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Taft establishes "Dollar Diplomacy" as U.S. foreign policy
President William Howard Taft argued that the U.S. should subtitute "dollars for bullets" in its foreign policy. He wanted businesses to develop foreign markets through peaceful commerce and believed that expensive military intervention should be avoided as much as possible. -
Assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand
Bosian Serb named Gavrilo Princip fired a revolver. The Duke and his wife Sophia die on the spot. -
2.5 millions African troops and carriers serve in the Great War
The conflict of 1914 to 1918 affected Africans because much of Africa was ruled by colonial powers. Every African colony took sides in war, except for Spanish-controlled colonies. One immediate consequence of war for Africans was that the Allies invaded German colonies. More than 1 million African soldiers participated directly in military campaigns, in which they witnessed white people fighting one another. -
German submarine sinks the Lusitania
Lusitania sinks off Irish coast with a loss of 1, 198 lives including 128 U.S. citizens. -
The Bolshevik Revolution
The Bolsheviks were a small minority among revolutionary working class parties. The Bolsheviks become the radical wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party. -
Civil War in Russia
Oppositon to the Bolshevik Party errupted into a civil war that lasted from 1918 to 1920. -
The Paris Settlement
Victorious powers convened to arrange a post-war settlemen and set terms for defeating nations. -
Mussolini lauches fascist movement in Italy
The first Fascist movement grew up in Italy after the Great War. Mussolini encouraged Italian entry into the war. After the war, socialists established a political program that emphasized nationalism. -
The League of Nations
The League was the first permanent international security organization whose mission was to maintain world peace. -
Non-Cooperation Movement in India
The Non-Cooperation Movement was a mass organization launched under Gandhi's leadership. Gandhi called on the Indian people to boycott British goods. Despite Gandhi's efforts against the use of force, violence often accompanied these movements. -
First Soviet Five-Year Plan
Established by Joseph Stalin. The goal was to transform the Soviet Union from an agricultural country to a leading industrial power. -
Stock Market Crash
On Black Thursday, stock prices began to plummet on the New York Stock Exchange. -
Beginning of Great Depression
The old capitalist system of trade and finance collapsed until a new system took its place after 1945. -
The Mukden Incident
Japanese troops used explosives to blow up a few feet of rail on the Japanese-built South Manchuria railway north of Mukden. They accused the Chinese of attacking their railroad. The incident became the pretext for war between Japanese and Chinese troops. -
Hitler becomes ruler in Germany
Adolf Hitler became the chairman of the National Socialist German Workers Party (The Nazi Party) and consolidated power over Germany. -
Roosevelt begins "Good Neighbor Policy"
It was a U.S. approach to improve relations with Latin America -
The New Deal
President Franklin D. Roosevelt enforced the New Deal as a program of economic and social reforms. The purpose was to reinflate the economy and ease the suffering of depression. -
Long March by Chinese communists
The Red Army began the Long March of 10,000 kilometers across the bases in Jiangxi provinces. Although thousands died in this forced retreat, the Long March inspired many Chinese to join the communist party. -
Government of India Act
The British Parliment enacted the Government of India Act which gave India the institutions of a self-governing state. The legislation allowed for the creation of a bicameral national legislature. The Act went into effect in 1937. -
Invasion of China by Japan
The global conflict opened with the conquest of Manchuria between 1931 and 1932. Japan launched a full scale invasion of China in 1937. Japanese troops took Beijing and then moved south toward Shanghai and Nanjing, the capital of China. By December 1937, SHanghai and Nanjing had fallen and during the following 6 months Japanese forces won repeated victories. -
The Rape of Nanjing
The Rape of Nanjing demonstrated the horror of the war as residents became victims of Japanese troops. Over the course of 2 months, Japanese soldiers raped 7,000 women, murdered hundreds of unarmed soldiers and civilians, and burned 1/3 of the homes in Nanjing, -
Cárdenas nationalizes oil industry in Mexico
Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized the oil industry much of which was controlled by foreign investors from the United States and Great Britain. This left little chance for a peaceful resolution between U.S. and Latin America. -
Fall of France, Battle of Britain
The Germans stunned Britain and France with their Blitzkrieg (lightning war) and sudden victory. In April 1940, Germans occupied Denmark and Norway then launched a full scale attack on western Europe. The French signed an armistice in June. The Fall of France convinced Italy that Germans were winning the war. The Germans launched the Battle of Britain in July 10, 1940 led by its airforce, the Luftwaffe. The Royal Airforce staved off defeat, forcing Hitler to abandon plans to invade Britain. -
Attack on Pearl Harbour by Japan on December 7th
On the 7th of December 1941, a day which will live in infamy, Japanese pilots took off from 6 aircraft carriers to attack Hawaii. American naval power in the Pacific was devastated. -
U.S. victory at Midway
The turning point in the Pacific war came in 1942 in the naval engagement near the Midway Islands. Thirty-six carrier -launched dive-bombers attacked the Japanese fleet, sinking 3 Japanese carriers in one 5 minute strike. -
D-Day allied invasion at Normandy
On D-Day, British and U.S. troops landed on the French coast of Normnady. German resistance faded with the two fronts collapsing around them. -
Atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The final blows came on 6 and 9 of August 1945 when the United States used its revolutionary new weapon, the atomic bomb against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs either instantaneously vaporized or slowly killed by radiation poisoning up ro 200,000 people. -
Establishment of United Nations
Despite many differences, the superpowers were among the nations that agreed to the creation of the United Nations a supranational organization dedicated to keeping world peace. International peace and security were the main goals of the organization. The final version of the United Nations charter was hammered out by delegates from 50 nations at the United Nations Conference. -
Truman Doctrine
The announciation of the Truman Doctrine crystalized the new U.S. view of a globe divided between free and enslaved people. The United States committed itself to an interventionist foreign policy dedicated to the containment of communism. -
Partition of India
The idea of partition, the division of India into separate Hindu and Muslim states, violated the stated ideals of men like Gandhi and Nehru, who sickened at the prospect and only reluctantly came to accept the notion of a divided and independent India due in part because they belonged to the vast Hindu majority in South Asia. -
Establishment of GATT
The main vehicle for the promotion of unrestricted global trade was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was signed by the representatives of 23 noncommunist nations in 1947. GATT members held a series of negotiations with the intent of removing or loosening barriers to free trade. -
Creation of Israel
In November 1947, the General Assembly announced a proposal for the division of Palestine into 2 distinct states. In late 1947, civil war broke out as Arabs inside and outside Palesine found the solution unexceptable. Arab and Jewish troops battled one another and in May 1948 the Jews in Palestine proclaimed the creation of the independent state of Israel. -
Apartheid in South Africa
In 1948, the Afrikaner National Party, which was dedicated to crushing any move toward black independence came to power. Under the National Party, the government instituted a new set of laws designed to control the black population; these new laws constituted the system known as apartheid or separatness. Eventually, when F. W. de Klerk became president of South Africa in 1989, he dismantled the apartheid system. -
Berlin blockade and airlift
The Soviets blockaded all road, rail, and water links between Berlin and Western Germany as a form of retaliation. Two days later, the Americans and British responded with an airlift designed to keep the city's inhabitants alive, fed, and warm. -
UN adopts universal declaration of human rights
In the charter establsihing the United Nations in 1945, 50 member nations pledged to achieve "Universal respect for, and observance of, human rights, and fundamental freedoms." Three years later, the national assembly of the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which contributed to the codification of international human rights laws. The declaration singled out specific human rights violations such as extrajudicial or summary executions. -
Establishment of NATO
The creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact signaled the militarization of the Cold War. NATO was established as a regional military alliance against Soviet aggression. The intent of the alliance was to maintain peace in post war Europe through collective defense. -
Division of Berlin and Germany
In 1949, an international crisis arose when the Soviet Union pressured the Western powers to relinquish their jurisdiction over Berlin. After the collapse of Hitler's Third Reich, the forces of the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, and France occupied Germany and its capital Berlin, both of which they divided for administrative purposes into 4 zones. -
Korean War
The Pyongyang regime ordered more than 100, 000 troops across the 38th parallel in s surprise attack, quickly pushing back South Korean defenders and capturing their city of Seoul. U.S. forces were unable to dislodge North Koreans. In September, however, Americans and their allies eventually pushed North Korean forces back to the 38th Parallel, fulfilling the UN mandate. -
French defeat at Dienbienphu
In Africa, as in Southeast Asia, the French resisted decolonization. In Algeria the French fought a bloody war that began in 1954, the year France suffered its defeat in Dienbienphu. France allowed all of its other territories in Africa to gain independence. -
Algerian War of Liberation
The Algerian war of Liberation began in 1954 under the command of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). The French did not realize the seriousness of the challenge until FLN moved into more urbanized areas. France sent thousands of troops to Algeria to put down the revolution. By the war's end in 1962, when the Algerians gained independence in France, hundreds of thousands Algerians had lost their lives. -
The Suez Crisis
The crisis errupted in 1956 when Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, decided to nationalize the Suez Canal and use the money collected from the canal to finance construction of a massive dam of the Nile River. Soon British, French, and Israeli forces to wrest control of the canal away from him. Their military campaign was successful, but they failed on the diplomatic level. -
Great Leap Forward in China
The Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were far reaching policies that hampered the political and economic developent that Mao Zedong sought. Mao envisioned his Great Leap Forward as a way to overtake the industrial production of more developed nations and he worked to collectivize all land and to manage all business and industrial enterprises collectively. -
Castro comes to power in Cuba
In 1959, Fidel Castro headed a revolutionary movement overthrowing the autocratic Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar. He was a communist leader, who accepted assitance from the Soviet Union and supported USSR foreign policy -
Creation of OPEC
One of the earliest and most successful economic alliances was the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a producer cartel establishedd in 1960,by the oil-producing states of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, and later joined by Qatar, Libya, Indonesia, Abu Dhabi, Algeria, Nigera, Ecuador, and Gabon. The mostly Arab and Muslim member states of OPEC sought to raise the price of oil through cooperation. -
Construction of the Berlin Wall
In Aug. 1961, communist reinforced their fortification along the border between East and West Germany. The wall began as a layer of barbed wire. The Berlin wall accomplished its purpose of stemming the flow of refugees. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
President Kennedy went on national television to inform the public about the discovery of nuclear missiles and launch sites in Cuba. President Kennedy called on Soviet leadership to withdraw all missiles from Cuba. To back up this demand, Kennedy imposed an air and naval quarantine on the island nation. The Cuban Missile Crisis revealed the dangers of the bipolar world since it trembled during the crisis awaiting the apocalypse. -
Creation of Palestinian Liberation Organization
Anwar Sadat, Egypt's president, was assassinated in 1981 by opponents of his policies toward Israel, and the Arab states along with the Palestinian LIberation Organization worked to isolate Egypt. The PLO, the politicla organization that served as a government in exile for Palestinians displaced from Israel, was created in 1964 under the leadership of Yasser Arafat to promote Palestinian rights. -
Establishment of ASEAN
Another well-established economic partnership is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Established in 1967 by the foreign ministers of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Phillipines, its prinicple objectives were to accelerate economic development and promote political stability in Southeast Asia. -
Founding of Greenpeace
An especially prominent contemporary NGO is Greenpeace, founded in 1970, an environmental organization, dedicated to the preservation of the Earth's natural resources, and its diverse animal and plant life. In their pursuit of a green and peaceful world, Greenpeace activists have gained international notoriety and fame for their daring exploits. For example, Greenpeace has convinced major news networks to broadcast the certain pictures of the slaughter of baby harp seals. -
Arab-Israeli War
In the 1973 Arab-Israeli War or Yom Kippur War, Arab attack took place on the major Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. This conflict greatly intensified the tensions in the region, but also led to a long series of peace negotiations. -
Revolution in Iran
The Arab-Muslim world was divided on a number of issues, but the revolution in 1979 demonstrated the power of Islam as a means of staving off secular foreign influences. The vast amount of money that poured in from Iran's oil industry helped finance industrialization and the United States provided the country with proper military equipment. In the late 1970's, however, opposition to the Shah's government increased, fueling the dangers of the Iranian Revolution. -
Iran- Iraq War
The Iran-Iraq War killed as many as one million soldiers. By the late 1970s, Iraq had built a military machine owing to oil revenues and the efforts of Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq in 1979. Hussein launched his attack on Iran in 1980, hoping to become the new leader of a revived pan-Arab nationalism. Although they were initially successful, Iraqi troops faced counterattacks by Iranian forces and the conflict became a war of attrition that didn't end until 1988. -
Identification of AIDS
The most serious epidemic comes from AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). This fatal disorder of the immune system is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Medical experts identified AIDS for the first time in 1981 among homosexual men and intravenous drug users in New York and San Francisco. At the end of 2003, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS was 37.8 million and over 20 million AIDS deaths had occurred since the beginning of the epidemic. -
Defeat of Equal Rights Amendment in U.S.
The gender equality that an Equal Rights Amendment would have secured never materialized, however, because the amendment failed to receive ratification before the 1982 deadline. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The East German regime decided to open the Berlin Wall to intra-German traffic signaling the end of the German Democratic Republic Party. Thousands of east and west Berliners tore down the Berlin Wall in the last weeks of 1989. -
Gulf War
Two years after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Hussein's troops invaded Kuwait and incited the Gulf War. The result was military defeat for Iraq at the hands of an international coalition led by the United States. -
Collapse of the Soviet Union
In Aug. 1991, a group of conspirators decided to sieze power. With this Gorbachev's political career ended as the Soviet system disintegrated several of its constituient regions moved toward independence. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet flag fluttered for the last time atop the Kremlin. -
End of Cold War
The superpower leader Mikhail Gorbachev arose and helped bring an end to the Cold War. Ronald Reagan reinvigorated cold war animosities, advocated massive military spending, and included a controversial proposal, called the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983. -
Beginning of Socialist Market Economy in China
China's leaders launched economic reforms in the late 1970s that reversed some earlier policies and opened Chinese markets to the outside world, encouraged foreign investment, and imported foreign technology. With the economy growing dramatically, the government in 1992, signaled the creation of the Socialist Market Economy. This planned economic system gaveway to a market economy, in which demands for goods and services determined production and pricing. The role of the government was limited. -
Establishment of NAFTA
The United States entered its own regional alliance, approving the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in 1993, but went in effect in 1994. Although it constitutes the world's second largest free-trade zone, it lacks the economic coordination so typical of the European Union. -
WTO supersedes GATT
The member nations of GATT (now totaling 123) signed an agreement to establish the World Trade Organization, which took over the activities of GATT in 1995. The WTO has developed into a forum for settling international trade disputes, with the power to enforce its decisions. -
Transfer of British Hong Kong to People's Republic of China
The issue facing China as it entered to global economy was how to reap economic benefits without compromises in its political identity. This issue gained weight as Hong Kong, under British administration since the 1840s and in the throes of its own democracy movement, reverted to Chinese control in 1997. -
Terrorist attacks against the United States
On the morning of the second Tuesday in September, New York and Washington, D.C., became the targets of a coordinated terrorist attack that was unprecedent. Hijackers seized 4 passenger jetliners and used them as guided missiles. Two of the planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, which collapsed causing thousands of deaths. Also, another plane crashed into the Pentagon, while the 4th crashed into a field outside Pittsburg, PA. Osama bin Laden was the mastermind behind the attacks. -
China joins WTO
In December 2001, China became a member of the World Trade Organization and moved closer to gaining global economic superpower status. -
Operation Iraqi freedom
Operation Iraqi Freedom was coordinated by President Bush in 2003 with a multinational coalition force, largely made up of British and U.S. troops and those from two dozen other nations. The troops invaded Iraq in pursuit of ousting the regime of Saddam Hussein, creating a democratic state and destroying Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush declared an end to major battle operations on May 1, 2003, and coalition forces struggled in their efforts to stabilize Iraq. -
Hussein captured
Hussein was finally caught in December 2003, but deadly resistance in Iraq persisted.
