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Apartheid in South Africa
South Africa was colonized by English and the Dutch in the 17th century. English domination of the Dutch descendents resulted in the Dutch establishing the new colonies of Orange Free State and Transvaal. The discovery of diamonds in these lands around 1900 resulted in an English invasion which sparked the Boer War. -
21 demands
Japan presented China with a secret ultimatum in January 1915 designed to give Japan regional ascendancy over China. -
Assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand
Austrian prince, and was assassinated by a Serbian terrorist in Bosnia. His death was the final straw that caused WW2. -
Gallipoli campaign
An unsuccessful attempt by the Allied Powers to control the sea route from Europe to Russia during World War I. -
Civil war in Russia
Russia experienced multiple uprisings and power struggles. One group, the Bolsheviks, were the cuase for quite a few of them. -
German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare
in 1917, the lethal threat of the German U-boat submarine returns. as Germany returns to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare it had previously suspended in response to pressure from the United States and other neutral countries. -
Bolshevik Revolution
AKA the October revolution, because it occurred in October.Bolshevik Red Guards forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began the takeover of government buildings on 24 October 1917. -
May Fourth Movement in China
At the end of the First World War, in 1918, China was convinced it would be able to reclaim the territories occupied by the Germans in present-day Shandong Province. They were let down and didn't really take it to wellllll.... -
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk brought about the end of the war between Russia and Germany in 1918. The German were reminded of the harshness of Brest-Litovsk when they complained about the severity of the Treaty of Versailles signed in June 1919. -
Ataturk proclaims Republic of Turkey
a series of political, legal, cultural, social and economic policy changes that were designed to convert the new Republic of Turkey into a secular, modern nation-state. -
Paris Peace Conference
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors, following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers -
First meeting of the league of Nations
On January 10, 1920, the League of Nations formally comes into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, takes effect. -
First Soviet Five-Year Plan
Stalin realised that if Russia was to become a key player in the global market, the country needed to industrialise rapidly and increase production. To do this, Stalin introduced the Five-year Plans. -
US stock market crash
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday or the Stock Market Crash of 1929, began in late October 1929 and was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout. The crash signalled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries. -
Civil disobedience movement in India
Led by Ghandi and Muhammad ali Jennah
Britain's Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from the British, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
Manchuria, on China’s eastern seaboard, was attacked by Japan in 1931. The League did nothing. -
Cardenas nationalizes oil industry in Mexico
The foreign oil companies refused to comply Cardenas ruled they were in contempt and on March 18, 1938 Cárdenas nationalized Mexico's petroleum reserves and expropriated the equipment of the foreign oil companies in Mexico. -
Sandino is murdered in Nicaragua
murderedby National Guardsmen acting on the orders of the dictator Anastasio Somoza Garcia. -
Hitler is ruler in Germany
With the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler becomes absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Fuhrer, or "Leader." The German army took an oath of allegiance to its new commander-in-chief, and the last remnants of Germany's democratic government were dismantled to make way for Hitler's Third Reich. -
Long March by Chinese Communists
In October 1934, during a civil war, Chinese Communists broke through Nationalist enemy lines and began an epic flight from their encircled headquarters in southwest China. Known as the Long March, the trek lasted a year and covered some 4,000 miles .The Long March marked the emergence of Mao Zedong as the undisputed leader of the Chinese Communists. -
Mussolini launches fascist movement in Italy
"Italy wants peace and quiet, work and calm. I will give these things with love if possible and with force if necessary." -Mussolini -
Invasion of China by Japan
The Japanese Kwantung Army turned a small incident into a full-scale war. Chinese forces were unable to effectively resist the Japanese. The Japanese were better in every way, and were insanely cruel -
Stalin's "Great Purge" in USSR
Stalin's purges could otherwise be translated as "Stalin's Terror". They grew from his paranoia and his desire to be absolute autocrat, and were enforced by the the NKVD and public 'show trials'. They helped develop a centrally-enforced 'cult of Stalin-worship', and a terrifying system of labor camps - the gulag. -
German Auschluss with Austria
Hitler announces an "Anschluss" (union) between Germany and Austria, in fact annexing the smaller nation into a greater Germany. -
Invasion of Poland by Germany
1.5 million German troops invade Poland all along its 1,750-mile border with German-controlled territory. Simultaneously, the German Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and German warships and U-boats attacked Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea. -
German invasion of USSR
Under the codename Operation "Barbarossa," Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in the largest German military operation -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad , was the successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. 2million died in the battle -
D-Day, Allied invasion at Normandy
160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot- hold in Normandy. The D-Day cost was high -more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded. -
Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski
America is the first ever to unleash the horrific power of nuclear bombs. This is the only occasion in which anyone has gone nuclear. -
Capture of Berlin by Soviet forces
After the end of the war, the country of Germany was split up between the allied powers. the USSR took the eastern portion, while the rest of the allies took the west. The eastern inhabitants were treated far worse than the western inhabitants were. -
Establishment of United Nations
Less than two months after the end of World War II, the United Nations is formally established with the ratification of the United Nations Charter by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories. -
Partition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of the British Indian Empire that led to the creation of India and Pakistan -
Arab-Israeli War
was fought between the State of Israel and a military coalition of Arab states and Palestinian Arab forces. This war was the second stage of the 1948 Palestine war -
Creation of Israel
David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day. -
Division of Berlin and German
The Berlin blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. East was way worse to live in under the USSR compared to the west. -
Establishment of Nato
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established by 12 Western nations: the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland, Canada, and Portugal. -
Establishment of People's Republic of China
On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was formally established, with its national capital at Beijing. "The Chinese people have stood up!" declared Mao as he announced the creation of a "people's democratic dictatorship." -
Korean War
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. -
Algerian war of Liberation
A conflict between France and Algerian independence movements. led to Algeria gaining its independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, use of torture and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. -
French defeat at Dien Bien Phu
In northwest Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh forces decisively defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu, a French stronghold besieged by the Vietnamese communists for 57 days. The Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu signaled the end of French colonial influence in Indochina and cleared the way for the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel at the conference of Geneva. -
Establishment of Warsaw Pact
The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. -
Suez crisis
Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt toward the Suez Canal after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal in July of that same year, initiating the Suez Crisis. The Israelis soon were joined by French and British forces, which nearly brought the Soviet Union into the conflict, and damaged their relationships with the United States. In the end, the British, French and Israeli governments withdrew their troops in late 1956 and early 1957. -
Uprising in Hungary
a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies -
Great leap forward in China
was Mao’s attempt to modernise China’s economy so that by 1988, China would have an economy that rivalled America. -
Castro comes to power in Cuba
Early in 1959, after fighting for several years, Fidel Castro Fidel Castro overthrew the government of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Mindful of Batista's record of repression, the U.S. government and the American public in general welcomed Castro's rise to power, although the United States had given the Batista government military aid. -
Construction of Berlin Wall
In an effort to stem the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany began building the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War. -
Sino-Soviet rift
Relations between the Soviet Union and China reach the breaking point as the two governments engage in an angry ideological debate about the future of communism. The United States, for its part, was delighted to see a wedge being driven between the two communist superpowers. -
Creation of PLO
The Palestine Liberation Organization is an organization founded in 1964 with the purpose of creating an independent State of Palestine. -
US troops in Vietnam
A U.S. Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion is deployed to Da Nang. President Johnson had ordered this deployment to provide protection for the key U.S. airbase there -
Lenin's New Economic Policy
Vladimere's policy was considered by himself, as capitalism.. this upset a lloooott of people -
Revolution in Iran
Despite economical growth, there was much opposition against the Mohammad Reza Shah, and how he used the secret police, the Savak, to control the country. This initiated the revolution -
Iran-Iraq war
war between these neighboring Middle Eastern countries resulted in at least half a million casualties and several billion dollars’ worth of damages, but no real gains -
Soviet withdrawl from Afghanistan
The withdrawal of Soviet combatant forces from the Afghanistan began on 15 May 1988 and successfully executed on 15 February 1989 under the leadership of Colonel-General Boris Gromov -
Reunification of Germany
East and Western Germany finally reunited -
Persian Gulf War
Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait. Alarmed by these actions, fellow Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the United States and other Western nations to intervene. -
Collapse of USSR
ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. The increasing political unrest led the establishment of the Soviet military and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to attempt a "coup d'état" to oust Mikhail Gorbachev and re-establish a strong central regime -
Transfer of British Hong Kong to China
The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China, referred to as "the Handover" internationally or "the Return" in China, , and marked the end of British rule in Hong Kong.
