Period 6 Vocabulary 1900-Present

Archduke Ferdinand A royal of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Assassinated in Sarajevo in June of 1914. His assassination is the immediate cause for WWI.

Central Powers The allied nations of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire during WWI

Triple Entente The allied powers of France, Russia, and the United Kingdom during WWI.

Trench Warfare System in which opposing armed forces attack, counterattack, and defend from relatively permanent systems of trenches dug into the ground.

Unrestricted Submarine Warfare Type of naval warfare in which submarines sink vessels such as freighters and tankers without warning.

Armenian Genocide  the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects inside their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey. Estimates put the total number killed between 800,000 and 1.5 million.

Balfour Declaration British declaration from 1917 that supported the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Bolshevik A member of the Russian communist party.

October (November) Revolution the second and last major phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, in which the Bolshevik Party seized power in Russia, inaugurating the Soviet regime.

Valdimir Ilyich Lenin The Russian leader of the Bolsheviks. Becomes the leader of the Soviet Union after the revolution.

Treaty of Versailles (1919) Treaty between the victorious Entente powers and defeated Germany at the end of WWI. Placed blame for the war on Germany and exacted harsh reparations.

League of Nations Forerunner to the United Nations. Created by US President Woodrow Wilson at the end of the WWI. US does not join.

Joseph Stalin The leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Key player in WWII.

Fascism Political ideology that sought to regenerate the social, political, and cultural life of societies, especially in contrast to liberal democracy and socialism.

Benito Mussolini Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party, ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 until he was ousted in 1943.

National Socialism Also known as Nazism, totalitarian movement led by Adolf Hitler as head of the Nazi Party in Germany.

Mohandas Gandhi The preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India

Moa Zedong and Jian Jieshi Moa- a Chinese Communist revolutionary, and the founding father of the People's Republic of China Jian Jieshi- (Chiang Kai-shek) was a Chinese political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China. Was the nationalist leader opposed to Moa Zedong.

Pan-Africanism Ideology and movement that encourages the solidarity of Africans worldwide. It is based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress.

Axis and Allied Powers Axis powers- Germany, Italy, and Japan Allied powers- France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and after 1941 the United States

Holocaust Was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews.

United Nations Successor to the League of Nations, an association of sovereign nations that attempt to find solutions to global problems.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Established by the United States in 1949 as a regional military alliance against Soviet expansion.

Warsaw Pact A military alliance formed by Soviet bloc nations in 1955 in response to rearmament of West Germany and its inclusion in NATO.

Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc (led by the United States) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (led by the Soviet Union).  Lasted from 1947 to 1991.