-
Mussolini's March On Rome
The 1922 March on Rome was to establish Mussolini and the Fascist Party he led, as the most important political party in Italy. It became an official political party. In its October 1922 party conference, Mussolini said: “Either the government will be given to us or will shall seize it by marching on Rome.”. Mussolini, with the party’s hierarchy, drew up a blueprint on how to do this. 1. Fascists would be brought into Rome from all over Italy, and many more. -
The Great Purge and Gulgas
The Great Purge was a brutal political campaign led by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to eliminate dissenting members of the Communist Party and anyone else he considered a threat. Most experts believe at least 750,000 people were executed during the Great Purge. The trials successfully eliminated the major real and potential political rivals and critics of Joseph Stalin. The Gulag was a system of Soviet labor camps and accompanying detention and transit camps and prisons. -
Invasion of Ethiopia
An armed conflict resulted in Ethiopia’s subjection to Italian rule. Seen as one of the episodes that prepared the way for WWII, the war demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations when League decisions were not supported by the great powers. The aim of invading Ethiopia was to boost Italian national prestige, which was wounded by Ethiopia's defeat of Italian forces at the Battle of Adowa in the nineteenth century which saved Ethiopia from Italian colonization. -
Spanish Civil War
Generals Emilio Mola and Francisco Franco launched an uprising aimed at overthrowing the country's democratically elected republic. The Nationalist rebels' initial efforts to instigate military revolts throughout Spain only partially succeeded. In rural areas with a strong right-wing political presence, Franco's confederates generally won out. They quickly seized political power and instituted martial law. The war's end brought a period of dictatorship that lasted until the mid-1970s