contains very important holy sites to Muslims,
Christians, and Jews.
The 1978 peace agreement between Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin occurred at Camp
David in the United States.
The PLO uprising against Israel in the 1980s and again in the late 1990s is referred to as the Intifada.
The Yom Kippur War of 1973 produced an oil crisis in the West.
Iran's revolution in 1979 established a republic under Islamic religious laws.
By 2000, most Iranian moderates believed that significant liberalization of Iranian society was at least a
possibility.
The 1990 victim of Saddam Hussein's ambition to build a "greater Iraq" was Kuwait.
The first response by the United States after September 11, 2001, was to overthrow Afghanistan's Taliban
regime.
At the end of the twentieth century, the most prominent example of a Middle Eastern feudal monarchy
was Saudi Arabia.
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The two Middle Eastern nations with large populations and almost no oil reserves are Turkey and Egypt.
The only truly democratic state in the Middle East is Israel.
Economic differences in the Middle East for both individuals and nations is the result of the abundance of
oil or the lack of it.
The first organization that was created in reaction to the secularization of the Middle East was the Muslim
Brotherhood. Egypt's current leader is Muhammad Mursi. He was formerly a leader of the Muslim
Brotherhood.
Essay Questions:
1. If you were teaching a course on twentieth century history, what three themes would you emphasize in
your course, and why are they so important to the study of twentieth century history?
2. In an essay, list and explain a global issue you believe should be of utmost concern to the global
community and explain its origins in twentieth century history.
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