Political History - AP World History: Modern

D-Day was the military for what became the famous invasion of Normandy, France, by the Allied Powers to attempt to begin the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany. V-Day refers to Victory Day, or the day the Axis powers surrendered to the Allied powers.

The United States created the Marshall Plan after World War II, as an economic strategy to help European countries be less vulnerable to the Soviet attempts to invade them after World War II.

It was the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 against the United States that encouraged the United States to join the Allies in War World II. Up to that point, the United States had only been unofficially supporting the Allied Powers.

After World War II, during the Cold War, Berlin was split between the Communist and the Free Worlds. It accurately represented the division of the world between communism and free enterprise.

The USSR (known today as Russia) was the Communist leader during the Cold War was the world was split between communism and free enterprise ideas.

When the Japanese signed their surrender on the USS Missouri, they concluded World War II in the Pacific. This day is known as Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day).

General Douglas MacArthur was the American general who presented the United States at the Japanese surrender.

The Persian Gulf War was the first attempt to stop Saddam Hussein from invading neighboring country Kuwait. It was mainly United States led, with the support of NATO and the UN.

The Warring States Period led to the Establishment of the Qin Dynasty.

Although a weakening China suffered many military defeats during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, none were as crippling to its government and global standing as the Opium Wars. Not only did these wars pave the way for foreign powers to divide China into their own spheres of influence, but they also emboldened angry civilians to rise up against their weak government. This trend continued with the Boxer Rebellion at the end of the nineteenth century, which also had disastrous effects.

Over the course of the 16th century, French royal power became increasingly centralized, with the French monarch becoming an absolute monarch.

Although both firearms and longbows decreased the need for mounted knights in full plate armor, the French monarch was adept at raising loyal armies composed of both musketeers and longbow men.

The French Revolution did not occur until the 18th century.

The Viking invasion and sack of Paris occurred in 845, centuries before the 16th century.

Following World War I, anti-British sentiment began to grow in the colonies. Desire for self-rule and the frustration of having served a country while incurring massive casualties without thanks led colonies to rally for independence.

Otto von Bismarck was a conservative chancellor of Prussia and Germany in the second-half of the nineteenth century. He is remembered for leading the unification of Germany through his able diplomacy and timely military conquests. His efforts ensured that Germany would be unified at the exclusion of Austria, and would therefore be dominated by the Prussian state. He also is remembered for preserving the balance of power in Europe in the 1870s and 1880s.

Simon Bolivar fought for South American independence from the Spanish Empire in the early nineteenth century. Bolivar was inspired by the enlightenment ideas he was exposed to during his education in Spain and returned to Latin America to lead the campaign for independence. His actions contributed to the independence of Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia. Bolivar served as President of Gran Colombia from its formation in 1819 until its demise in 1830.

Most revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were intimately connected to the Enlightenment, the intellectual movement that had recently swept through Europe. Many Enlightenment thinkers believed that man has a natural right to self-governance, which made republicanism attractive, while monarchy and imperialism became increasingly unacceptable. After these revolutions first broke out in America and France, many countries in central and South America were inspired to follow suit.

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of imperial Chinese history. In the early twentieth century civil disorder was breaking out all over China and the dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China (first in 1912, and then again in 1917) led by revolutionary leader Sun Yat-Sen.

Camillo di Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi were instrumental in the process of Italian unification that was completed in 1871. Cavour had been prime minister of Piedmont before Italian unification. Garibaldi was a military commander who led many campaigns for Italian independence.

Muhammad Ali is remembered for establishing the modern nation of Egypt and reigning over the territory from 1805 until 1848. His reign was marked by modernizing reforms and a dedicated effort to design an Egyptian State that could compete with the industrial powers of Europe. The dynasty he established would rule Egypt until the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.

The Haitian Revolution began as a series of slave revolts led by Toussaint-L’ouverture in the 1790s. The successes of the rebellion encouraged L’ouverture and others to transform the slave rebellion into an independence movement. Although L’ouverture was captured and imprisoned in France, the fight continued in his absence and, in 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared the independence of the Haitian republic.