You should know all about these *before* you start taking this course--but if you don't, take a look...
100 Events in Background World History
Year Key Events 1896 William Jennings Bryan [D] loses U.S. election to William McKinley [R]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeTkT5-w5RA 1896 Large-scale gold mining in South Africa's Witwatersrand
http://www.mindat.org/photo-158996.html1899 Start of the Boer War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rvz6O1vPWU1901 Assassination of McKinley; Theodore Roosevelt becomes President of the United States
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/cph/3a00000/3a08000/3a08600/3a08686r.jpg1905 U.S. Supreme Court decides Lochner case: Constitution held to enact Herbert Spencers's “social statics”
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/capitalism/landmark_lochner.html1910 Start of Mexican Revolution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbUw_GCskog&feature=PlayList&p=BF8C75DD02E5CE25&index=0&playnext=11911 Overthrow of the Qing Dynasty; declaration of the Chinese Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Xh1.jpg1912 Theodore Roosevelt splits Republican Party; Woodrow Wilson [D] elected President of the United States
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb30L-NmKjo1914 Start of World War I: France, Britain, Italy (from 1915), Russia (until 1917), and America (from 1917) vs. Germany, Austria, Turkey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZPiaSYmj_4&feature=related1917 Kerensky's Russian Revolution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMGrIwLj7gU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdpEaPxNW0g&feature=related1917 Lenin's Russian Revolution in October (really November)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGE6T3SRNAs1918 End of World War I; overthrow of the German Emperor (“Kaiser”); establishment of the “Weimar Republic”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABZcclM38jo&feature=PlayList&p=240BAFEB607EFFE1&index=27
http://www.history.stir.ac.uk/img/site-images/flagofweimar.jpg1919 Communist uprising in Germany: “Spartikist Rebellion”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-00540A,_Berlin,_Revolutionskämpfe.jpg1919 Treaty of Versailles to settle affairs after World War I
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/11/13/VersaillesLeaders460.jpg1919 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-wKcDkpqHE1921 Lenin adopts the “New Economic Policy”: a small-scale return to the market
http://faculty.unlv.edu/pwerth/NEP-Lenin.jpg1922 Mussolini marches on Rome; establishes first fascist regime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mF4ZjJ88wU1923 French and Belgian troops occupy Germany's Ruhr Valley to try to force reparations payments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUa5h6C4-j41923 End of German hyperinflation: $1 = 4,000,000,000,000 RM
http://dakiniland.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/inflation-1923.jpg1923 German World War I General Erich Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler attempt coup--”Beer Hall Putsch”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-BjUFV-aPs&feature=PlayList&p=7C19E39CBB61FAE2&index=81924 Death of Lenin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJU5H7sqQTc1925 Death of Sun Yatsen
http://nhs.needham.k12.ma.us/cur/Baker_00/2001_p6/baker_js_p6/Intro.jpg1925 Great Britain returns to the gold standard 1926 General Strike in Great Britain
http://unionbadges.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/british_worker.jpg1927 Chiang Kaishek's Kuomintang double-crosses his Communist allies; massacres in Shanghai
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Naval_Jack_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg1927 Stalin expels Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev from the Communist Party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfmSPYDb0FQ1928 Chiang Kaishek launches “Northern Expedition”
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Chiang1926.jpg1928 Launching of first Five Year Plan in the Soviet Union
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Pjatiletnu_prevratii_ve_chetuirekhletnu.jpg1929 Drive to “collectivize” agriculture in the Soviet Union: start of terror-famine in the Ukraine
http://pmeyer.web.wesleyan.edu/206/Derevnia.jpg
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/RM3.S.FACE.OF.FAM.JPG1929 The Wall Street stock market crash; start of the Great Depression
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWrX6kC9Nhs1930 Gandhi's “Salt March”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsBHeBXt5Qk1931 German Social Democratic Party rejects proposals to plan a “New Deal” for Germany
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERhilferding.JPG1932 Election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the United States
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oblTN1ojsAA&feature=PlayList&p=89F9180242B853AD&index=21933 Adolf Hitler becomes the last Chancellor of Germany's Weimar Republic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q-6H4xOUrs1933 Worst year of the Great Depression
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZHEkU__Ijw1934 Start of Mao Zedong's “Long March”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chinese_civil_way_map_03.jpg1935 Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposes and congress passes the Social Security Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chinese_civil_way_map_03.jpg1935 Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposes and congress passes the National Labor Relations Act 1936 Francisco Franco attempts to overthrow Spanish Republic: start of Spanish Civil War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atynzDwSbuo&feature=related1937 U.S. Supreme Court surprisingly declares NLRA constitutional: “the switch in time that saved nine” 1937 Marco Polo Bridge “incident”; start of World War II in Asia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lugou_battle.jpg1939 Final victory by Franco in Spanish Civil War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBhejsi9Z1c1939 Start of World War II in Europe; Nazi Soviet pact; Nazi invasion of Poland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmFT0YA2nY1940 Fall of Denmark, Norway, France to Nazis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq4RwuWnK_k1941 Nazi invasion of Soviet Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq4Pn2_pQAM1941 Imperial Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LJ7TDqHrmo&NR=1&feature=fvwp1942 “The End of the Beginning”: Battles of Midway, Guadalcanal, El Alamein, “Operation Torch”, and—most of all--”Operation Uranus”: Stalingrad
http://econc10.bu.edu/economic_systems/NatIdentity/images/stalingrad_5.jpg1944 Bretton Woods conference: agreement to found the IMF and World Bank
http://www.imf.org/external/np/arc/eng/fa/BWC/s5.htm1945 Yalta and Potsdam Conferences shape post-World War II world; Germany partitioned
http://students.umf.maine.edu/~devkota/Yalta%20Conference.jpg1945 Labour Party first wins majority in British House of Commons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Attlee_BW_cropped.jpg1945 Death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Harry S Truman becomes President of the United States
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kQZQAAEBFU&feature=PlayList&p=F4FA9C7B6C60E4DA&index=16&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/47/91847-004-669368AC.jpg1947 Harry S Truman begins the Cold War with the “Truman Doctrine” 1947 Britain grants independence to India and Pakistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5X7LzTrLYU1947 George Marshall proposes the “Marshall Plan”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUd2W6aMng41948 Stalinist coup in Czechoslovakia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edvard_Beneš.jpg1948 Stalin expels Yugoslavia from the Cominform
http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1955/1101550606_400.jpg1949 Proclamation of the People's Republic of China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRCFounding.jpg1950 Stalin slips Kim Il Sung's leash: the Korean War begins
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Korean_War_bombing_Wonsan.jpg1951 Treaty of Paris creates the European Coal and Steel Community 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decides Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, KS 1956 Khruschchev's "Secret Speech" denouncing Joseph Stalin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G5I9h6CFaM1956 Israel, France, and Britain attack Egypt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE9wzWLSXtg1956 Hungarian revolt against the Soviet Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKcm4OqzpwU1957 Treaty of Rome creates the European Economic Community of “the six” 1958 Mao Zedong launches Great Leap forward 1959 Lushan Plenum in China: “Disgrace” of Marshal Peng Dehuai 1961 Construction of Berlin Wall 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis 1963 Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Lyndon Johnson becomes President of the United States 1964 Civil Rights Act in the United States 1964 Overthrow of Nikita Khrushchev; replacement by Leonid Brezhnev 1964 Gulf of Tonkin “incident” off coast of Vietnam 1964 Barry Goldwater runs for President on a non-RINO platform: destruction of Republican congressional power 1965 Lyndon Johnson uses overwhelming congressional majorities for Medicare, Medicaid, Voting Rights Act 1965 Overthrow of Sukarno in Indonesia; massacres of Indonesian Communists (and many others); rise of Suharto 1966 Mao Zedong launches Cultural Revolution 1973 First “Oil Shock”: Syria and Egypt attack Israel on Yom Kippur 1974 Resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon 1975 Fall of South Vietnam 1975 Indira Gandhi declares “emergency” 1975 Death of Mao Zedong 1978 The “Southern Expedition” of Deng Xiaoping 1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain 1979 Khomeini's Iranian Revolution 1981 Ronald Reagan becomes President of the United States 1982 The “Volcker Deflation”: deepest post-World War II global recession (until now) 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power in the Soviet Union: “glasnost” and “perestroika” 1985 Rajiv Gandhi takes first steps toward dismantling the License Raj 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall 1989 Tien an Men Square massacre 1991 End of the Soviet Union 1993 William J. Clinton becomes President of the United States—only the second Democratic president since 1968 1993 U.S., Canada, and Mexico ratify NAFTA 1994 Mexican peso crisis 1998 East Asian financial crisis 1999 Vladimir Putin becomes Acting President of the Russian Federation 2000 Collapse of the dot-com bubble 2001 George W. Bush becomes President of the United States 2008 Failures of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG; start of largest post-World War II economic recession
Author: Josh Hausman.
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