Political Protest, Reforms, and Revolution - AP World History: Modern

Apartheid was the system of racial segregation used in South African society and was enforced through legislation passed by the National Party (NP) from 1948 until 1994. Minority rule by whites was maintained by this system while rights movements of the majority black population were oppressed. The system was eliminated with multi-racial election in 1994, in which Nelson Mandela came to power with the African National Congress party.

Under the strong influence of the Paris Commune, the French Legislative Assembly created a new government body, the Convention (named after the earlier American Constitutional Convention). Although the Convention was specifically created to write a new Constitution, instead the Convention’s members, as their very first act of governorship, officially declared France to now be a republic. This declaration, issued on September 21st, 1792, permanently ended France’s tenure as a constitutional monarchy and put King Louis XVI out of a job.

After the First World War President Ataturk of Turkey and the Shah of Iran laid out aggressive policies for the modernization of their two nations. These policies moved away from the religiously governed law codes, and enforced western culture, business, and legal practices.

Gandhi became famous for leading a revolution completely peacefully. His work began with the Salt March of 1930 which opposed harsh British tax practices. He insistent that change could be possible without mass violence.

Mao's Great Leap Forward was a policy designed to industrialize China in a few short years, but it resulted in tens, if not hundreds, of millions of deaths because the Chinese countryside was left without sustenance.

Numerous ancient Chinese emperors directed their populations to build the Great Wall as a buffer between China and the dangerous nomadic tribes who lived in what is today Mongolia, but Mao's Great Leap Forward was about industrialization; it had nothing to do with the wall or Mongolian nomads.

Mahatma Gandhi lived in a self-sustainable commune called an ashram; Mao's Great Leap Forward policy was actually a step away from such an agricultural type of community.

President Thomas Jefferson organized the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France which doubled the size of the United States; while Mao oversaw the invasion of nearby regions such as Tibet, this policy was not a part of the Great Leap Forward.

President Abraham Lincoln sought to end the US Civil War, in part, by destroying enemy infrastructure; Mao also destroyed enemy infrastructure in China's Civil War, but by the time of the Great Leap Forward the Chinese civil war was already over.

While Marx is primarily known for his writings that formed the philosophical basis for communism, he was also a supporter of the women's suffrage movement (if not particularly sensitive in his language on that subject).

The Young Turks that revolted in Iraq in 1908 were seeking both a new Iraqi identity and the use of European models of government and society. They challenged the Ottoman Empire's monarchy, and were influenced deeply by the European presence during and after World War I.

The Young Turks were young reformist military leaders who saw the Ottoman Empire's weakness as a chance to reinvent their society and identity.

Iran experienced a revolution in 1979 that led to the expulsion of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the western-minded and West-backed leader. Economic and political crises mounted in the 1970s, and Iran's two identities—the western, secular identity and the traditional, Islamic-based identity—collided. Iran turned towards Islam and eventually established a theocracy with shades of democracy after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

The Arab Spring was a historic wave of protests and government reformations throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East. In an unprecedented chain of events, protests in one country seemed to set off more protests in a different country.

The Arab Spring started in Tunisia, in December 2010. Very few countries in the region were immune from these protests, and social media played a critical role (even in countries that clamped down hard with media and communication restrictions).

In 1628 Parliament passed the Petition of Right, which set out guidelines for subjects on which the king had limited or no authority. The Bill of Rights refers to the first ten amendments to the American Constitution. Declaration of Rights refers to the 1776 American political document. The Treaty of Paris refers to the document that ended the American Revolutionary War.

In the wake of the English Civil War, Parliament invited William and Mary to rule over the nation, but insisted that they agree to the Declaration of Right, which outlined rights of the people, before they could take the throne.

King James II was dethroned and William, Prince of Orange and his wife Mary, daughter of James II, were made co-regents, king and queen. This change in power also resulted in the English Bill of Rights, which predates the American Bill of Rights by about 100 years.

After the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century, Mongol rulers (known as the Golden Horde and then the Great Horde) reigned over Muscovy for two centuries. In 1480, the Russian Prince Ivan III defeated the remaining forces of the Great Horde and ended the rule of the Mongols over Muscovy, thus establishing the independent Russian state.

While Queen Elizabeth I’s efforts to establish religious toleration within her country were largely quite successful, it was of course impossible for her to ensure the agreement of every English citizen. Elizabeth I’s Act of Supremacy angered and distressed not just some English Catholics but also Catholics across Western Europe, including those in Spain and Scotland, who felt that the Queen was polluting the Catholic faith through her Anglican Church. Throughout her long reign, the Queen faced numerous assassination attempts made on her life by Catholic assassins (who were either Catholic themselves or hired by internal/external Catholic forces). Spanish Catholics even attempted to murder Elizabeth I and replace her with her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Elizabeth I also faced opposition from other, less prominent, and less numerous religious groups. The Puritans – aka Presbyterians – were loyal to the essential concept of Anglicanism but they objected to some of the Catholic rituals that the national faith had retained. Elizabeth I acted shrewdly so as not to alienate the Puritans; she allowed them to form their own separate worshiping societies so long as they agreed not to challenge her position of ultimate power. The Congregationalists posed a bit more difficulty. These individuals were former Puritans who had left that group due to their more radical ideas and they refused to acknowledge Elizabeth I’s control over the Anglican Church or over England itself. Faced with such a seemingly anarchist threat, Elizabeth I and Parliament passed the Conventicle Act in 1593, which informed all Congregationalists that they must return to the Anglican Church on the penalty of exile or execution.

After King Charles II died in 1685, his brother James II became the new King of England. Immediately, Parliament was put on the defensive both because of James’s public support for English Catholics and his own recent public conversion to Catholicism. When Parliament refused to repeal the discriminatory Test Act, James dissolved the legislative body and appointed his own Catholic officials instead. The situation took another dire turn when James issued the 1687 Declaration of Indulgence, repealing the Test Act and allowing religious toleration, which was followed by the imprisonment of several oppositional Anglican clergy. It seemed that Parliament’s worst fears about their King and Catholics were coming true. The final straw came on June 20th, 1688, when James’s wife (who was also Catholic) gave birth to a baby boy. This sent Parliament into panic-mode – there was now a Catholic male heir to the English throne, who seemed poised to create a Catholic ruling dynasty in England. The frightened Parliament decided it had only one option to maintain its Anglican hold on the country: James would have to be removed from power and replaced with a Protestant ruler. In a bold and unprecedented move, Parliament wrote to William III of Orange, the current leader of the United Province of the Netherlands and a devout Protestant, and invited him to assemble his army, invade England, and evict James from the throne! This event, which succeeded, came to be known as the Glorious Revolution.

England’s Glorious Revolution unfolded in 1688, as William III of Orange and his army swept into the country. Compared to many other historic revolutions, this one was quite unique – overall, it proceeded quite calmly. The great majority of English citizens welcomed their new Parliament-chosen ruler. Consequently, William’s army didn’t face any opposition and was able to take over the country without engaging in a single instance of combat. The former King James II was allowed to escape the country unharmed and in 1689, Parliament formally appointed William III and his wife, Mary II, as King and Queen of England. As part of Parliament’s endorsement, a Bill of Rights was passed, which limited the new monarch’s powers. Under this Bill, William and Mary were treated as ordinary citizens under the law, Parliament couldn’t be dissolved for more than three years, Parliament was granted a say in choosing the nation’s next rulers, and any Catholic was permanently banned from occupying the English throne. In 1689, with William’s support, Parliament furthered this policy by passing the Toleration Act. While its name may sound otherwise, the Toleration Act actually restricted English Catholics even further. Under this Act, they were not allowed to worship freely and had no political rights in the new regime.

Just as King Louis XIV of France was determined to establish supremacy and security along France’s borders, he was equally as determined to control every inch of French political, social, and economic life. In his eyes, absolute control would bring him absolute power. In keeping with this mindset, Louis decided that the best way to keep order over his subjects was to embark on a campaign of religious conformity; by eradicating religious dissent, he believed he would partially rid his nation of any political dissent as well. To that end, Louis implemented many repressive religious policies and also banned outright several religious orders, such as the popular Jansenists. While many of these methods stirred up opposition amongst isolated patches of the French population, they didn’t provoke widespread popular discontent. But Louis made a terrible miscalculation in 1685 which entirely changed the status quo. In 1685, he revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had permitted French Catholics (known as Huguenots) to worship freely, and began to crack down on Huguenots in particular. His revocation of the Edict of Nantes outraged many French citizens, even those individuals who were not Huguenots but who nevertheless had regarded the historic Edict as a valuable peacekeeping tool that had prevented religious warfare in the country for many decades. Fearing for their liberties and personal safety, Huguenots left France in droves, which caused the economy to suffer greatly. Opposition to the revocation also arose outside France as well, as Protestants all across Europe began to consider Louis a dangerous threat to religious toleration and coexistence. Essentially, the revocation put a target on King Louis XIV’s back, one that was visible from both within and without his country’s borders.

James II ascended to the English throne in 1685 and ruled for three years before he was peacefully deposed in the so-called Glorious Revolution. James II was not a very palatable choice for monarch, from parliament’s perspective, due to the fact that he was an absolutist and a Catholic. The English Parliament, fresh from their victory in the English Civil War, refused to accept James II’s reign and invited William of Orange (the ruler of the Netherlands) to ascend the throne. William, and his wife Mary, became King and Queen of England in exchange for passing the English Bill of Rights, which, among other things, guaranteed the supremacy of Parliament.

Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan and a military leader of the Parliamentarian forces during the English Civil War. Following victory in the civil war, Cromwell became Lord Protector (de facto dictator) of Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Cromwell’s reign was quite unpopular as he instituted a number of puritanical policies (like the prohibition of alcohol and gambling), which were not welcomed by the English public. Cromwell’s reign is also marked by a series of atrocities committed against the native population of Ireland.