1900-Present Flashcards
(59 cards)
Woodrow Wilson
President of the United States during World War I – drafted a peace plan for the end of the war known as the Fourteen Points
Mustapha Kemal
Also known in Turkey as Atatürk. Led the Turkish national movement in the Ottoman Empire, leading to the collapse of the empire in 1922, and became the first President of Turkey
V.I. Lenin
leader of the Bolsheviks during the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and helped establish the USSR. Signed a peace treaty with the Germans that took Russia out of World War I and proposed a system of state capitalism in 1921
Joseph Stalin
Leader of the USSR during World War II and the early years of the Cold War. Created a command economy in the Soviet Union with his Five Year Plans and kept power through purges and deportations
Adolf Hitler
Fascist leader of Germany at the center of World War II in Europe and the Holocaust
Sun Yat-sen
Co-founder of the Guomindang Party in China. Participated in the 1911 revolution against the Qing Dynasty and served as the president of the newly founded Provisional Republic of China
Mao Zedong
leader of the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese Civil War and founding father of the People’s Republic of China. During his time in power he implemented the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution
Deng Xiaoping
Reformist leader of the Communist Party of China who led Chinese economic reform that opened up the country to foreign investment, the global market and limited private competition
Ho Chi Minh
Communist revolutionary who led the Viêt Minh independence movement against the French in the 1950s and later led the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam War
Mohandas Gandhi
Led India to independence from Great Britain using non-violent civil disobedience
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Colonel who helped overthrow the Egyptian monarchy and became the second president. Kept Egypt neutral during the Cold War and tried to nationalize the Suez Canal Company, which caused relations with the west to grow tense
Fidel Castro
Overthrew the Bautista government in Cuba and set up a communist government. Allied Cuba with the USSR, which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis
Ayatollah Khomeini
Iranian religious leader and politician who participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and became the country’s Supreme Leader
Jomo Kenyatta
Founding father of Kenya – set up the country as a capitalist state and allied with the Western Bloc during the Cold War
Kwame Nkrumah
oversaw Ghana’s independence from British colonial rule and was an advocate of Pan-Africanism
Patrice Lumumba
independence leader in the Belgian Congo and prime minister of the newly independent Republic of Congo. Was deposed and assassinated for his leftist leanings in government
Kim Il-Sung
Leader of Communist North Korea during the Korean War and designated in the North Korean constitution as the “Eternal President”
Chiang Kai-shek
Chinese Nationalist Party leader during the during the civil war with the communists and was forced to flee to Taiwan in 1949
Nikita Kruschev
Soviet leader responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, the progress of the USSR’s early space program, and for several liberal reforms in domestic policy
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Leader of the All-India Muslims League and worked with Gandhi to gain India’s independence. Following the partition of India, he became the founder of the Muslim state of Pakistan
Anwar Sadat
President of Egypt who re-instituted a multi-party system and took part in the Camp David Accords, which were negotiations that led to a peace treaty with Israel
Winston Churchill
British politician who became prime minister of Great Britain during World War II and coined the term “Iron Curtain” at the beginning of the Cold War
Albert Einstein
German scientist who immigrated to the United States and developed the general theory of relativity.
Thomas Edison
Inventor credited with inventing the phonograph, motion picture camera, and the light bulb
