20th Century Global History

Question 1

What was the Weimar Republic?

Answer 1

The Weimar Republic was Germany’s provisional government from 1919 to 1933, the period after World War I until the rise of Nazi Germany. It was named after the town of Weimar where Germany’s new government was formed by a national assembly after Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated.

Question 2

What was the Treaty of Versailles?

Answer 2

The Treaty of Versailles is one of the most controversial armistice treaties in history. The treaty’s so-called “war guilt” clause forced Germany and other Central Powers to take all the blame for World War I. This meant a loss of territories, reduction in military forces, and reparation payments to Allied powers.

Question 3

How come inflation was so high during the early 1920’s for the Weimar Republic?

Answer 3

Because of the extortionately exorbitant quantity of debt that afflicted their nation.

Question 4

Why did French and Belgian military personal begin allocating troops to the most ascendant geographically industrial locations?

Answer 4

Because Germany was defaulting on their reparation payments.

Question 5

What did Germany do in response to inflation in the early 1920s?

Answer 5

The government encouraged their workers to go on strike, in addition to the excessive printing of more financial monetary capital.

Question 6

Who was Charles Dawes and what were his accomplishments?

Answer 6

The 30th Vice President to Calvin Coolidge and won the 1925 Nobel Peace prize for having contributed to reducing the tension between Germany and France after the First World War by the construction of the Dawes Plan; leading to the reductionism of inflation in Germany.

Question 7

What was the Dawes plan?

Answer 7

Under the Dawes Plan, Germany’s annual reparation payments would be reduced, increasing over time as its economy improved; the full amount to be paid, however, was left undetermined. Economic policy making in Berlin would be reorganized under foreign supervision and a new currency, the Reichsmark, adopted.

Question 8

Why was the Weimar Republic specifically susceptible to the adverse economic ramifications of the Great Depression?

Answer 8

Because of this radical dependence, upon the manifestation of the Great Depression on October 29th, 1929, the Weimar Republic’s economy was the recipience of radical dilapidation and deterioration.

Question 9

What were some of the reasons behind Germany turning to Nazism?

Answer 9

• the resentment and contempt from having lost the first world war
• the radically colossal instability and contractionary nature of their economy
• the fear of a socialist revolution
  -the antisemetic conceptualization of the jewish race being responsible for the loss of WWI, their interpretation of the responsibility of the economic recession, the view that jewish people wanted socialism and that the conspiracy that jewish people were trying to take over the world.

Question 10

What was the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

Answer 10

which insisted upon the hoax that certain confidential and secretive meetings were established among the Jews which was oriented towards the delineation of machinations to achieve global domination.

Question 10

What was the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

Answer 10

which insisted upon the hoax that certain confidential and secretive meetings were established among the Jews which was oriented towards the delineation of machinations to achieve global domination.

Question 11

When did Hitler rise to prominence and under what political party?

Answer 11

Early 1920s and the National Socialist German Workers Party

Question 12

What was the Beer Hall Putsch?

Answer 12

A failed government insurrection led by Hitler and 2,000 NAZI soldiers during November of 1923. This resulted in 20 casualties; 16 nazi soldiers and 4 police officers. Hitler was arrested two days later for treason.

Question 13

How did Hitler benefit from the Beer Hall Putsch?

Answer 13

He accumulated national notoriety and capitalized on the opportunity to vocalize his antisemetically nationalist ideological convictions.

Question 14

What did Hitler and the Nazi Party campaign on?

Answer 14

Anti semitism
Extreme Nationalism
anti communism
excoriation and denigration of the Weimar republic and the Treaty of Versailles

Question 15

Why did business leaders have a propensity to support the NAZI party in the aftermath of the Great Depression in germany?

Answer 15

Because of communism being a primary political and ideological constituency demonstrating a legitimate threat of seizing power.

Question 16

When was Hitler appointed chancellor?

Answer 16

1933

Question 17

Why was the burning of the Reichstag an important event in Nazi prominence?

Answer 17

Because it granted Hitler with the opportunity to exploit the crisis under the interpretation that the event was caused by commies and began passing legislation that severely limited the rights and freedoms of the civilians.

Question 18

What was the Night of the Long Knives?

Answer 18

The Night of the Long Knives, or the Röhm purge, also called Operation Hummingbird, was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934.

Question 19

What was the Euthanasia program in the autumn of 1939?

Answer 19

The Nazi Euthanasia Program, codenamed Aktion “T4,” was the systematic murder of institutionalized people with disabilities.

Question 20

What was the Final Solution?

Answer 20

The term “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” was a euphemism used by Nazi Germany’s leaders. It referred to the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. It brought an end to policies aimed at encouraging or forcing Jews to leave the German Reich and other parts of Europe. Those policies were replaced by systematic annihilation.

Question 21

When did Germany invade Poland? When did France and Britain declare war on Germany?

Answer 21

Sep 1st / Sep 3rd 1939

Question 22

When did Germany invade Denmark and Norway?

Answer 22

April of 1940

Question 23

When did German forces invade Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands?

Answer 23

May of 1940

Question 23

When did German forces invade Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands?

Answer 23

May of 1940

Question 24

When did Germany invade France and how did France fall so easily?

Answer 24

May 10th 1940. France’s military was plagued with the conceptualization of the impenetrability of the Ardennes forest, especially taking into consideration the necessity to cross the Meuse river. Thus, they negated the secure and concrete fortification of that area and allocated a tremendous quantity of military presence in a addition to fortification towards the border of France and germany. Poor and chaotic French communication combined with a continued unwillingness to accept where the greatest threat to their border lay to aid the Germans in moving west across the Meuse. From there, the Germans met French resistance at the village of Sedan.

Question 25

What was the Cold War?

Answer 25

The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc.

Question 26

What was the Cold war based on?

Answer 26

The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers

Question 27

How was the struggle for dominance expressed between the primary superpowers in the Cold War?

Answer 27

Nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

Question 28

What was Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1?

Answer 28

Sputnik 1 was the Soviet’s successful launching of the very first artificial satellite into space and Vostok 1 being the launching of the first human into space on an orbital spacewalk in the late 50s and earlier 60s. This was perceived with threatening perturbation from the Western Bloc, taking into consideration the Space Race being a foundational optical component of the Cold War and the struggle towards achieving global influence.

Question 29

What was the Bay of Pigs Invasion?

Answer 29

An invasion of Cuba that was fought by Cuban counter revolutionary forces that were exiled from Cuba in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution. This invasion was financed primarily by the CIA and the U.S Government.

Question 30

Why did Khrushchev agree to send nuclear missiles into Cuba?

Answer 30

Because of the existence of Jupiter missile facilities located in Italy and Turkey, because of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the USSR’s interest in maintaining and proliferating the overall existence of socialist economic governments across the globe.

Question 31

Why did John F. Kennedy order an amphibious and naval blockade around Cuba?

Answer 31

Because of the realization that the USSR was allocating and installing nuclear missile facilities in Cuba.

Question 32

Who was Fulgencio Batista

Answer 32

A US backed military dictator that was president of Cuba from ‘52 - 59 until the Cuban Revolution within which Fidel Castro seized national preeminence.

Question 33

Why did Americans favor Fulgencio Batista?

Answer 33

He was considered to be pro-American and was an ally to U.S. companies. At that time, American corporations and wealthy individuals owned almost half of Cuba’s sugar plantations and the majority of its cattle ranches, mines and utilities. Batista did little to restrict their operations. He was also reliably anticommunist.

Question 34

What encouraged President Eisenhower to recruit 1,400 excommunicated Cuban counter revolutionaries?

Answer 34

Almost as soon as he came to power, Castro took steps to reduce American influence on the island. He nationalized American-dominated industries such as sugar and mining, introduced land reform schemes and called on other Latin American governments to act with more autonomy. In response, early in 1960 President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to recruit 1,400 Cuban exiles living in Miami and begin training them to overthrow Castro.

Question 35

Why did the Bay of Pigs invasion end horribly?

Answer 35

Because Castro knew about the airstrike military machination and moved his planes. A radio station on the beach, which the CIA failed to take notice of, intercepted the broadcast and disseminated every detail of the operation across Cuba.

Question 36

Mukden Incident

Answer 36

a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Japanese forces detonated dynamite on a railroad track and accused China for such actions, thus justifying the launching of an invasion in Manchuria.