SOL identifications Flashcards
berlin airlift
“The Soviet Union cut off highway, water, and rail traffic into Berlin’s western zones. The city faced starvation. Stalin gambled that the Allies would surrender West Berlin or give up their idea of reunifying Germany. But American and British officials flew food and supplies into West Berlin for nearly 11 months. In May 1949, the Soviet Union admitted defeat and lifted the blockade.”
Mikhail Gorbachev
- Definition: Soviet leader during the 1980s – contemporary of U.S. President Reagan. He was a reformist that was too soon for his time. Not popular along other Soviet leaders in the party.
- Importance: Introduced reforms such as glasnost and perestroika. Allowed the Berlin Wall to be torn down and help the end the Cold War.
Marshall Plan
“a U.S. program of economic aid to European countries to help them rebuild after World War II.”
United Nations
“ an international peacekeeping organization founded in 1945 to provide security to the nations of the world. ”
Chiang Kai-Shek
“formerly called Chiang Kai-shek, headed the Kuomintang. ( ) was the son of a middle-class merchant. Many of his followers were bankers and businesspeople. Like ( ), they feared the Communists’ goal of creating a socialist economy modeled after the Soviet Union’s. ( ) had promised democracy and political rights to all Chinese. Yet his government became steadily less democratic and more corrupt. Most peasants believed that Jiang was doing little to improve their lives. As a result, many peasants threw their support to the Chinese Communist Party. ”
Douglass MacArtur
“the commander of the Allied land forces in the Pacific,”
Armenian Genocide
“2.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire had begun to demand their freedom. As a result, relations between the group and its Turkish rulers grew strained. Throughout the 1890s, Turkish troops killed tens of thousands of Armenians. When World War I erupted in 1914, the Armenians pledged their support to the Turks’ enemies. In response, the Turkish government deported nearly 2 million Armenians. Along the way, more than 600,000 died of starvation or were killed by Turkish soldiers.\
Ethnic Cleansing in Rwanda
On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali, leaving no survivors. (It has never been conclusively determined who the culprits were. Some have blamed Hutu extremists, while others blamed leaders of the RPF.) Within an hour of the plane crash, the Presidential Guard together with members of the Rwandan armed forces (FAR) and Hutu militia groups known as the Interahamwe (“Those Who Attack Together”) and Impuzamugambi (“Those Who Have the Same Goal”) set up roadblocks and barricades and began slaughtering Tutsis and moderate Hutus with impunity. Among the first victims of the genocide were the moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her 10 Belgian bodyguards, killed on April 7. This violence created a political vacuum, into which an interim government of extremist Hutu Power leaders from the military high command stepped on April 9.
Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, (by this time, consisting of the Republics of Montenegro and Serbia) which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) with air support from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), (from 24th March 1999), and ground support from the Albanian army.[50]
-Basically clearing out of religious subjects in that area
opened japan
Japan opened to trading with other nations while going through industrialization of its own
Womens suffrage
womans right to vote
james watt
“a mathematical instrument maker at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, thought about the problem for two years. In 1765, Watt figured out a way to make the steam engine work faster and more efficiently while burning less fuel.”
charles darwin
“developed a theory that all forms of life, including human beings, evolved from earlier living forms that had existed millions of years ago. ”
realpolitik
“the politics of reality”—the practice of tough power politics without room for idealism.”
delacroix
From the Roman name Martinus, which was derived from Martis, the genitive case of the name of the Roman god MARS. Saint Martin of Tours was a 4th-century bishop who is the patron saint of France. According to legend, he came across a cold beggar in the middle of winter so he ripped his cloak in two and gave half of it to the beggar. He was a favourite saint during the Middle Ages, and his name has become common throughout the Christian world.
catherine the great
“She ruled Russia from 1762 to 1796. The well-educated empress read the works of philosophes, and she exchanged many letters with Voltaire. She ruled with absolute authority but also sought to reform Russia.
