Konrad Adenauer-(b. Cologne, 5 Jan. 1876; d. 19 Apr. 1967) German; Chancellor of Federal Republic of Germany 1949 – 63, chief mayor of Cologne 1917 – 33 Together with Kohl, Adenauer must rank as the most successful German politician since 1945. He led the West Germans from being the most hated and despised people of Europe in 1945, to being amongst the most repected and successful by the late 1950s. No one could have predicted his rise, or that of the future West German state, in 1945.

Adenauer was the son of a civil servant and, after graduating in law and economics, embarked on a legal career in the public service. He turned later to politics, joining the Catholic Centre Party in 1906. Elected to the Cologne city council, he was put in charge of food supplies after the outbreak of war in 1914. From 1917 to 1933 he was chief mayor of Cologne, guiding his fellow citizens through the shockof defeat, Occupation (1918 – 26), and then, after brief prosperity, through the crisis years to 1933. His detractors later claimed that during this period he was prepared to make too many concessions to the French and even discuss the setting up of a separate West German state. The Nazis removed Adenauer from office, pensioning him off. He lived quietly until arrested in a general round up after the 20 July 1944 bomb plot against Hitler. He remained in prison for three months.

In 1945 the Americans reinstated Adenauer as mayor but the British, who replaced them, later removed him. Although 69 he was elected chairman of the Christian Democratic Union in the British Zone in 1946. He had helped to found this party which, backed by the Catholic church, was meant to supersede the old Centre Party, and reach out beyond Catholics. It would combat the Marxism of the left, but would tackle the problems of the underprivileged. Adenauer was elected chairman of the ParliamentaryCouncil charged with drawing up a constitution for a new German republic. Unlike the SPD's Schumacher, he was favoured by the three Western occupying powers as a conciliator. The greater demands made by the SPD helped him to win concessions from the Allies. At 73 he took the CDU and the Bavarian CSU into the first federal election in 1949. Together CDU/CSU emerged as the biggest party with 31 per cent; the SPD achieved 29.2 per cent. Adenauer then built up a nonsocialist alliance. He persuaded FDP leader Heuss to back him as Chancellor in return for the CDU/CSU voting for Heuss as President. Adenauer scraped in as Chancellor by one vote. When in 1951 the Allies revised the Occupation regime to allow the Federal Republic to conduct foreign relations Adenauer became Foreign Minister as well as Chancellor.

Adenauer offered the Western Allies a German defence contribution, set up the Coal and Steel Community, acquiesced in the Saar being separated from Germany, made restitution to the Jews, and much more, Many Germans did not find all of this attractive. Rearmament in particular was not popular. However, economic problems were at the forefront of people's thoughts. When asked about themost important problem facing West Germany in 1951, 45 per cent said economic problems but only 18 per cent mentioned reunification. By 1955 only 28 were concerned with economics, 34 with reunification. In 1950 35 per cent of those questioned named Bismarck as the person who had done most for Germany, Hitler scored 10 per cent. By 1956 Bismarck had fallen to 27 per cent, Hitler to 8 per cent, but Adenauer was mentioned by 24 per cent. By 1967 Adenauer scored 60 per cent.

In 1955 the Federal Republic regained its sovereignty and had its own armed forces. It was recognized by almost all the Western and Third World states and even by the Soviet Union. Communist East Germany was totally isolated. On 1 January 1957 the Saar became part of the Federal Republic. Adanauer was a strong advocate of German co-operation with other West European states and was a founder member in March 1957 of the European Economic Community. West Germany was once againa respected partner abroad and at home the economy was booming. Moreover, various potentially troublesome groups, like the millions of Germans expelled from the "lost territories" or those who fled from the GDR, were given relatively generous help and Adenauer turned a blind eye to former Nazis in

the public service. The CDU/CSU reaped its electoral reward. In 1953 it gained 45.2 per cent of the vote, the SPD only 28.8 per cent. In 1957, after an election campaign built around Adenauer, the slogan"No experiments!", and one or two dirty tricks, it won 50.2 per cent, the SPD 31.8 per cent, and the FDP 7.7. This is the only time in German history in democratic elections that one party has achieved more than 50 per cent of the vote.

Just before the 1961 elections in August, the Communists cut off East Berlin and started to erect the infamous Wall. Adenauer and the West appeared to be powerless. This weakened Adenauer's thesis that if the West were strong enough it could roll back Communism. At the 17 September election the CDU/CSU percentage vote fell to 45.3, the SPD, led by Brandt, rose to 36.2, and the FDP to 12.8. The crushing of the East German rising in June 1953 had helped the CDU/CSU in the election of that year, the suppression of the Hungarian revolution in 1956 helped them in 1957. Unexpectedly, this time public opinion had gone the other way.

To remain in office Adenauer needed FDP support. He set a date for his retirement. Yet he still hoped tomaintain his influence through election as the next President of the Federal Republic. He found little support among his colleagues for this and agreed to retire in 1963.

The Berlin crisis caused friction between Adenauer and President Kennedy, Adenauer felt the US administration was weakening its stand and seeking an understanding with the Soviets at the cost of theGermans. Adenauer was a strong advocate of German co-operation with other West European states, and Germany was a founder member of the EC. Adenauer turned therefore to de Gaulle's France and his last great achievement was the signing of the Franco-German Friendship Treaty (January 1963). It became the cornerstone of relations between the two states and was the culmination of Adenauer's efforts at Franco-German reconciliation. His pro-French policy caused a rift between him and his successor Erhard, who preferred a greater balance between France, the USA, and Britain.

Christian Democracy-Christian democracy has been a successful post-war political movement in Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, Latin America. Its sociological and ideological origins, however, lie in the mobilization of Catholics in response to the emergence of liberal capitalism in the nineteenth century. The explicit challenge to the position of the Church launched by the French Revolution forced Catholics to accept democratic political forms and defend Catholic interests through the promotion of Catholic secondary associations (particularly Catholic unions and schools). Traditional institutions central to Christian practice—in particular, the family and a harmonious social order—were considered to be facing a dual attack: first, from the corrosive effects of industrialization and laissez-faire liberalism, and secondly, from increasing state regulation of social life. From the 1850s onwards, Vatican-sponsored ‘Catholic Action Groups’ campaigned to limit the power of the emerging Italian state, and sizeable political Catholic groups emerged in the German-speaking areas of Europe.

Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) liberated Catholicism from moral opposition to democracy, and stimulated further political mobilization. Electoral success came first to the Italian ‘Popular Party’ under the leadership of Luigi Sturzo in 1919, while the German ‘Centre’ Party was a coalition mainstayof the Weimar Republic. By this time, political Catholicism had developed an ambiguous stance towards the exertion of state power: while hostility to socialism and communist forms of ownership remained a dominant theme, the initial opposition to capitalism had by 1914 moderated into recommendations for social improvement through strong welfare legislation. This ambivalence towardsthe role of government is reflected in the work of the foremost theorist of Christian Democracy,

Jacques Maritain, whose contempt for strong states is coupled with specific provisions for state intervention given the failure of industrial capitalism to serve ‘the common good’.

Fascism repressed and discredited most of these political groups—most offered weak resistance to right-wing extremism, some (e.g. the Austrian Christian-Social Party) gave it support. At war's end in 1945, however, the strains of mild conservatism and scepticism towards active government held formidable appeal. Promoted heavily by the victorious Allies as a bulwark against communism, newly constituted Christian Democratic parties in Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands won office, either as single-party administrations or as important elements of ruling coalitions. The popularity of these post-war parties rests more on their inoffensive centrism than on anydistinctive ideological platform. Consequently, and somewhat ironically given the ideological ancestry of Christian Democracy, electoral support derives from a largely middle-class and interdenominational suspicion of threats to the liberal capitalist order (particularly from ‘the left’). In the 1960s and 1970s, Christian Democracy suffered a relative demise as the threat of communism receded, and socialist opponents moderated their platforms. In Latin America, however, Christian Democratic parties, championing democratic stability through restraint of traditionally overactive states, achieved brief electoral success during this period (notably in Chile and Venezuela, and in the 1980s in Ecuador, Guatemala, and El Salvador). During the 1980s, Christian Democracy enjoyed a resurgence as part of the general rightward swing of European electorates (with the partial exception of the spectacular collapse of the DC in Italy in 1993).

Blaise Pascal- (born June 19, 1623, Clermont-Ferrand, Francedied Aug. 19, 1662, Paris) French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. The son of a mathematician, he was a child prodigy, earning the envy of Ren Descartes with an essay he wrote on conic sections in 1640. In the 1640s and '50s he made contributions to physics (formulating Pascal's law) and mathematics (working on the arithmetic triangle, inventing a calculating machine, and contributing to the advance of differential calculus). For work done in his early years, he is regarded as the founder of the modern theory of probability. At the same time, he became increasingly involved with Jansenism. Les Provinciales were a series of letters defending Jansenism and attacking the Jesuits. His great work of Christian apologetics, Apologie de la religion chrtienne, was never finished, but he put together most ofhis notes and fragments between 1657 and 1658; these were published posthumously as Penses (1670). He returned to scientific work, contributing to the lements de gomtrie and publishing his findings on cycloid curves, but he soon returned to devotional life and spent his last years helping the poor.

Vaclav Havel-b. Prague, 5 Oct. 1936) Czech; President of Czechoslovakia 1989 – 93, President of the Czech Republic 1993 – 2003 Havel was born into a family of upper-middle-class origin — his grandfather had been a well-known architect. He was denied entry into university because of his "bourgeois" origins and attended evening classes at Prague Technical University while working as a laboratory assistant and taxi-driver. He started his career as a writer in 1961. In 1963 his first play was produced: The Garden Party was a satire on the Novotný regime. Havel graduated from the Prague theatrical academy in 1967. He worked in Prague for the "Theatre on the Balustrade" which flourished in the years 1967 – 8. He wrote plays for this theatre and worked as a stage-hand. In 1968, during the "Prague Sping" he became chairman of the Czechoslovak Writer's Union. Performance of his work wasbanned in 1969, but he continued to write and his plays were popular in the West. In April 1975 he wrote an Open Letter to President Husák criticizing the regime. He was a founder member of the human rights group Charter 77 whose programme was announced on 1 January 1977. He was gaoled from January to May 1977 and put under house arrest until 1979, when he was again imprisoned. He

was released on grounds of health in 1983. In January 1989 he was sent back to gaol, despite an outcry in the West, and released in May 1989. In November 1989 during the "Velvet Revolution" he played a pivotal role in co-ordinating the popular rising against the Communist regime and in articulating an opposition programme. One month later he was elected President by the Czechoslovak Assembly after Husák's resignation and confirmed in office by popular vote in 1990. Havel regretted the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1992 but believed that there was no way to prevent it. In January 1993 he was elected President of the Czech Republic.

Copernicus-(born Feb. 19, 1473, Toru, Pol.died May 24, 1543, Frauenburg, East Prussia) Polish astronomer. He was educated at Krakw, Bologna, and Padua, where he mastered all the knowledge of the day in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and theology. Elected a canon of the cathedral of Frauenburg in 1497, he took advantage of his financial security to begin his astronomical observations. His publication in 1543 of Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs marked a landmark of Western thought ( Copernican system). Copernicus had first conceived of his revolutionarymodel decades earlier but delayed publication because, while it explained the retrograde motion of the planets (and resolved their order), it raised new problems that had to be explained, required verificationof old observations, and had to be presented in a way that would not provoke the religious authorities. The book did not see print until he was on his deathbed. By attributing to Earth a daily rotation around its own axis and a yearly revolution around a stationary Sun, he developed an idea that had far-reachingimplications for the rise of modern science. He asserted, in contrast to Platonic instrumentalism, that astronomy must describe the real, physical system of the world. Only with Johannes Kepler was Copernicus's model fully transformed into a new philosophy about the fundamental structure of the universe.

Dostoevsky-born Nov. 11, 1821, Moscow, Russiadied Feb. 9, 1881, St. Petersburg) Russian novelist. Dostoyevsky gave up an engineering career early in order to write. In 1849 he was arrested for belonging to a radical discussion group; sentenced to be shot, he was reprieved at the last moment and spent four years at hard labour in Siberia, where he developed epilepsy and experienced a deepening of his religious faith. Later he published and wrote for several periodicals while producing his best novels.His novels are concerned especially with faith, suffering, and the meaning of life; they are famous for their psychological depth and insight and their near-prophetic treatment of issues in philosophy and politics. His first, Poor Folk (1846), was followed the same year by The Double. The House of the Dead (1862) is based on his imprisonment and The Gambler (1866) on his own gambling addiction. Best known are the novella Notes from the Underground (1864) and the great novels Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), The Possessed (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), which focuses on the problem of evil, the nature of freedom, and the characters' craving for some kind of faith. By the end of his life, he had been acclaimed one of his country's greatest writers, and his works had a profound influence on 20th-century literature.

Council of Trent-154563) 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic church, which made sweeping reforms and laid down dogma clarifying nearly all doctrines contested by the Protestants. Convened by Pope Paul III at Trento in northern Italy, it served to revitalize Roman Catholicism in many parts of Europe. In its first period (154547) it accepted the Nicene Creed as the basis of Catholic faith, fixed the canon of the Old and New Testaments, set the number of sacraments at seven, and defined the nature and consequences of original sin; it also ruled against Martin Luther's doctrine of

justification by faith. In its second period (155152) it confirmed the doctrine of transubstantiation and issued decrees on episcopal jurisdiction and clerical discipline. In the final period (156263) it defined the mass as a true sacrifice and issued statements on several other doctrinal issues. By the end of the 16th century, many of the abuses that had motivated the Protestant Reformation had disappeared, and the church had reclaimed many of its European followers.

Niccol Machiavelli-(born May 3, 1469, Florencedied June 21, 1527, Florence) Italian statesman, historian, and political theorist. He rose to power after the overthrow of Girolamo Savonarola in 1498. Working as a diplomat for 14 years, he came in contact with the most powerful figures in Europe. He was dismissed when the Medici family returned to power in 1512, and during the next year he was arrested and tortured for conspiracy. Though soon released, he was not permitted to return to public office. His famous treatise The Prince (1513, published 1532) is a handbook for rulers; though dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence from 1513, it failed to win Machiavelli his favour. Machiavelli viewed The Prince as an objective description of political reality. Because he viewed human nature as venal, grasping, and thoroughly self-serving, he suggested that ruthless cunning is appropriate to the conduct of government. Though admired for its incisive brilliance, the book also has been widely condemned as cynical and amoral, and Machiavellian has come to mean deceitful, unscrupulous, and manipulative. His other works include a set of discourses on Livy (completed 1518),the comedy The Mandrake (completed 1518), The Art of War (published 1521), and the Florentine Histories (completed 1525).

Issac Newton-(born Jan. 4, 1643, Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, Eng.died March 31, 1727, London) English physicist and mathematician. The son of a yeoman, he was raised by his grandmother. He was educated at Cambridge University (166165), where he discovered the work of Ren Descartes. His experiments passing sunlight through a prism led to the discovery of the heterogeneous, corpuscular nature of white light and laid the foundation of physical optics. He built the first reflecting telescope in 1668 and became a professor of mathematics at Cambridge in 1669. He worked out the fundamentals of calculus, though this work went unpublished for more than 30 years. His most famous publication, Principia Mathematica (1687), grew out of correspondence with Edmond Halley. Describing his works on the laws of motion ( Newton's laws of motion), orbital dynamics, tidal theory, and the theory of universal gravitation, it is regarded as the seminal work of modern science. He was elected president ofthe Royal Society of London in 1703 and became the first scientist ever to be knighted in 1705. During his career he engaged in heated arguments with several of his colleagues, including Robert Hooke (overauthorship of the inverse square relation of gravitation) and G.W. Leibniz (over the authorship of calculus). The battle with Leibniz dominated the last 25 years of his life; it is now well established that Newton developed calculus first, but that Leibniz was the first to publish on the subject. Newton is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time.

Rene Descartes-(born March 31, 1596, La Haye, Touraine, Francedied Feb. 11, 1650, Stockholm, Swed.) French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher, considered the father of modern philosophy. Educated at a Jesuit college, he joined the military in 1618 and traveled widely for the next 10 years. In1628 he settled in Holland, where he would remain until 1649. Descartes's ambition was to introduce into philosophy the rigour and clarity of mathematics. In his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), he

undertook the methodical doubt of all knowledge about which it is possible to be deceived, including knowledge based on authority, the senses, and reason, in order to arrive at something about which he can be absolutely certain; using this point as a foundation, he then sought to construct new and more secure justifications of his belief in the existence and immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and the reality of an external world. This indubitable point is expressed in the dictum Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). His metaphysical dualism distinguished radically between mind, the essence of which is thinking, and matter, the essence of which is extension in three dimensions. Though his metaphysics is rationalistic ( rationalism), his physics and physiology are empiricistic ( empiricism) and mechanistic ( mechanism). In mathematics, he founded analytic geometry and reformed algebraic notation.

Mejji Restoration-in Japanese history, the political revolution that brought about the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and returned control of the country to direct imperial rule under the emperor Meiji, beginning an era of major political, economic, and social change known as the Meiji period (1868–1912). This revolution brought about the modernization and Westernization of Japan.

The leaders of the restoration, mostly young samurai from feudal domains historically hostile to Tokugawa authority, were motivated by growing domestic problems and the threat of foreign encroachment. Adopting the slogan “wealthy country and strong arms” (fukoku-kyōhei), they sought tocreate a nation-state capable of standing equal among Western powers. As expressed in the Charter Oath of 1868, the first goal of the new government, relocated to Tokyo (formerly Edo), was the dismantling of the old feudal regime. This was largely accomplished by 1871, when the domains were officially abolished and replaced by a prefecture system. All feudal class privileges were also abolished. In the same year a national army was formed, which was further strengthened in 1873 by a universal conscription law. The new government also carried out policies to unify the monetary and tax systems, with the agricultural tax reform of 1873 providing its primary source of income.

The revolutionary changes carried out by restoration leaders acting in the name of the emperor faced increasing opposition in the mid-1870s. Disgruntled samurai participated in several rebellions against the government, the most famous being led by the former restoration hero Saigō Takamori. These uprisings were repressed only with great difficulty by the newly formed army. Peasants, distrustful of the new regime and dissatisfied by its agrarian policies, also took part in revolts that reached their peak in the 1880s. At the same time, a growing popular rights movement, encouraged by the introduction of liberal Western ideas, called for the creation of a constitutional government and wider participation through deliberative assemblies. Responding to these pressures, the government issued a statement in 1881 promising a constitution by 1890. In 1885 a Cabinet system was formed, and in 1886 work on theconstitution began. Finally in 1889 the constitution, presented as a gift from the emperor to the people, was officially promulgated. It established a bicameral parliament, called the Diet (gikai), to be elected through a limited voting franchise. The first Diet was convened the following year, 1890.

Economic and social changes paralleled the political transformation of the Meiji period. Although the economy remained dependent on agriculture, industrialization was the primary goal of the government,which directed the development of strategic industries, transportation, and communications. The first railroad was built in 1872, and by 1890 there were more than 1,400 miles (2,250 km) of rail. The telegraph linked all major cities by 1880. Private firms were also encouraged by government financial support and aided by the institution of a European-style banking system in 1882. These efforts at modernization required Western science and technology, and under the banner of “Civilization and

Enlightenment” (bunmei kaika) Western culture, from current intellectual trends to clothing and architecture, was widely promoted. Wholesale Westernization was somewhat checked in the 1880s, however, when a renewed appreciation of traditional Japanese values emerged. Such was the case in the development of a modern educational system which, though influenced by Western theory and practice, stressed the traditional values of samurai loyalty and social harmony. The same tendency prevailed in art and literature, where Western styles were first imitated, and then a more selective blending of Western and Japanese tastes was achieved.

By the early 20th century, the goals of the Meiji Restoration had been largely accomplished. Japan was well on its way to becoming a modern industrial nation. The unequal treaties that had granted foreign powers judicial and economic privileges through extraterritoriality were revised in 1894; and with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 and its victory in two wars (over China in 1895 and Russia in 1905), Japan gained respect in the eyes of the Western world, appearing for the first time on the international scene as a major world power. The death of the emperor Meiji in 1912 marked the end of the period.

Hiroshima-This modern city in southern Honshu, Japan's main island, has one tragic claim to fame: It was the first city ever destroyed by an atomic bomb, on August 6, 1945, at 8:15 in the morning. Kids have been taught about this tragic chapter in world history, but the full impact of it can only be felt here, at the first Ground Zero.Peace Memorial Park (Heiwa Koen) lies in the center of Hiroshima. Among the memorials you'll see are the A-Bomb Dome, the skeletal ruins of the former Industrial Promotion Hall; the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound, which contains the ashes of 70,000 unidentified victims; the Memorial Cenotaph, with the names of all of those killed by the bomb; the Peace Flame, which will burn until all atomic weapons vanish from the earth; and Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, with its panorama of the bombed city, made of 140,000 tiles (one for every Hiroshiman who died by the end of 1945). The memorial kids will be most affected by is the Children's Peace Monument—a statue of a girl with outstretched arms, and rising above her a crane, a traditional Japanese symbol of happiness and longevity. Streamers of paper cranes from school kids all over Japanflutter in the breeze around her. The statue is based on a real-life girl who suffered from the effects of radiation after the bombing. Believing that if she could fold 1,000 paper cranes she would become well again, she folded 1,300 cranes—but still died of leukemia.The main focus of the park is the Peace Memorial Museum. Its East Building tells of Hiroshima before and after the bomb, and rather than presenting the city as a blameless victim, as was done for years, these exhibits own up to Hiroshima's militaristic past. The museum also documents Hiroshima's currentdedication to abolishing nuclear weapons. Be prepared to self-edit your walk-through of the Main Building, for many of its images of the bomb's effects are too graphic for young children—photographsof burned and seared skin, charred remains of bodies, and people with open wounds. There's a bronze Buddha that was half-melted in the blast; some granite steps show a dark shadow that suggests someone had been sitting there at the time of the explosion—the shadow is all that remains.Visiting Peace Memorial Park is a sobering experience, but perhaps a necessary one. What was droppedon Hiroshima is small compared to the bombs of today. The decision whether or not to use them will someday be in the hands of our children—let's make sure they know what chaos they could be unleashing.

Charles Darwin-(born Feb. 12, 1809, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Eng.died April 19, 1882, Downe, Kent)

British naturalist. The grandson of Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and biology at Cambridge. He was recommended as a naturalist on HMS Beagle, which was bound on a long scientific survey expedition to South America and the South Seas (183136). His zoological and geological discoveries on the voyage resulted in numerous important publications and formed the basis of his theories of evolution. Seeing competition between individuals of a single species, he recognized that within a local population the individual bird, for example, with the sharper beak might have a better chance to survive and reproduce and that if such traits were passedon to new generations, they would be predominant in future populations. He saw this natural selection as the mechanism by which advantageous variations were passed on to later generations and less advantageous traits gradually disappeared. He worked on his theory for more than 20 years before publishing it in his famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). The book was immediately in great demand, and Darwin's intensely controversial theory was accepted quickly in most scientific circles; most opposition came from religious leaders. Though Darwin's ideas were modified by later developments in genetics and molecular biology, his work remains central to modern evolutionary theory. His many other important works included Variation in Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868) and The Descent of Man (1871). He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Darwinism.

Positivism-Any philosophical system that confines itself to the data of experience, excludes a priori or metaphysical speculations, and emphasizes the achievements of science. Positivism is closely connected with empiricism, pragmatism, and logical positivism. More narrowly, the term designates thephilosophy of Auguste Comte, who held that human thought had passed inevitably through a theological stage into a metaphysical stage and was passing into a positive, or scientific, stage. Believing that the religious impulse would survive the decay of revealed religion, he projected a worship of mankind, with churches, calendar, and hierarchy.

Ottomans-were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı (corrupted in European languages as "Ottoman"), from the house of Osman I (reigned ca. 1299-1326), the founder of the dynasty that ruled the Ottoman empire for 620 years. After the expansion from its home in Bithynia, the Ottoman principality began incorporating other Turkish-speaking Muslims and non-Turkish Christians, becoming the Ottoman Turks and ultimately the Turks of the present. The Ottoman Turks blocked all land routes to Europe by conquering the city of Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, and Europeans had to find other ways to trade with Eastern countries.

Peter I-(1682) and Emperor (1721) of Russia (1672-1725) Statesman, military leader, and diplomat, founder of Russian power and influence in Europe, of the regular Russian army and fleet, and of a national arms industry. Born Peter Alekseyevich Romanov, the son of Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich by his second wife, Peter was in constant danger from his half-sister Sofia and in 1682 he and his mother retreated to the village of Preobrazhenskoy near Moscow. Young Peter was fascinated by militaria and was soon drilling his own poteshnye—‘play soldiers’—recruited from his friends and experimenting

with an old sailing boat, the origin of the Russian navy. In 1687 the poteshnye were reinforced by drafting men from the old streltsy regiments of Moscow and formed into two new, western-style regiments of the Imperial Guard, the Preobrazhenskiy and Semenovskiy.

In 1695 and 1696 Peter and his evolving army made two expeditions to the Turkish-held stronghold of Azov, in the south, the second of which was successful, establishing Russian power on the Sea of Azov.From March 1697 to July 1698 Peter made his famous incognito trip to the west, visiting Sweden, Prussia, Holland, and England and building up a vast store of naval, military, and scientific knowledge for his later reforms. His trip was curtailed by news of the final streltsy revolt. Peter then completed thetransformation to a modern regular army on the western model, which had begun under his father, Tsar Aleksey. His strategic focus also shifted west, towards Europe and access to it via the Baltic, with the Great Northern war. Peter's new army saw its first action against the Swedes at Narva in 1700, but clearly had much to learn. They surrounded the Swedish fortress with about 34, 000 troops but the Swedish relief force, emerging from the woods, only 11, 000 strong, tore into them, killing up to 8, 000and capturing all their artillery. Although Narva was a disaster, Peter continued his strategy of dominating the Gulf of Finland and securing access to the sea. By 1703 the Russians had the eastern end of the Gulf, and on 16 May the foundation stone of the Petropavlovsk—Peter and Paul—fortress was laid on the estuary of the river Neva. The growing settlement around was called Sankt Peter Burk, in Dutch: St Petersburg.

At Poltava on 27 June 1709, the first battle where Peter took personal command, the new Russian armyscored its first victory over a western army, and one of Russia's greatest military triumphs. The Swedes,led by Charles XII, by now outnumbered nearly two to one and short of ammunition, nevertheless attacked a strongly defended Russian camp, and lost about half their strength killed and wounded. Historically, the Russians had been considered cowardly, lazy, and better at siege warfare than in the open field. This battle announced a new style.

In the ensuing years, Russia grew stronger, and foreign observers, including the Hanoverians and the English, newly joined, expressed anxiety about the growth of Russian power. Towards the end of his reign, Peter again turned south, seizing Derbent in 1722 and Baku and Reshut in 1723, gains recognized by the Persians and the Turks. The creation of three new fleets reflected the strategic direction of Peter's campaigns: the Baltic, the Azov, and the Caspian. The Baltic was the biggest and, by the end of the Great Northern war, had 124 Russian-built craft and 55 taken from the Swedes, including twenty sail of the line. Because the waters of the Baltic and the Sea of Azov were often shallow, galleys proved especially useful and Peter had 416 by the end of the Northern war. Although Peter drew much from foreign advisers, especially Scotsmen like Patrick Gordon, James Bruce, and G. B. Ogilvy, and the Swiss Franz Lefort, he also thought profoundly and wrote at length about the art of war. The Code of 1716 and Rules of Combat (1708) were his own work and drew heavily on his own experience. By the end of his reign Russia, according to a French diplomat writing to Louis XIV in 1723, ‘whose very name was scarcely known, has now become the object of attention of the greater powers of Europe, who solicit its friendship’.

Catherine the Great-(born May 2, 1729, Stettin, Prussiadied Nov. 17, 1796, Tsarskoye Selo, near St. Petersburg, Russia) German-born empress of Russia (176296). The daughter of an obscure German prince, she was chosen at age 14 to be the wife of the future Peter III. The marriage was a complete failure. Because her neurotic husband was incapable of ruling, the ambitious Catherine saw the

possibility of eliminating him and governing Russia herself. After Peter became emperor in 1762, she conspired with her lover, Grigory G., Count Orlov, to force Peter to abdicate (he was murdered soon after) and have herself proclaimed empress. In her 34-year reign she led Russia into full participation inEuropean political and cultural life. With her ministers she reorganized the administration and law of the Russian Empire and extended Russian territory, adding the Crimea and much of Poland. Though she had once intended to emancipate the serfs, she instead strengthened the system she had once condemned as inhuman. She had great energy and wide interests, and her personal life was notable for her many lovers, including Grigory Potemkin.

Qing Dynasty-(16441911/12) Last of the imperial dynasties in China. The name Qing was first applied to the dynasty established by the Manchu in 1636 in Manchuria and then applied by extension to their rule in China. During the Qing dynasty, China's territory and population expanded tremendously. Cultural attitudes were strongly conservative and Neo-Confucianism was the dominant philosophy. Thearts flourished: literati painting was popular, novels in the vernacular developed substantially, and jingxi (Peking opera) developed. Qing porcelain, textiles, tea, paper, sugar, and steel were exported to all parts of the world. Military campaigns in the latter part of the 18th century depleted government finances, and corruption grew. These conditions, combined with population pressures and natural disasters, led to the Opium Wars and the Taiping and Nian rebellions, which in turn so weakened the dynasty that it was unable to rebuff the demands of foreign powers. The dynasty ended with the republican revolution of 1911 and the abdication of the last emperor in 1912.

Alexander Dubcek-(b. Uhrovec, western Slovakia, 27 Nov. 1921; d. Prague, 7 Nov. 1992) Slovak; leader of the Slovak Communist Party 1963 – 8, leader of the Czechoslovak Party 1968 – 9. The son of a Communist carpenter, Dubček spent his childhood from 1925 to 1938 in the Soviet Union. He joined the illegal Slovak Communist Party in 1939. In August 1944 he participated in the Slovak National Uprising and was wounded. Until 1949 Dubček held a variety of menial and factory jobs. He then entered the party apparatus full-time, working in Trenčin, and was appointed to the Slovak Central Committee in 1951. Early in 1953 he was promoted to post of regional secretary of the Banská Bystricaarea in central Slovakia. In 1958 he was made regional secretary for Bratislava and member of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Party. In 1960 he made his only trip to the West, visiting Finland. In June 1960 he became a secretary of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Party and entered the Czechoslovak Party Presidium in 1963. In May 1963 he replaced Karol Bacílek as Slovak Party leader, defeating Novotný's candidate, Michal Chudík. In June 1966 Chudík and Novotný failed to oust Dubček from leadership of the Slovak Party. In October 1967 Dubček led the revolt against Novotný of reformists and Slovak nationalists within the Czechoslovak Central Committee and replaced Novotný as First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Party in January 1968. Impelled by economic crisis and popular expectations, Dubček's regime enacted a series of far-reaching measures intended to create "socialism with a human face". The culmination was the "Action Programme" of April 1968, by which the party announced reforms including basic civil rights, an independent judiciary, and economicdecentralization. From 29 July to 2 August Dubček met the Soviet leaders at Čierna-nad-Tisou in Slovakia. He promised to maintain the one-party system and to keep Czechoslovakia within the Warsaw Pact. On the night of 20 – 1 August 1968 the forces of the Warsaw Pact intervened in Czechoslovakia. Dubček and five other leaders were arrested and taken to Moscow, but were soon returned to Prague. In 1969 Husák replaced Dubček as party leader and he became President of the

Federal Assembly. In 1970 he was removed from office and expelled from the party. From then until 1989 he worked as a forest warden in Slovakia. He sided with the democratic opposition during the "Velvet Revolution" of 1989 which brought down the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, but did not play a significant political role thereafter. He died after a car crash in 1992.

Aztecs-Nahuatl-speaking people who in the 15th and early 16th centuries ruled a large empire in what is now central and southern Mexico. They may have originated on the northern Mexican plateau before migrating to their later location. Their migration may have been linked to the collapse of the Toltec civilization. The Aztec empire, which at its height comprised roughly five to six million people spread over some 80,000 sq mi (200,000 sq km), was made possible by their successful agricultural methods, including intensive cultivation, irrigation, and reclamation of wetlands. The Aztec state was despotic, militaristic, and sharply stratified according to class and caste. Aztec religion was syncretic, drawing especially on the beliefs of the Maya. The Aztec practiced human sacrifice, an activity that sometimes reached mass proportions. The empire came to an end when the Spanish conquistador Hernn Corts tookthe emperor Montezuma II prisoner and conquered the great city Tenochtitln (modern Mexico City). Nahua.

George Kennan-(1904- ), diplomat and historian. Kennan, one of the few outstanding American public intellectuals of the twentieth century, is best known as "the father of containment" and therefore as a key figure in the emergence of the cold war. This is not a wholly undeserved reputation, although he only articulated more eloquently than others what was taking place. But his "long telegram" from Moscow in 1946 and the article he wrote the next year under the pseudonym "X" have rightly been seen as foundational texts of the cold war, expressing and legitimating Washington's new and vigorously anti-Soviet policy.Kennan, who played a leading role in the formulation of many crucial policies of this period, most notably the Marshall Plan, assumed that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and had to be "contained"--stopped from expanding in places of vital importance to the West. Since the Russians were thought to be fanatics, they were impossible to talk with. Stopping them therefore meant the abandonment of real diplomacy--in effect, a period of deep freeze coupled with tit-for-tat moves until frustration either broke the Soviet regime or mellowed it to the point where it could be made to see Western reason. Insofar as no "real diplomacy" was indeed the characteristic mark of the cold war, Kennan was its most sophisticated originating spirit.By mid-1948, however, Kennan had become convinced that the situation in Western Europe had improved to the point where negotiations could be initiated with Moscow with a view to creating a unified Germany outside the power configurations of East and West. The suggestion did not resonate within the Truman administration, in part because the idea of a divided Europe had come to seem a useful arrangement. Kennan was thus increasingly marginalized.In 1950 he left the State Department, except for two brief ambassadorial stints in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and became a leading "realist" critic of American foreign policy. Intelligent pursuit of the national interest seemed to him impossible given such a decentered system of government, such an ingrained need to moralize by projecting American values on the world, such a basic lack of a sense of limits. His long-standing disenchantment with the mass culture of consumerism also surfaced. In the 1960s, he was, oddly, a celebrated critic of both the Vietnam War and the student revolt.

Throughout these years he wrote voluminously, publishing several important historical works on the Soviet Union and Soviet-American relations and, more recently, a multivolume treatise on the origins of the First World War. His Memoirs is a work of lasting literary value and one of the great American autobiographies. In the 1970s and 1980s he joined in the public debate as a profound and unbending critic of the arms race.

Spanish colonization-comprised territories and colonies administered by the Spanish Crown in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was one of the first global empires. Under the Spanish Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its political and economic power when its empire became the foremost global power. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire's establishment in the 15th century ushered in the modern global era and the rise of European dominance in global affairs.[1] Spain's territorial reach beyond Europe spanned five centuries, from the first voyages to the Americas in 1492 until the loss of its last African colonies in 1975.

Woodrow Wilson-(born Dec. 28, 1856, Staunton, Va., U.S.died Feb. 3, 1924, Washington, D.C.) 28th president of the U.S. (191321). He earned a law degree and later received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. He taught political science at Princeton University (18901902). As its president (190210), he introduced various reforms. With the support of progressives, he was elected governor of New Jersey. His reform measures attracted national attention, and he became the Democratic Party presidential nominee in 1912. His campaign emphasized his progressive New Freedom policy, and he defeated Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft to win the presidency. As president, he approved legislation that lowered tariffs, created the Federal Reserve System, established the Federal Trade Commission, and strengthened labour unions. In foreign affairs he promoted self-government for the Philippines and sought to contain the Mexican civil war. From 1914 he maintained U.S. neutrality in World War I, offering to mediate a settlement and initiate peace negotiations. After the sinking of the Lusitania (1915) and other unarmed ships, he obtained a pledge from Germany to stop its submarine campaign. Campaigning on the theme that he had kept us out of war, he was narrowly reelected in 1916, defeating Charles Evans Hughes. Germany's renewed submarine attacks on unarmed passenger ships caused Wilson to ask for a declaration of war in April 1917. In a continuing effort to negotiate a peace agreement, he presented the Fourteen Points (1918). He led the U.S. delegation to the Paris PeaceConference. The Treaty of Versailles faced opposition in the Senate from the Republican majority led by Henry Cabot Lodge. In search of popular support for the treaty and its provision creating the Leagueof Nations, Wilson began a cross-country speaking tour, during which he collapsed. He returned to Washington, D.C. (September 1919), where he suffered a massive stroke that left him partially paralyzed. In the months that followed, his wife Edith controlled access to him, made some decisions by default, and engineered a cover-up of his condition. He rejected any attempts to compromise his version of the League of Nations and urged his Senate followers to vote against ratification of the treaty, which was defeated in 1920. He was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Incas-Group of South American Indians who ruled an empire that extended along the Pacific coast and

Andes Mountains from what is now northern Ecuador to central Chile. According to tradition (the Inca left no written records), the founder of the Incan dynasty led the tribe to Cuzco, which became their capital. Under the fourth emperor, they began to expand, and under the eighth they began a program of permanent conquest by establishing garrisons among the conquered peoples. Under Topa Inca Yupanqui and his successor, the empire reached its southernmost and northernmost extent. By the early 16th century the Inca controlled an empire of some 12 million subjects. They constructed a vast network of roads, their architecture was highly developed, and the remains of their irrigation systems, palaces, temples, and fortifications are still in evidence throughout the Andes. Incan society was highly stratified and featured an aristocratic bureaucracy. Their pantheon, worshiped in a highly organized state religion, included a sun god, a creator god, and a rain god. The Incan empire was overthrown in 1532 by the Spanish conquistadores, who made great use of the Incan road system during their conquests. The Inca's descendants are the Quechua-speaking peasants of the Andes ( Quechua). In Perunearly half the population is of Incan descent. They are primarily farmers and herders living in close-knit communities. Their Roman Catholicism is infused with belief in pagan spirits and divinities. Andean civilization; Atahuallpa; Aymara; Chim; Francisco Pizarro.

Mayans-Group of Mesoamerican Indians who between 250 and 900 developed one of the Western Hemisphere'sgreatest civilizations. By 200 they had developed cities containing palaces, temples, plazas, and ball courts. They used stone tools to quarry the immense quantities of stone needed for those structures; their sculpture and relief carving were also highly developed. Mayan hieroglyphic writing survives in books and inscriptions. Mayan mathematics featured positional notation and the use of the zero; Mayanastronomy used an accurately determined solar year and precise tables of the positions of Venus and theMoon. Calendrical accuracy was important for the elaborate rituals and ceremonies of the Mayan religion, which was based on a pantheon of gods. Ritual bloodletting, torture, and human sacrifice wereemployed in an attempt to propitiate the gods, ensure fertility, and stave off cosmic chaos. At the heightof its Classic period, Mayan civilization included more than 40 cities of 5,00050,000 people. After 900 the civilization declined rapidly for unknown reasons. Descendants of the Maya are now subsistence farmers in southern Mexico and Guatemala. Chichn Itz; Copn; Lacandn; Maya codices; Maya language; Quich; Tikal; Tzeltal; Tzotzil; Uxmal.

Deseret-An area proposed by the Mormons in 1849 as an independent state or a state of the Union. Deseret would have included much of the southwest United States, with a capital at Salt Lake City. Congress refused to recognize the provisional state and created the Utah Territory in 1850.

British Revolution of 1688-also called Revolution of 1688, or Bloodless Revolution , in English history, the events of 1688–89 that resulted in the deposition of James II and the accession of his daughter Mary II and her husband, William III, prince of Orange and stadholder of the Netherlands.

After the accession of James II in 1685, his overt Roman Catholicism alienated the majority of the

population. In 1687 he issued a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending the penal laws against dissentersand recusants, and in April 1688 ordered that a second Declaration of Indulgence be read from every pulpit on two successive Sundays. William Sancroft, the archbishop of Canterbury, and six other bishops petitioned him against this and were prosecuted for seditious libel. Their acquittal almost coincided with the birth of a son to James’s Roman Catholic queen, Mary of Modena (June). This eventpromised an indefinite continuance of his policy and brought discontent to a head. Seven eminent Englishmen, including one bishop and six prominent politicians of both Whig and Tory persuasions, wrote inviting William of Orange to come over with an army to redress the nation’s grievances.

William was both James’s nephew and his son-in-law, and, until the birth of James’s son, his wife, Mary, was heir apparent. William’s chief concern was to check the overgrowth of French power in Europe, and he welcomed England’s aid. Thus, having been in close touch with the leading English malcontents for more than a year, he accepted their invitation. Landing at Brixham on Tor Bay (November 5), he advanced slowly on London, as support fell away from James II. James’s daughter Anne and his best general, John Churchill, were among the deserters to William’s camp; thereupon James fled to France.

William was now asked to carry on the government and summon a Parliament. When this Convention Parliament met (January 22, 1689), it agreed, after some debate, to treat James’s flight as an abdication and to offer the Crown, with an accompanying Declaration of Right, to William and Mary jointly. Both gift and conditions were accepted. Thereupon the convention turned itself into a proper Parliament and large parts of the Declaration into a Bill of Rights. This bill gave the succession to Mary’s sister, Anne, in default of issue to Mary; barred Roman Catholics from the throne; abolished the Crown’s power to suspend laws; condemned the power of dispensing with laws “as it hath been exercised and used of late”; and declared a standing army illegal in time of peace.

The settlement marked a considerable triumph for Whig views. If no Roman Catholic could be king, then no kingship could be unconditional. The adoption of the exclusionist solution lent support to John Locke’s contention that government was in the nature of a social contract between the king and his people represented in parliament. The revolution permanently established Parliament as the ruling power of England.

Enlightenment-European intellectual movement of the 17th18th century in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and man were blended into a worldview that inspired revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of reason. For Enlightenment thinkers, received authority, whether in science or religion, was to be subjectto the investigation of unfettered minds. In the sciences and mathematics, the logics of induction and deduction made possible the creation of a sweeping new cosmology. The search for a rational religion led to Deism; the more radical products of the application of reason to religion were skepticism, atheism, and materialism. The Enlightenment produced modern secularized theories of psychology and ethics by men such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, and it also gave rise to radical political theories. Locke, Jeremy Bentham, J.-J. Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Thomas Jefferson all contributed to an evolving critique of the authoritarian state and to sketching the outline of a higher form of social organization based on natural rights. One of the Enlightenment's enduring legacies is the belief that human history is a record of general progress.

Great Awakening-Religious revival in British North America from 1720 into the 1740s. It was part of a movement, known as Pietism or Quietism on the European continent and evangelicalism in England, that swept Western Europe in the late 17th and early 18th century under the leadership of preachers such as John Wesley. In North America the Great Awakening was a Protestant evangelical reaction against formalism and rationalism in religion, and it had a strong Calvinist element. Revivalist preachers emphasized the need for sinners to fear punishment and to hope for the unearned gift of gracefrom God. George Whitefield (17141770) was one of the most popular, preaching to huge crowds throughout the colonies in 173940. Jonathan Edwards also helped inspire the Great Awakening and wasits most important theologian. Among its results were missions to the Indians and the founding of colleges (including Princeton Univ.). Another revival known as the Second Great Awakening occurred in New England and Kentucky in the 1790s.

Johannes Kepler-(born Dec. 27, 1571, Weil der Stadt, Wrttembergdied Nov. 15, 1630, Regensburg) German astronomer. Born into a poor family, he received a scholarship to the University of Tbingen. He received an M.A. in 1594, after which he became a mathematics teacher in Austria. He developed a mystical theory that the cosmos was constructed of the five regular polyhedrons, enclosed in a sphere, with a planet between each pair. He sent his paper on the subject to Tycho Brahe, who invited Kepler tojoin his research staff. In attempting to understand atmospheric refraction of light, he became the first to explain accurately how light behaves within the eye, how eyeglasses improve vision, and what happens to light in a telescope. In 1609 he published his finding that the orbit of Mars was an ellipse and not the perfect circle hitherto presumed to be the orbit of every celestial body. This fact became thebasis of the first of Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. He also determined that planets move faster as they near the Sun (second law), and in 1619 he showed that a simple mathematical formula related the planets' orbital periods to their distance from the Sun (third law). In 1620 he defended his mother from charges of witchcraft, thereby preserving his own reputation as well.

Martin Luther-(born Nov. 10, 1483, Eisleben, Saxonydied Feb. 18, 1546, Eisleben) German priest who sparked the Reformation. Luther studied philosophy and law before entering an Augustinian monastery in 1505. He was ordained two years later and continued his theological studies at the University of Wittenberg, where he became a professor of biblical studies. On a trip to Rome in 1510 he was shockedby the corruption of the clergy and was later troubled by doubts centring on fear of divine retributive justice. His spiritual crisis was resolved when he hit on the idea of justification by faith, the doctrine that salvation is granted as a gift through God's grace. He urged reform of the Roman Catholic Church, protesting the sale of indulgences and other abuses, and in 1517 he distributed to the archbishop of Mainz and several friends his Ninety-five Theses (according to legend, Luther nailed the theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg); the theses questioned Roman Catholic teaching and called for reform. In 1521 he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X and declared an outlaw at the Diet of Worms (Worms, Diet of). Under the protection of the elector of Saxony, Luther took refuge in Wartburg. There he translated the Bible into German; his superbly vigorous translation has long been regarded as the greatest landmark in the history of the German language. He later returned to Wittenberg, and in 1525 he married the former nun Katherine of Bora, with whom he raised five children. Though his preachingwas the principal spark that set off the Peasants' War (152425), his vehement denunciation of the peasants contributed to their defeat. His break with Rome led to the founding of the Lutheran Church ( Lutheranism); the Lutheran confession of faith or, Augsburg Confession, was produced with Luther's

sanction by Philipp Melanchthon in 1530. Luther's writings included hymns, a liturgy, and many theological works.

John Calvin-(born July 10, 1509, Noyon, Picardy, Francedied May 27, 1564, Geneva, Switz.) French Protestant theologian and major figure of the Reformation. He studied religion at the University of Paris and law in Orlans and Bourges. When he returned to Paris in 1531 he studied the Bible and became part of a movement that emphasized salvation by grace rather than by works. Government intolerance prompted him to move to Basel, Switz., where he wrote the first edition of Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536). Gaining a reputation among Protestant leaders, he went to Geneva to help establish Protestantism in that city. He was expelled by city fathers in 1538 but returned in 1541, when the town council instituted the church order outlined in his Ecclesiastical Ordinances, including enforcement of sexual morality and abolition of Catholic superstition. He approved the arrest and conviction for heresy of Michael Servetus. By 1555 Calvin had succeeded in establishing a theocracy in Geneva, where he served as pastor and head of the Genevan Academy and wrote the sermons, biblical commentaries, and letters that form the basis of Calvinism.

Frederick the Great-(born Jan. 24, 1712, Berlindied Aug. 17, 1786, Potsdam, near Berlin) King of Prussia (174086). The son of Frederick William I, he suffered an unhappy early life, subject to his father's capricious bullying. After trying to escape in 1730, he submitted to his father but continued to pursue intellectual and artistic interests. On his father's death (1740), Frederick became king and asserted his leadership. He seized parts of Silesia during the War of the Austrian Succession, strengthening Prussia considerably. He invaded Saxony in 1756 and marched on into Bohemia. Frederick was almost defeated in the Seven Years' War (175663), until his admirer Peter III signed a Russo-Prussian peace treaty that lasted until 1780. The First Partition of Poland in 1772 led to enormous territorial gains for Prussia. Austro-Prussian rivalry led to the War of the Bavarian Succession (177879), a diplomatic victory for Frederick, but continued fear of Habsburg ambitions led him to form a league of German states against Joseph II. Under Frederick's leadership Prussia became one of the great states of Europe, with vastly expanded territories and impressive military strength. In addition to modernizing the army, Frederick also espoused the ideas of enlightened despotism and instituted numerous economic, civil, and social reforms.

Suleiman the Magnificent-(1494-1566), Ottoman Turk sultan who ruled from 1520, when Ottoman power was at its zenith. Lord of ‘the realms of the Romans, the Persians and the Arabs’, his empire stretched from Algiers to Azerbaijan and from Moldova to Yemen. One Venetian ambassador reported fancifully, if not inaccurately, that his empire bordered those of Spain, Persia, and of Prester John (the fabled emperor of Abyssinia).

Suleiman succeeded his father, Selim ‘the Grim’, on 1 October 1520. At first, the Christian West welcomed the accession of a man renowned as a scholar. But never would the Ottoman empire be as

admired or feared as under Suleiman. He inherited a superb military machine which worked because, unlike western European armies of the time, the forces were promptly paid and supported by a superb administration. He could put an army of 100, 000 into the field centred on the professional corps of janissaries, Christian-born men from the Balkans, carefully selected and superbly trained, particularly in military—and therefore general—engineering. He was also helped by the schism in the Christian Church which coincided with his accession. The same year, Luther set the Reformation in train. Unlike Selim, who had directed Ottoman expansion east and south, Suleiman sensed it was time to move west.In 1521 he took Belgrade and moved against Rhodes, which had been an unwelcome Christian strong point in the eastern Mediterranean for 200 years. The knights withdrew to Malta on New Year's Day, 1523. In a characteristic aside, Suleiman said he was sad to make the Grand Master, an old man, leave his home and his belongings. In 1526 he defeated a foolhardy attack by the Hungarian army at Mohacs,and captured Buda, but delayed the formal annexation of Hungary for twenty years, allowing the Hungarians to squabble among themselves. In 1532 he perhaps met his match in the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, Charles V. The Ottoman army was held up unexpectedly by the stubborn resistance at Guns, 70 miles (113 km) south-east of Vienna, and Charles did not make the mistake of moving out to meet the Ottomans, as the Hungarians had.

The Ottoman army possessed some of world's most powerful artillery, but still preferred the powerful composite bow to the muskets now becoming dominant in western European armies. Suleiman's last campaign in 1566 was another incursion into Habsburg territory, with the largest army he had ever assembled. On 7 September he died in his tent, among his troops, in the siege of Szigeth. His grand vizier kept his death secret, embalmed the body, and carried it home as if it were alive. He was succeeded by his bibulous son Selim II, ‘the Sot’.

Brigham Young-(born June 1, 1801, Whitingham, Vt., U.S.died Aug. 29, 1877, Salt Lake City, Utah) U.S. religious leader, second president of the Mormon church. He settled in Mendon, N.Y., in 1829 andwas baptized into Joseph Smith's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1832. In 1834 he joinedthe Mormons in Missouri, and when they were driven out in 1838, he organized their move to Nauvoo, Ill. He established a Mormon mission in England in 1839. After Smith's murder in 1844, Young took over the church. He led the persecuted Mormons from Illinois to Utah (184648), choosing the site of Salt Lake City for the new Mormon headquarters. Elected president of the Mormons in 1847, he became governor of the provisional state of Deseret in 1849 and of the territory of Utah in 1850. His dictatorial autonomy and legalization of polygamy led Pres. James Buchanan to replace him as governor in 1857 and send the army to assert federal supremacy in the so-called Utah War, but Young remained head of the Mormon church until his death. He took more than 20 wives and fathered 47 children.

Lech Walesa-(b. Popowo, 29 Sept. 1943) Polish; chairman of Solidarity 1981 – 2000, President 1990 – 95 Wałęsa was the son of a carpenter. After elementary education and three years' vocational training hemoved to Gdańsk, where he worked as an electrician in the Lenin Shipyards. He was determined to secure recognition for the workers shot by the regime after the food riots of 1970. In 1976 he joined in demonstrations against the government's watering-down of the economic concessions it had made in 1970 and as a result was dismissed from his job. From 1976 to 1980 he was unemployed and edited an underground newspaper. At the same time he was a prominent member of the Workers' Self-Defence

Committee, an unofficial organization which had close links with the Catholic intelligentsia. In August 1980 the workers of Gdańsk went on strike at the government's raising food prices. Wałęsa climbed into the Lenin Shipyards where his former colleagues recognized him as leader of the strike which soonspread. At the end of the month, Wałęsa led a committee which negotiated with the Communist regime.On 30 August the government granted the workers' right to form independent trade unions and their right to strike as well as general freedom of expression. These concessions were unprecedented in the Soviet Bloc. In September 1980, Wałęsa became chairman of Solidarity, the newly created national organization of the independent trade unions. By the time of its first congress in September 1981, Solidarity had 9½ million members. Wałęsa tried to play a moderating role within the organization. A devout Catholic himself he was in close touch with the primate of Poland, Cardinal Glemp, and was advised by members of the Catholic intelligentsia, such as Tadeusz Mazowiecki. He was unable to restrain the radical wing of Solidarity, which pushed for a greater share of political power. After General Jaruzelski's declaration of martial law in December 1981, Wałęsa was put under house arrest for eleven months. Upon his release he resumed leadership of the now underground Solidarity organization. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his defence of the Polish workers. He donated the money to charity. Solidarity refused to co-operate with Jaruzelski's programme of economic reform, which failed.

In January 1989 the Communist regime legalized Solidarity and Wałęsa played a key role in the negotiations between trade union, church, and state which led to the partially free elections of May 1989. In September 1989 Wałęsa's candidate, Mazowiecki, formed the first non-Communist government since the 1940s. In April 1990 Wałęsa was re-elected chairman of Solidarity. Over the year a split within Solidarity grew, partly because of Wałęsa's criticism of the slow pace of political reform and the harsh social consequences of rapid marketization. When Jaruzelski resigned as President in November he stood against Mazowiecki and Polish-born Canadian émigré, Tymiński. In the first electoral round he gained only 40 per cent of the vote against Tymiński's 23 per cent and Mazowiecki's 18 per cent. But in the second round he won a decisive victory with 74 per cent of the vote against Tymiński's 26 per cent, and became President in December 1990. His popularity continued to be erodedby austerity and he was narrowly defeated by the reformed Communist candidate in the presidential elections of January 1996.

Karol Wojtyla-(born May 18, 1920, Wadowice, Pol.died April 2, 2005, Vatican City; beatified May 1, 2011; feast day October 22) Pope (19782005), the bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Catholic Church, the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first ever from a Slavic country. He studied for the priesthood at an underground seminary in Krakw during World War II and was ordained in 1946. He earned a doctorate in philosophy in Rome (1948) and returned home to serve in a parish, earning a second doctorate (also 1948), in sacred theology, from the Jagiellonian University. He became archbishop of Krakw in 1964 and cardinal in 1967. Elected pope after the 33-day pontificate of John Paul I (b. 1912d. 1978), he became known for his energy, charisma, and intellect as well as for his conservative theological views and fervent anticommunism. In 1981 John Paul was shot in St. Peter's Square by a Turkish gunman, but he recovered, resumed his work, and forgave his would-be assassin. His trips abroad attracted some of the largest crowds ever assembled. His nonviolent activism spurred movements that contributed to the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. He championed economic and political justice in developing nations. In naming 44 cardinals from five continents (February 2001), John Paul reached out to cultures around the world. He also canonized more saints,

from more parts of the world, than had any other pope. His ecumenical efforts, including meetings withJewish, Muslim, and Eastern Orthodox religious leaders, were widely praised, but he often drew criticism for his traditionalist views on issues of gender and sexuality. Although afflicted with Parkinson disease since the early 1990s, John Paul remained active and made a historic trip to Jerusalem in March 2000, during which he sought to improve relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Jews. He was beatified on May 1, 2011.

fin de siècle-The end of the nineteenth century; the phrase is French for “end of the century.” Fin de siècle is particularly used to describe the period's self-conscious artistic movements and a sophisticated despair that became popular at the time. Oscar Wilde is one of the best-known fin-de-siècle figures.

Congress of Vienna-The Vienna Congress provided the conclusion to the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Negotiations took place in France from February to April of 1814, in London during June of that year, in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815, and then again in Paris from July to November of 1815. The chief representatives included Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereigh of Britain; his ally, Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich of Austria; Fürst Karl August von Hardenberg of Prussia; and Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Bénévent of France. Tsar Alexander I directed the Russians, aided and influenced by his diverse multi-national coterie of assistants: Count Andreas Razumovsky, who was ambassador to Austria; the Westphalian Graf Karl Robert von Nesselrode, who served as a quasi-foreign minister; the Corfu Greek Count Ioánnis Antónios Kapodstrias; the Corsican Count Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo; the Prussian Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein; the Alsatian Anstedt; and the Pole Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski.At the peak of his influence in early 1814, Alexander directed the non-punitive occupation of Paris and the exile of Napoleon I to Elba. The Treaty of Chaumont established the Quadruple Alliance to contain France, while the first Treaty of Paris restored the French monarchy. Alexander also helped block a Prussian scheme to frustrate France and Austrian designs on Switzerland and Piedmont-Sardinia, but supported the attachment of Belgium to the Netherlands and part of the Rhineland to Prussia as checks on French power. In London, however, he frightened the British with plans to reunite the ethnic Polish lands as his own separate kingdom.At Vienna, the British, Austrians, and French thwarted this scheme, which was supported by a Prussia bent on annexing all of Saxony. By January 1815 Alexander was ready to compromise, an attitude strengthened by Napoleon's temporary return to power in March. The Final Act of June 4, 1815, drawn up by Metternich's mentor, Friedrich Gentz, reflected this spirit of compromise. Austria retained Galicia, and Prussia regained Poznan and Torun, and also acquired part of Saxony and more of the Rhineland. Most of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw became the tsarist Kingdom of Poland. Denmark obtained a small duchy as partial compensation for Norway, which the Swedish crown acquired as Russian-sponsored compensation for the loss of Finland. A German Confederation dominated by Austria and, to a lesser extent, Prussia, but with Russian support for such middle-sized states as Württemberg, replaced the defunct Holy Roman Empire. The Ottomans remained outside the Final Act,refusing to allow Anglo-French-Austrian mediation of differences with Russia as a precondition of a general guarantee.Back in Paris, Alexander promoted the Holy Alliance, which Metternich insisted be an ideal brotherhood of Christian sovereigns, not peoples, as the Russian emperor envisioned. Of the

Europeans, only the British, the Papacy, and the Ottomans refused to sign it. The (Congress of) Vienna system weathered revolutions and diplomatic crises. Except for Belgian independence in 1830, Europe's borders remained essentially stable until 1859.

Napoleon-(born Aug. 15, 1769, Ajaccio, Corsicadied May 5, 1821, St. Helena Island) French general and emperor (180415). Born to parents of Italian ancestry, he was educated in France and became an army officer in 1785. He fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and was promoted to brigadier general in 1793. After victories against the Austrians in northern Italy, he negotiated the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797). He attempted to conquer Egypt (179899) but was defeated by the British under Horatio Nelson in the Battle of the Nile. The Coup of 1819 Brumaire brought him to power in 1799, and he installed a military dictatorship, with himself as First Consul. He introduced numerous reforms in government, including the Napoleonic Code, and reconstructed the French education system. He negotiated the Concordat of 1801 with the pope. After victory against the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo (1800), he embarked on the Napoleonic Wars. The formation of coalitions of European countries against him led Napoleon to declare France a hereditary empire and to crown himself emperor in 1804. He won his greatest military victory at the Battle of Austerlitz against Austria and Russia in 1805. He defeated Prussia at the Battles of Jena and Auerstedt (1806) and Russia at the Battleof Friedland (1807). He then imposed the Treaty of Tilsit on Russia, ending the fourth coalition of countries against France. Despite his loss to Britain at the Battle of Trafalgar, he sought to weaken British commerce and established the Continental System of port blockades. He consolidated his European empire until 1810 but became embroiled in the Peninsular War (180814). He led the French army into Austria and defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Wagram (1809), signing the Treaty of Vienna. To enforce the Treaty of Tilsit, he led an army of about 600,000 into Russia in 1812, winning the Battle of Borodino, but was forced to retreat from Moscow with disastrous losses. His army greatly weakened, he was met by a strong coalition of allied powers, who defeated him at the Battle of Leipzig (1813). After Paris was taken by the allied coalition, Napoleon was forced to abdicate in 1814 and was exiled to the island of Elba. In 1815 he mustered a force and returned to France to reestablish himself as emperor for the Hundred Days, but he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. He was sentinto exile on the remote island of St. Helena, where he died six years later. One of the most celebrated figures in history, Napoleon revolutionized military organization and training and brought about reforms that permanently influenced civil institutions in France and throughout Europe.

Karl Marx-(born May 5, 1818, Trier, Rhine province, Prussia [Ger.]died March 14, 1883, London, Eng.) German political philosopher, economic theorist, and revolutionary. He studied humanities at the University of Bonn (1835) and law and philosophy at the University of Berlin (183641), where he was exposed to the works of G.W.F. Hegel. Working as a writer in Cologne and Paris (184245), he became active in leftist politics. In Paris he met Friedrich Engels, who would become his lifelong collaborator. Expelled from France in 1845, he moved to Brussels, where his political orientation matured and he and Engels made names for themselves through their writings. Marx was invited to join a secret left-wing group in London, for which he and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto (1848). In that same year, Marx organized the first Rhineland Democratic Congress in Germany and opposed the king of Prussia when he dissolved the Prussian Assembly. Exiled, he moved to London in 1849, where he spent

the rest of his life. He worked part-time as a European correspondent for the New York Tribune (185162) while writing his major critique of capitalism, Das Kapital (3 vol., 186794). He was a leadingfigure in the First International from 1864 until the defection of Mikhail Bakunin in 1872. Marxism; communism; dialectical materialism.

Robert E. Lee-(born Jan. 19, 1807, Stratford, Westmoreland county, Va., U.S.died Oct. 12, 1870, Lexington, Va.) U.S. and Confederate military leader. He was the son of Henry Lee. After graduating from West Point, he served in the engineering corps and in the Mexican War under Winfield Scott. He transferred to the cavalry in 1855 and commanded frontier forces in Texas (185657). In 1859 he led U.S. troops against the slave insurrection attempted by John Brown at Harpers Ferry. In 1861 he was offered command of a new army being formed to force the seceded Southern states back into the Union. Though opposed to secession, he refused. After his home state of Virginia seceded, he became commander of Virginia's forces in the American Civil War and adviser to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. Taking command of the Army of Northern Virginia (1862) after Joseph Johnston was wounded, Lee repulsed the Union forces in the Seven Days' Battles. He won victories at Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. His attempts to draw Union forces out of Virginia by invading the North resulted in failures at Antietam and Gettysburg. In 186465 he conducted defensive campaignsagainst Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant that caused heavy Union casualties. Lee ended his retreat behind fortifications built at Petersburg and Richmond ( Petersburg Campaign). By April 1865 dwindling forces and supplies forced Lee, now general of all Confederate armies, to surrender at Appomattox Court House. After several months of recuperation, he accepted the post of president of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University), where he served until his death.

Great Depression-Longest and most severe economic depression ever experienced by the Western world. It began in the U.S. soon after the New York Stock Market Crash of 1929 and lasted until about 1939. By late 1932 stock values had dropped to about 20 of their previous value, and by 1933 11,000 ofthe U.S.'s 25,000 banks had failed for a combination of reasons, including declining property values, bank runs by panicked customers, and defaults on loans. These and other conditionsworsened by monetary policy mistakes, adherence to the gold standard (until 1933), and the introduction of voluntary wage-and-price controls through the National Recovery Administrationled to much-reduced levels of demand and hence of production, resulting in high unemployment (by 1932, 2530). Since the U.S. was the major creditor and financier of postwar Europe, the U.S. financial breakdown precipitated or exacerbated economic failures around the world, especially in Britain and Germany. Isolationism spread as nations sought to protect domestic production by imposing tariffs and quotas, ultimately reducing the value of international trade by more than half by 1932. The Great Depression contributed to political upheaval. It led to the election of U.S. Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, who upon taking office declared a national bank holiday during which all banks were closed until being deemed solvent by government inspectors. He also introduced major changes in the structure of the U.S. economy through his New Deal programs of economic relief and reform. The Great Depression also advanced Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933 and fomented political extremism in other countries. Before the Great Depression, governments relied on impersonal market forces to achieve economic correction. Afterward, government action came to assume a principal role in ensuring economic stability.

Fascism-Philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state's authority, and harsh suppression of dissent. Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged. Fascism arose during the 1920s and '30s partly out of fear of the rising power of the working classes; it differed from contemporary communism (as practiced under Joseph Stalin) by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems. The leaders of the fascist governments of Italy (192243), Germany (193345), and Spain (193975)Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Francisco Francowere portrayed to their publics as embodiments of the strength and resolve necessary to rescue their nations from political and economic chaos. Japanese fascists (193645) fostered belief in the uniqueness of the Japanese spirit and taught subordination to the state and personal sacrifice. totalitarianism; neofascism.

Holocaust-Systematic state-sponsored killing of Jews and others by Nazi Germany and its collaboratorsduring World War II. Fueled by anti-Semitism, the Nazi persecution of Jews began soon after Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933 with a boycott of Jewish businesses and the dismissal of Jewish civil servants. Under the Nrnberg Laws (1935), Jews lost their citizenship. About 7,500 Jewish businesses were gutted and some 1,000 synagogues burned or damaged in the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, and thereafter Jews were imprisoned in concentration camps or forced into ghettos. German victories early in World War II (193945) brought most European Jews under the control of the Nazis and their satellites. As German armies moved into Poland, the Balkans, and the Soviet Union, special mobile killing units, the Einsatzgruppen, rounded up and killed Jews, Roma (Gypsies), communists, political leaders, and intellectuals. Other groups targeted by the Nazis included homosexuals and the mentally retarded, physically disabled, and emotionally disturbed. At the Wannsee Conference (1942), a final solution was formulated for the extermination of European Jewry, and thereafter Jews from all over Nazi-occupied Europe were systematically evacuated to concentration and extermination camps, where they were either killed or forced into slave labour. Underground resistance movements arose in several countries, and Jewish risings took place against overwhelming odds in the ghettos of Poland ( Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). Individuals such as Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands by their efforts; whether the Allied governments and the Vatican could have done more to aid Jews has long been a matter of controversy. By the end of the war, an estimated six million Jews and millions of others had been killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.

Ronald Reagan-(born Feb. 6, 1911, Tampico, Ill., U.S.died June 5, 2004, Los Angeles, Calif.) 40th president of the U.S. (198189). He attended Eureka College and worked as a radio sports announcer before going to Hollywood in 1937. In his career as a movie actor, he appeared in more than 50 films and was twice president of the Screen Actors Guild (194752, 195960). In the mid-1950s he became a spokesman for the General Electric Co.; he hosted its television theatre program from 1954 to 1962. Having gradually changed his political affiliation from liberal Democrat to conservative Republican, hewas elected governor of California in 1966 and served two terms. In 1980 he defeated incumbent Pres. Jimmy Carter to become president. Shortly after taking office, he was wounded in an assassination attempt. His administration adopted policies based on supply-side economics in an effort to promote

rapid economic growth and reduce the federal deficit. Congress approved many of his proposals (1981), which succeeded in lowering inflation but doubled the national debt by 1986. He began the largest peacetime military buildup in U.S. history; in 1983 he proposed construction of the Strategic Defense Initiative. His administration concluded a treaty with the Soviet Union to restrict intermediate-range nuclear weapons, conducted a proxy war against Nicaragua through its support of the Contras, and invaded Grenada ostensibly to prevent the island nation from becoming a Soviet outpost. He was reelected by a large margin in 1984. Beginning in 1986, the Iran-Contra Affair temporarily weakened his presidency. Though his intellectual capacity for governing was often disparaged by his critics, his affability and artful communication skills enabled him to pursue numerous conservative policies with conspicuous success, and his tough stance toward the Soviet Union is often credited with contributing to the demise of Soviet communism. In 1994 he revealed that he had Alzheimer disease.

Richard Nixon- (born Jan. 9, 1913, Yorba Linda, Calif., U.S.died April 22, 1994, New York, N.Y.) 37th president of the U.S. (196974). He studied law at Duke University and practiced in California (193742). After serving in World War II, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1946). As a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee, he received national attention for his hostile questioning of Alger Hiss. In 1950 he was elected to the Senate following a bitter campaign in which he unfairly portrayed his opponent as a communist sympathizer; the epithet Tricky Dick dates from this period. He won the vice presidency in 1952 as the running mate of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. During the campaign he delivered a nationally televised address,the Checkers speech (named for the dog he admitted receiving as a political gift), to rebut charges of financial misconduct. He and Eisenhower were reelected easily in 1956. As the Republican presidentialcandidate in 1960, he lost narrowly to John F. Kennedy. After failing to win the 1962 California gubernatorial race, he announced his retirement from politics and criticized the press, declaring that it would not have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore. He moved to New York to practice law. He reentered politics by running for president in 1968, narrowly defeating Hubert H. Humphrey with his southern strategy of seeking votes from southern and western conservatives in both parties. As president, he began to withdraw U.S. military forces from South Vietnam while resuming the bombing of North Vietnam. His expansion of the Vietnam War to Cambodia and Laos in 1970 provoked widespread protests in the U.S. He established direct relations with China and made a state visit there in 1972, the first by a U.S. president. On a visit to the Soviet Union later that year, he signed agreements resulting from the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union held between 1969 and 1972, known as SALT I. In domestic affairs, Nixon responded to persistent inflation and increasing unemployment by devaluing the dollar and imposing unprecedented peacetime controls on wages and prices. His administration increased funding for many federal civil-rights agencies and proposed legislation that created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1972 he won reelection with a landslide victory over George McGovern. Assisted by Henry A. Kissinger, he concluded a peace agreement with North Vietnam (1973), though the war did not come to an end until 1975. His administration helped to undermine the coalition government of Chile's Marxist Pres. Salvador Allende, leading to Allende's overthrow in a military coup in 1973. Nixon's second term was overshadowed by the Watergate scandal, which stemmed from illegal activities by Nixon and others related to the burglary and wiretapping of the headquarters of the Democratic Party. After lengthy congressional investigations andfacing near-certain impeachment, Nixon resigned the presidency on Aug. 8, 1974, the first president to

do so. Though never convicted of wrongdoing, he was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford. In retirement, he wrote his memoirs and several books on foreign policy, which modestly rehabilitated his reputation and earned him a role as an elder statesman and foreign-policy expert.

Henry Kissinger-(b. Fuerth, Germany, 27 May 1923) US; National Security Adviser 1969 – 75, Secretary of State 1973 – 7 Of German Jewish origin, Kissinger's family fled from Nazi Germany to the United States in 1938. He served in the US armed forces 1943 – 5. After the war he took a BA and Ph.D. at Harvard University and taught Government at Harvard University. As director of the Harvard International Services and director of the Special Studies Project of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund he became acquainted with prominent political as well as academic figures. His book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957) won him wide acclaim as a conceptual strategic thinker. He became an adviser on foreign policy to Nelson Rockefeller. After Richard Nixon's election as President in 1968, hewas appointed National Security Adviser. He provided the intellectual basis for the policy options which were chosen by President Nixon on the vital issues of foreign policy such as Vietnam, China, détente with the Soviet Union, and the Middle East. Following Nixon's re-election as President in 1972,he was appointed Secretary of State, though he continued to serve also as National Security Adviser until 1975. After Nixon's resignation in 1974 and the succession of President Ford, he continued to be an extremely influential adviser to the President as Secretary of State, though Ford appointed a new National Security Adviser in 1975. After the end of his service as Secretary of State in 1977, he formed a private company, Kissinger Associates, which offered advice on international affairs and foreign investment.

He won acclaim for his intellectual acumen and the sophistication of his thinking. On the other hand, he was criticized as amoral in his approach. With regard to Vietnam, for example, his critics suggest that the extensive use of force by massive bombing of North Vietnam and the invasion of Cambodia was unjustified and futile. His defenders suggest, however, that this strategy brought success in his negotiations with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, which ended the war and won Kissinger a joint Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. His ideas on triangular US — Chinese — Soviet diplomacy and the drawing of the Soviet Union into the web of intentional affairs by means of détente similarly earned criticisms and praise. In the Middle East, where he acted as emissary between Israel and Arab countries after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, his critics suggested that he was concerned largely to protect American interests and exclude the Soviet Union, while his defenders praise his step-by-step approach in forwarding the peace process in the Middle East. He set out his views on international relations at considerable length in White House Years (1979), Years of Upheaval (1982), and Diplomacy (1994).

détente-Détente (a French word meaning release from tension) is the name given to a period of improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that began tentatively in 1971 and took decisive form when President Richard M. Nixon visited the secretary-general of the Soviet Communist party, Leonid I. Brezhnev, in Moscow, May 1972. Both countries stood to gain if trade could be increased and the danger of nuclear warfare reduced. In addition, Nixon--a candidate for reelection--was under fire at home from those demanding social change, racial equality, and an end to the Vietnam War. The trip to Russia, like his historic trip to China a few months earlier, permitted him

to keep public attention focused on his foreign policy achievements rather than his domestic problems. Nixon's trip to China had also heightened the Soviets' interest in détente; given the growing antagonismbetween Russia and China, Brezhnev had no wish to see his most potent rivals close ranks against him.On May 22 Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit Moscow. He and Brezhnev signed seven agreements covering the prevention of accidental military clashes; arms control, as recommended by the recent Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT); cooperative research in a variety of areas, includingspace exploration; and expanded commerce. The SALT treaty was approved by Congress later that summer, as was a three-year agreement on the sale of grain to the Soviets. In June 1973, Brezhnev visited the United States for Summit II; this meeting added few new agreements, but did symbolize the two countries' continuing commitment to peace. Summit III, in June 1974, was the least productive; by then, the SALT talks had ground to a halt, several commercial agreements had been blocked in Congress because of Soviet treatment of Jews, and the Watergate investigation was approaching a climax. Nixon's successor in the talks, President Jimmy Carter, supported SALT II, but also pressed a military buildup and a human rights campaign, which cooled relations between the countries. With the election of Ronald Reagan, who emphasized military preparedness as the key to Soviet-American relations, détente as Nixon had envisioned it came to an end.

Hernan Cortes-(born 1485, Medelln, near Mrida, Extremadura, Castiledied Dec. 2, 1547, Castilleja de la Cuesta, near Sevilla) Spanish conquistador who won Mexico for Spain. Corts left Spain for the New World in 1504, joining Diego Velzquez de Cullar (b. 1465d. 1524) in the conquest of Cuba (1511). In 1519, with 508 men and 16 horses, he burned his ships on Mexico's southeastern coast, thus committing himself to conquest. After accumulating thousands of Indian allies who resented Aztec domination, he forged ahead to Tenochtitln, the Aztec capital (today Mexico City). The emperor Montezuma II, believing Corts to be the god Quetzalcatl, welcomed him but was taken prisoner. Hearing that a Spanish force from Cuba was coming to relieve him of command, Corts left Tenochtitln under the command of a captain and set out to defeat his Spanish opponents. Returning with the opposition forces now under his command, he discovered that the city had revolted; he led his troops away by night in a costly retreat, but he returned in 1521 to conquer the city and with it the empire. Theabsolute ruler of a huge territory, he was forced to retire after a disastrous expedition in 1524 to the Honduran jungles. His final years were beset by misfortune.

Francisco Pizzaro-(c.1475-1541), conquistador of Peru. Already an old man by contemporary standards, during a 1526-8 expedition down the Pacific coast with Almagro, he learned of the Inca empire. Staying behind while his partner sailed back for supplies and reinforcements, he drew a line in the sand with his sword in front of his dispirited men and asked those desirous of wealth and glory to cross it. With only thirteen followers he continued south, collecting evidence of abundant treasure. Sentback to Spain to legitimize the partners' position, he obtained a marquisate and viceroyship over the still to be won province, relegating Almagro to a subordinate position. In 1531, accompanied by four half-brothers and later joined by Soto, he returned to Peru.

The Inca empire was newly wracked by a civil war in which Atahualpa defeated his half-brother Huascar, but Pizarro made none of the local alliances that elsewhere proved so useful and advanced into the Peruvian highlands with 60 cavalry and 100 infantry, equipped with twenty crossbows and a

few firearms. Losing many horses on the way, he passed through several narrow defiles where he couldeasily have been stopped to arrive in November 1532 at Cajamarca, where Atahualpa with an army of some 30, 000 awaited his homage. The Inca accepted an invitation to dine and entered Cajamarca with a retinue of about 5, 000, only to be captured in an ambush in which half his escort was killed.

Pizarro's only thought was to extort a ransom of priceless artefacts, melted down to about 6 tons of goldand 12 of silver. Still with only a few hundred men under his command, he chose to murder the source of his authority in August 1533. He ignored the symbolic importance of the Inca capital at Cuzco and founded Lima in one of the worst locations ever chosen for a capital city. In his absence, the puppet Inca Manca Capac escaped to rally his people, reducing Spanish authority to Lima and Cuzco, the latterbesieged from February to August 1536.

No sooner had the Incas dispersed to plant for the coming year than a wrathful Almagro returned from a horrendous exploration of northern Argentina and Chile and seized Cuzco, imprisoning Gonzalo and Hernando Pizarro. He defeated one army sent by Pizarro and another under Manca Capac before marching on Lima. Once there, he naïvely accepted an undertaking by Francisco to recognize his claim to Cuzco and released Hernando, until then a hostage. The latter returned with an army to defeat and execute him in April 1538.

Francisco spent two years in Cuzco trying to subdue the Manca Capac rebellion before returning to Lima. The chaos in Peru was so notorious that the Crown sent out a commissioner to restore order, but before he arrived Pizarro had been assassinated by Almagro loyalists, whom he had gratuitously insulted. A mummified body falsely believed to be his was on display in Lima cathedral for centuries.

Montezuma-Montezuma (mŏntĕsū'mä) or Moctezuma (mŏk-), 1480?-1520, Aztec emperor (c.1502-1520). He is sometimes called Montezuma II to distinguish him from Montezuma I (ruled 1440-69), who carried on conquests around Tenochtitlán. His reign was marked by incessant warfare, and his despotic rule caused grave unrest. When Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico he was thus able to gain native allies, notably in the province of the Tlaxcala. Montezuma, believing the Spanish to be descendants of the god Quetzalcoatl, tried to persuade them to leave by offering rich gifts. That failing, he received them in his splendid court at Tenochtitlán in Nov., 1519. Cortés later seized him as a hostage and attempted to govern through him. In June, 1520, the Aztec rose against the Spanish. Montezuma was killed, although whether by the Spanish or the Aztec is not certain. His successor died a few months later and was replaced by Cuauhtémoc. Montezuma's name is linked by a legend to fabulous treasures that the Spanish appropriated and presumably lost at sea.

Atahualpa-d. 1533, favorite son of Huayna Capac, Inca of Peru. At his father's death (1525) he receivedthe kingdom of Quito while his half brother, the legitimate heir Huáscar, inherited the rest of the Inca empire. Shortly before the arrival (1532) of Francisco Pizarro, Atahualpa invaded the domains of Huáscar, whom he defeated and imprisoned, and made himself Inca. On Nov. 16, 1532, Pizarro met Atahualpa at Cajamarca. Invited into the city, Atahualpa was seized and imprisoned. He offered a room full of gold as ransom and at the same time secretly ordered the death of Huáscar. He was tried for his brother's murder and for plotting against the Spanish and was executed. He is also known as Atabalipa.

Jamestown-ormer village, SE Va., first permanent English settlement in America; est. May 14, 1607, bythe London Company on a marshy peninsula (now an island) in the James River and named for the reigning English monarch, James I. Disease, starvation, and Native American attacks wiped out most ofthe colony, but the London Company continually sent more men and supplies, and John Smith briefly provided efficient leadership (he returned to England in 1609 for treatment of an injury). After the severe winter of 1609-10 (the "starving time"), the survivors prepared to return to England but were stopped by the timely arrival of Lord De la Warr with supplies. John Rolfe cultivated the first tobacco there in 1612, introducing a successful source of livelihood; in 1614 he assured peace with the local Native Americans by marrying Pocahontas, daughter of chief Powhatan. In 1619 the first representativegovernment in the New World met at Jamestown, which remained the capital of Virginia throughout the17th cent. The village was almost entirely destroyed during Bacon's Rebellion; it was partially rebuilt but fell into decay with the removal of the capital to Williamsburg (1698-1700).Of the 17th-century settlement, only the old church tower (built c.1639) and a few gravestones were visible when National Park Service excavations began in 1934. Today, most of Jamestown Island is owned by the U.S. government and is included in Colonial National Historical Park (see National Parksand Monuments, table); a small portion comprises the Jamestown National Historic Site, which is owned by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. A tercentenary celebration was held in 1907, and in 1957 the Jamestown Festival Park was built to commemorate the 350th anniversary. The park, which was renamed Jamestown Settlement in 1990, contains exhibit pavilions and replicas of the first fort, the three ships that brought the first settlers, and a Native American village. Excavations that began in 1994 finally uncovered the original fort at Jamestown, which had long been believed to have been eroded away by the river.

City on a Hill-is an metaphor from the Salt and Light section of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.It may also refer to:City upon a Hill, a line from a famous sermon by Puritan John Winthrop frequently invoked in discussions of American exceptionalism.City on a Hill (series), a series of compilation albums from Essential Records.

Louis XiV-(1638-1715). Louis, the greatest king of France's grand siècle, was only a small boy when he succeeded his father in 1643. Because of his youth, real power passed to his mother Anne of Austria as regent and to the Italian-born first minister, Cardinal Mazarin. When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis refused to appoint another first minister and instead grasped the reins of government himself, never to relinquish them so long as he lived. During this ‘personal reign’, France exercised pre-eminent power on the continent of Europe.

Louis, who adopted the sun as his symbol to become the ‘Sun King’, displayed the splendour of his reign by constructing his opulent and vast palace at Versailles. There his dazzling court strutted and bickered, while Louis reserved real authority for himself. Louis is reputed to have claimed ‘I am the state’, and although this statement may be apocryphal, his will was, indeed, the will of the state in

matters of military matters and foreign policy.

During the second half of the 17th century, French troops proved themselves virtually invincible on the battlefield. Phenomenal growth of his army multiplied its effect. French forces during the League of Augsburg war climbed above 400, 000 men on paper, and may have attained 340, 000 in reality. Administrative reforms carried out by war ministers Michel Le Tellier and his son, the Marquis de Louvois, provided a more regular provision of food, equipment, and pay, making such large forces possible.

Louis regarded being a soldier as an essential attribute of kingship, and he devoted himself very much to military affairs. During wartime, he regularly went to the field until the infirmities of age kept him from doing so, yet he never commanded in battle. He had a penchant for sieges and attended over twenty of them. In contrast to his identification with the army, Louis never harboured equal concern forhis navy. Although it expanded mightily by 1690, he later allowed it to decline in order to concentrate resources on land.

As befitted the tone of the age, Louis cared much for his gloire, best translated as fame or reputation, but that does not mean that his foreign policy was vainglorious. Historians have often argued that the wars he fought during his personal reign, like those of Napoleon a century later, resulted from a desire to annex much of the continent. Yet Louis's goals were more modest and reasonable.

Early in his personal reign, the young king lusted to establish his reputation as a warrior-king by conquest. His Spanish wife had renounced her claims to the domains of her father, Philip IV, contingentupon delivery of a huge dowry which was never paid. Therefore, when Philip died in 1665, Louis insisted that parts of the Spanish Netherlands should go to, or ‘devolve’ upon, his wife, setting off the War of Devolution (1667-8). An alliance led by the Dutch imposed an end to this brief struggle, and although Louis received twelve important fortress towns, he believed himself cheated. In the Dutch war(1672-8), Louis intended to punish the Dutch and gain a free hand in the Spanish Netherlands. French armies invaded the Dutch Netherlands, but failed to impose their terms. As the alliance against Louis grew, he had to withdraw south in 1674.

At mid-course during the Dutch war, Louis gave up his dream of adding the Spanish Netherlands to his kingdom and, instead, came to associate his gloire less with conquering more territory than with protecting what he already held. Vauban, Louis's great military engineer, urged Louis to create a doubleline of fortresses, known as the pré carré, to seal off his northern border. But he also advocated creatinga more defensible frontier to the east by seizing additional strong points. After the close of the Dutch war, which netted him more fortresses in the Netherlands plus the entire province of Franche-Comté, Louis resolved to take still other key towns, particularly Strasbourg and Luxembourg, in a series of land grabs known as the ‘Reunions’. The climax of this process was the brief and profitable war of that name (1683-4).

When Louis demanded European recognition of all his territorial gains—and did so by invading German lands to compel such recognition—he precipitated the League of Augsburg war in which he faced the ‘Grand Alliance’ of the English, Dutch, Spanish, and Austria, along with several lesser German states and Savoy. During this war Louis's army won all its major battles and enjoyed the upper hand in siege warfare, but the struggle so exhausted France that Louis sacrificed some of his earlier acquisitions to secure a peace settlement.

Louis's last great war came with the inevitability of sunset, when Charles II, the childless king of Spain,

died in 1700. Before Charles's death, Louis tried to hammer out an agreement with other rulers to avoida major war by dividing the Spanish inheritance. However, all prior arrangements dissolved when Charles stipulated on his deathbed that everything should go to Louis's grandson, Philip of Anjou. Louis really had little choice but to accept the dying declaration, but he should have avoided the series of ill-considered acts that alarmed his foes, who once again formed a Grand Alliance to oppose him in afinal cataclysm, the War of the Spanish Succession. Two brilliant allied commanders, Marlborough and Prince Eugène of Savoy, won a series of battles and sieges that nearly exhausted Louis's strength. But he refused to capitulate and eventually outlasted his enemies. When Queen Anne removed Marlborough from command and British forces from the war, Louis's armies reasserted French power, defeated Eugène, and established a settlement that did not require Louis to sacrifice territory and that also left his grandson Philip on the Spanish throne.

Seven Years War-(175663) Major European conflict between Austria and its allies France, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia on one side against Prussia and its allies Hanover and Britain on the other. The wararose out of Austria's attempt to win back the rich province of Silesia, taken by Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession. Early victories by Frederick II the Great in Saxony and Bohemia (175658) were offset by a decisive Prussian defeat by Austria and Russia near Frankfurt (1759). After inconclusive fighting in 176061, Frederick concluded a peace with Russia (1762) and drove the Austrians from Silesia. The war also involved the overseas colonial struggles between Britain and France in North America ( French and Indian War) and in India. The European conflict was settled withthe Treaty of Hubertusburg, by which Frederick confirmed Prussia's stature as a major European power.

Haitian Revolution-As was the case with several colonies in the Caribbean in the eighteenth century, the French colony of Saint-Domingue was driven primarily by an agricultural export economy. Saint-Domingue produced coffee, cocoa, cotton, indigo, and sugarcane. However, toward 1750, given the sustained demand for sugar on the European market, sugarcane surpassed all other crops. In Saint-Domingue the topic of the day was the “Sugar Revolution,” just as the “Industrial Revolution” was the topic of the day in England. Sugarcane was one of the factors that changed not only the slave relationship but also the political and economic structures in Saint-Domingue.

From small farms (minifundia) in the beginning, sugarcane first transformed Saint-Domingue into a system of large farms (latifundia) and then into a plantation economy where agricultural crops blended with industrial production. The authorities in the metropolis had enabled French capitalists to set up workshops and factories in the colony, and thereafter some slaves worked in the new agro-industrial plants. Others even received wages and small lands in order to meet their needs. At the same time, the slave trade intensified and more slaves were landed in the colony.

The French merchant marine became very active, transporting a large number of commodities and products from Saint-Domingue to France; these were refined by French industries and later distributed on the European market. The yields were significant for the metropolis and for French merchants, who invested more and more in the colony. Saint-Domingue became a thriving economy. In 1788 its exportsreached 214 million francs, or the equivalent then of about $42 million, surpassing even U.S. exports. Saint-Domingue became the jewel of the French colonial empire and supplied France with half of the wealth it derived from all of its colonies combined.

Slavery and capitalism coexisted as a hybrid system. It was difficult to reconcile the means of capitalistproduction with the social relations of slavery. Another complex issue for Saint-Domingue was that it was built on a hierarchical view of social relations. In 1789, Saint-Domingue consisted of 40,000 whites, 28,000 Affranchis—colored and black freemen—and 450,000 slaves, but skin color determinedsocial status. This racial construct would collapse like a pack of cards.

In 1789, Saint-Domingue was plagued by a number of contradictions. The great white planters demanded political autonomy. The Affranchis, most of whom were landowners, clamored for civil and political equality with the whites. The slaves looked for freedom. Brought from Africa, they toiled on plantations and in production workshops and were at the mercy of the overseer's whip. On the night of 21–22 August 1791, following a political movement in the North Province under the leadership of a certain Boukman, slaves set fire to the plantations and attacked their masters. The insurrection spread tothe West and South Provinces.

The fight waged by the slaves became more structured with the emergence of Toussaint-Louverture. Asthe commander of an army that he personally organized, he became a powerful figure in the colony. From 1794to1802, Toussaint-Louverture led the combat. In order to keep Saint-Domingue within its colonial empire, the French authorities came to terms with Toussaint-Louverture, promoting him to the rank of general in chief of the Saint-Domingue army and, later, governor. In such a position of power, he made freedom of blacks the focus of his international policy and made the revival of production the focus of his domestic policy.

Toussaint-Louverture forged an autonomous policy vis-à-vis France. In 1801, without the backing of French authorities, he entered the eastern side of the island, then under Spanish domination, and abolished slavery there. In the same year he promulgated a constitution for the entire island with immediate application. Nonetheless, he sent it to France for approval by Napoleon Bonaparte. In response, Napoleon deployed twenty-two thousand troops and eighty-six warships in order to subdue Toussaint-Louverture and restore slavery in the colony and in all the other French dependencies of America. The troops also had a mission to expand the French colonial empire in America, going from Saint-Domingue up to the former French possessions along the Mississippi.

The revolutionaries of Saint-Domingue were unable to withstand the assault of the French troops. Toussaint-Louverture was arrested for treason in 1802 and sent to France, where he died. When leavingSaint-Domingue, Toussaint-Louverture declared: “By overthrowing me, you have merely succeeded in cutting the trunk of 0195176322.haitian-rev.01.tifHaitian Revolution. “Revenge taken by the Black Army for the Cruelties practised on them by the French,” illustration from Marcus Rainsford, An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti (London: J. Cundee, 1805), page 337. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of CongressSaint-Domingue's Tree of Liberty; but it will grow again, forthe roots are deep, and many.”

Prophetic words from the old leader! The resistance of the indigenous army, under the leadership of General Jean-Jacques Dessalines, changed direction: from autonomy to independence. After two years, French troops capitulated to the ragged troops of Saint-Domingue. On 1January 1804 the independenceof the colony was proclaimed under the aboriginal name of Haiti. For the first time in the history of humanity, an uprising of slaves had led to a victorious revolution. Thus Haiti became the first state to proclaim the abolition of slavery. Haiti was the first black republic of the world and was the second republic in the Western Hemisphere after the United States.

The consequences of the Haitian Revolution were considerable. It sounded the death knell for slavery throughout the world and weakened colonialism in the Americas. For example, in 1805 the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda received assistance from General Jean-Jacques Dessalines to liberate South America from the yoke of Spain. Similarly, in 1815 the liberator Simón Bolívar received substantial aid from the Haitian president Alexandre Pétion to fight for freedom and independence in Latin America. The Haitian Revolution remains one of the greatest revolutions of modern times and changed the perspective of human beings on slavery, colonialism, and man's exploitation of man.

Iranian Hostage Crisis-On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran, Iran, and captured dozens of embassy and military personnel. For 444 days, fiftytwo Americans remained captive in Iran, while their nation waited, hoped, and hung yellow ribbons. The outcome of the hostage crisis would ultimately change the course of a presidency, and malign relations between two powerful nations.The origins of anti-American fervor. In the early 1970s, America and Iran enjoyed mutually satisfying relations. At the time, the country was ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a man the American government had supported for more than twenty-five years. Pahlavi had risen to power thanks to British and Soviet forces, which jointly installed Pahlavi on the throne in 1941 to gain valuable influence over the country's oil. Two years later, the United States and Great Britain made a formal declaration to promote Iran's independence, primarily to prevent the communists from gaining a strong foothold in the country.In the early 1950s, the Iranian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, began gaining power and publicsupport, and vehemently opposed the western influence in Iran. In 1952, Mossadegh's party won the national elections, and he demanded control over Iran's armed forces, which Pahlavi denied. In 1953, the United States CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA) secretly helped to overthrow Mossadegh and restore Pahlavi to power. Pahlavi remained a friend to the United States, but endured harsh criticism by his countrymen for ruling with an iron fist, and living opulently off the spoils of his country's oil production while the majority of his people lived in poverty. During the next two decades, the Shah attempted to bring further Western influence to Iran, a practice that was an anathema to the growing numbers of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the country. Those who dared oppose the Shah's rule faced the risk of torture or death at the hands of his secret police.In 1978, Iranian opposition leaders organized strikes, demonstrations, and riots in protest of the Shah's policies. In Paris, exiled Islamic leader Ayatolla Ruhollah Khomeini (Pahlavi had sent Khomeini from the country amid riots in the early 1960s) slowly began to gain popularity among the Iranian people. In December, 1978, Khomeini issued a proclamation calling for Iranians to "unite, arise, and sacrifice your blood," urging them to defy the Shah's order prohibiting public demonstrations. Khomeini's wordsinspired his followers to fill the streets, chanting religious slogans and calling for revolution. The Shah was left with two choices: surrender or clamp down on his people militarily to restore order. On January 16, 1979, the Shah stepped down from power and fled to Morocco.Khomeini returned to Iran on February 1, 1979, where he was greeted by millions of his followers. Less than two weeks later, Khomeini assumed power, announcing the creation of a new fundamentalist Islamic state. Khomeini labeled the United States "The Great Satan." Hatred grew when U.S. President Jimmy Carter allowed the deposed Shah to travel to America later that year for cancer treatment. Furious students gathered in the streets, raising their fists and shouting, "Death to America," assuming the United States was again trying to secretly restore the Shah to power.

On the morning of November 4, 1979, Iranian fervor reached a boiling point. A crowd gathered around the U.S. embassy, shouting anti-American slogans. At 10:30 A.M. about three thousand people jumped the ten-foot wall surrounding the embassy and swarmed the grounds, forcing their way into the basement and first floor of the chancery building. The guards launched tear gas, but they were unable tocontrol the mob. The Islamic militants rounded up 66 embassy workers, military officials, and Marine guards. The hostages were blindfolded, bound, and shoved into windowless rooms. Fifty-three people were held captive in the embassy compound. It was unclear what role, if any, Khomeini played in orchestrating the hostage crisis, but it was clear that he did little to stop it. When Khomeini noted how popular the hostage situation had become among his people, he allowed it to continue, despite continuous pressure from the United States government.Americans watched the events of the crisis played out on television. Yellow ribbons were tied around tree trunks throughout the country in commemoration of the hostages. President Carter responded by freezing billions of dollars in Iranian assets, both in the United States and abroad, and by instituting an embargo on Iranian oil. Still, the Iranians refused to release the hostages, demanding the Shah's extradition to Iran.A rescue attempt. While President Carter was trying to negotiate the hostages' release, behind-the-scenes a daring rescue plan was taking shape. The proposal was to swoop in and land eight American military helicopters in the embassy compound, extract the hostages, and escape to six planes waiting onan airstrip in the Iranian desert. On April 24, 1980, the plan was launched. The mission, however, was fraught with mistakes and bad luck. Three of the helicopters malfunctioned; the pilot of a fourth, blinded by a dust storm, crashed into a refueling aircraft. Eight U.S. servicemen were killed in the unsuccessful operation.The hostage-takers responded to the failed rescue attempt by moving their captives to several secret locations in different cities. On July 11, one ill captive was released. Meanwhile, the ongoing hostage crisis was costing President Carter the support of his people and some of his advisors, including Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had opposed the rescue. Carter later lost his reelection bid to former California governor Ronald Reagan in a landslide.The siege ends. In the fall of 1980, the exiled Shah died of cancer complications. In September, Iran agreed to begin negotiations for the hostages' release. In exchange for their release, the United States agreed to turn over $8 billion of Iran's frozen assets, and to refrain from interfering politically or militarily in Iran's internal affairs. The United States and Iran signed the agreement on January 19, 1981, but in a final embarrassment to Carter, the militants did not release the hostages until January 20, the day President Reagan was inaugurated. Just minutes after Reagan took office, a plane carrying the fifty-two remaining hostages left Tehran for a U.S. Army base in Germany. From his home in Georgia, former president Carter announced that the plane carrying the hostages had cleared Iranian airspace, and that every one of the hostages "was alive, was well, and free."

Peace of Westphalia-1648, general settlement ending the Thirty Years War. It marked the end of the Holy Roman Empire as an effective institution and inaugurated the modern European state system. Thechief participants in the negotiations were the allies Sweden and France; their opponents, Spain and theHoly Roman Empire; and the various parts of the empire (which had been riven by the war) together with the newly independent Netherlands. Earlier endeavors to bring about a general peace had been unsuccessful. The compact known as the Peace of Prague (May, 1635) marked a step in the direction ofpeace and signaled the belief of the Protestant powers that the Swedish forces on which they depended would not be able to maintain a preponderant role in Germany. The conditions of the compact were not in accord with Richelieu's design to break up the imperial power, however, and the war continued

despite offers of mediation from the pope and the king of Denmark. Congresses were proposed and discarded. It was not until Dec. 25, 1641, that a preliminary treaty provided for two concurrent conferences-at Münster and Osnabrück. The conferences, fixed for 1643, met in 1644 and began serious work in 1645. The treaties were signed Oct. 24, 1648. Through the French and Swedish "satisfactions" the power and influence of the Holy Roman Empire and of the house of Hapsburg were lessened. The sovereignty of the German states was recognized, and the empire continued only in name. France, emerging as the dominant European power, had its sovereignty over three bishoprics (Metz, Toul, and Verdun) and over Pinerolo confirmed. Breisach was made over to France. Alsace was ceded despite ambiguity of title, and France was allowed to fortify a garrison at Philippsburg. Sweden obtained W Pomerania, including Stettin and the island of Rügen; the archbishopric (but not the city) ofBremen and the adjoining bishopric of Verden; and Wismar and the island of Pöl. It was agreed that theUpper Palatinate and the old electoral vote should remain with Bavaria, while the Rhenish Palatinate, with a new electoral vote, was assigned to Charles Louis, the son of Frederick the Winter King. The Swiss Confederation and the independent Netherlands were explicitly recognized. The elector of Brandenburg received compensation for Pomerania; the duke of Mecklenburg, for Pöl and part of Wismar. The outcome of the religious deliberations was significant. Territorial rulers continued to determine the religion of their subjects, but it was stipulated that subjects could worship as they had in 1624. Terms of forced emigration were eased; Calvinism was recognized; and rulers could allow full toleration, at their discretion. Finally, religious questions could no longer be decided by a majority of the imperial estates. Future disputes were to be resolved by a compromise between the confessions. Theera of religious warfare was over, and a general attempt had been made toward religious toleration.

Civil Rights Movement-Movement for racial equality in the U.S. that, through nonviolent protest, broke the pattern of racial segregation in the South and achieved equal rights legislation for blacks. Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), African American and white supporters attempted to end entrenched segregationist practices. When Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 in Montgomery, Ala., an African American boycott of the bus system was led by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ralph Abernathy. In the early 1960s the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee led boycotts and sit-ins to desegregate many public facilities. Using the nonviolent methodsof Mohandas K. Gandhi, the movement spread, forcing the desegregation of department stores, supermarkets, libraries, and movie theatres. The Deep South remained adamant in its opposition to most desegregation measures, often violently; protesters were attacked and occasionally killed. Their efforts culminated in a march on Washington, D.C., in 1963 to support civil rights legislation. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson persuaded Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a victory that was followed by the Voting Rights Act in 1965. After 1965, militant groups such as the Black Panther Party split off from the civil rights movement, and riots in black ghettos and King's assassination caused many supporters to withdraw. In the succeeding decades, leaders sought power through elective office and substantive economic and educational gains through affirmative action.

Mikhail Gorbachev-Russian; General Secretary of the CPSU 1985 – 91 Gorbachev was born into a peasant family. He entered the Law Faculty of Moscow State University in 1950, graduating with top marks in 1955. He joined the CPSU in 1952. From 1956 he followed a career in the Communist Youth

League (Comsomol) in the Stavropol region, before joining the local party apparatus in 1962. In 1967 he graduated from Stavropol Agricultural Institute. In 1970 he became First Secretary of the Stavropol region. Next year he was elected to the Central Committee. In 1978 he moved to Moscow as secretary of the Central Committee in charge of agriculture. He enjoyed the patronage of Andropov, who made him a full member of the Politburo in 1980.

After Andropov was elected Soviet leader in November 1982, Gorbachev became the second most powerful man in the USSR, with a brief covering the whole economy. His powers increased during the brief reign of Chernenko from 1984 to 1985. After Chernenko's death in March 1985, Gorbachev's bid for the general secretaryship was strongly resisted by the Brezhnevites within the Politburo, whom he defeated with the support of Ligachev and Gromyko. Gorbachev became President of the USSR after Gromyko's forced retirement in 1988.

Gorbachev's reforms revolved around the restructuring (perestroika) of the economy and increased freedom of expression (glasnost) in political and cultural affairs. He did not follow a precise blueprint in either area and it is debatable how far his policies were forced upon him by the economic crisis and growth of national unrest within the Soviet Union, which worsened with each year of his rule. He was unwilling to remove the clause of the constitution guaranteeing the "leading role" of the Communist Party, but after 1988 undermined its power by allowing partially free elections to the legislatures in the union republics and to the Congress of People's Deputies and by augmenting the power of the presidency. This did nothing to prevent the growing self-assertiveness of the Russian (as distinct from) the Soviet Communist Party. By 1990 Gorbachev's hold on power was shaky and he was unable to satisfy the demands of conservative Communists demanding the maintenance of the Soviet Union and the party-state and of the nationalists in the republics at a time when the economy was breaking down. In August 1991, Gorbachev's opponents within the leadership staged a coup to save the union, placing him under house arrest. They surrendered three days later, having failed to win the support of either the people or the army. On his return to power, Gorbachev resigned as party leader. In December 1991 he resigned as President when the Soviet Union was voted out of existence by the representatives of its constituent republics. In 1992 Gorbachev was expelled from the CPSU for causing the collapse of the USSR.

In international affairs Gorbachev oversaw the withdrawal of the Red Army from Afghanistan, a great improvement of relations with the USA and European Community, and the normalization of relations with China. In Eastern Europe in 1989 he accepted the trade union movement Solidarity's electoral victory in Poland and then encouraged the overthrow of hard-line regimes in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania, while maintaining a policy of strict non-intervention once revolutions had started. He co-operated with the US-led UN forces during the Gulf War against Iraq in 1990 – 1, even though it was a former Soviet ally.

Since 1991 Gorbachev has been head of the Moscow-based "Gorbachev Fund", a centre for the study of international relations.

Chernobyl-A city of northern Ukraine near the border of Belarus. It was evacuated and remains uninhabited as a result of a major nuclear power plant accident nearby on April 26, 1986.

Transcontinental Railroad-is a contiguous network of railroad trackage[1] that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracksof either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route. Although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with the possible exception of the historic Orient Express.Transcontinental railroads helped open up unpopulated interior regions of continents to exploration andsettlement that would not otherwise have been feasible. In many cases they also formed the backbones of cross-country passenger and freight transportation networks.In the United States of America, transcontinental railroads created a nation-wide transportation networkthat united the country. This network replaced the wagon trains of previous decades and allowed for thetransportation of larger quantities of goods over longer distances. Construction by the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad of the 1,928 mile "Pacific Railroad" link between Council Bluff,IA/Omaha, NE and the San Francisco Bay at Oakland, CA via Ogden, UT and Sacramento, CA connecting with the existing railroad network to the East Coast creating the world's first transcontinental railroad when it opened in 1869 was made possible by the Congress through the passage of Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862, 1864 and 1867.

Berlin airlift-(1948-9). At the end of WW II, Berlin was divided into American, British, French, and Soviet sectors. Supplies for western sectors had to pass through the Soviet-controlled zone, and as friction between the USSR and the West widened so the Soviets increased interference with traffic. In March 1948 the Soviets, then chairing the Allied Control Council which governed Berlin, adjourned a meeting without setting the date for another, and the body never met again. Traffic control became more rigid, and Allied leaders considered a variety of plans from withdrawal to military action to force a route to the city.

On 5 April a British passenger aircraft crashed after being rammed by a Soviet fighter. Negotiations became more acrimonious, and on 24 June the Soviets stopped rail traffic and cut off supplies from eastern power stations. The Allies decided to take the unprecedented step of supplying West Berlin from the air, flying cargo to its three airfields, Tegel, Gatow, and Templehof. There were three narrow air corridors, airspace over Berlin was shared with the Soviets, and initially most aircraft available wereDakotas. But soon larger C-54s appeared and the tonnage flown in increased: 1, 400 tons (1, 422 tonnes) arrived in June, by mid-July this quantity arrived each day, and by January 1949, with the airliftin full spate despite atrocious weather, a daily average of 5, 500 tons (5, 588 tonnes) arrived.

The Soviets lifted the blockade in May, but the airlift continued until September. Its human cost had been heavy: flying conditions, often very difficult, were worsened by Soviet mock air attacks; pilots were exhausted and dust from coal, a common cargo, worked its way into control cables. Crashes and accidents cost the lives of 70 aircrew as well as 7 Germans. The airlift was an important symbol of western resolve and a testimony to the determination of the population of West Berlin to resist Soviet pressure.

Ho Chi Minh-(1890-1969), leader of the Vietnamese communists and of the independence movement in that country in the decades following WW II. Ho was born Nguyen Tat Thanh in the Annam province, and was educated in Hué. In the 1920s and 1930s Ho operated in the murky underworld of

the Vietnamese independence movement, and was a founding member of the Communist Party in Vietnam. During WW II, Ho and his communist group, which included the military leader Vo Nguyen Giap, formed a base near the Chinese border and acted, with American support, against the Japanese occupation force. Ho also took the opportunity to solidify the position of the communists as the leaders and dominant force of the independence movement, which became widely known as the Vietminh.

The Vietminh was able to exploit the chaos which descended upon Vietnam at the end of WW II to seize power, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed by Ho on 2 September 1945. However, the situation was far from stable. Kuomintang troops had flooded the city less than two weeks before, and the French government, recently restored to Paris, was already making plans to reassert control. The fragility of Vietminh control was quickly exposed in 1945-6, and Ho was forced toreturn to the communist stronghold near the Chinese border. The following eight years witnessed a monumental struggle on the part of the Vietnamese, to create an army and a logistical network capable of defeating the French, and to use that force effectively against the French forces in Indochina. Giap's victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 delivered such a victory, but Ho was disappointed by the peace conference which followed, and which granted the Vietminh control over only North Vietnam.

In spite of this setback, Ho was prepared to be patient. ‘If we have the people, ’ Ho had once remarked, ‘we will have everything.’ In the years following Dien Bien Phu he set up a communist state apparatus in the north, and allowed communists in the south to agitate for reunification of the country. When war broke out again in the early 1960s Ho was already too ill to perform an active role, but remained an inspiration to those fighting the South Vietnamese and American forces. He died in Hanoi six years before the unification of Vietnam under the regime he had created.

Sino-Soviet Bloc-was the worsening of political and ideological relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the Cold War. In the 1960s, China and the Soviet Union were the two largest Communist states in the world. The doctrinal divergence derived from Chinese and Russian national interests, and from the régimes' respective interpretations of Marxism: Maoism and Marxism–Leninism.

In the 1950s and the 1960s, ideological debate between the Communist parties of Russia and China also concerned the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the capitalist West. Yet, to the Chinese public, Mao Zedong proposed a belligerent attitude towards capitalist countries, an initial rejection of peaceful coexistence, which he perceived as Marxist revisionism from the Soviet Union.

Vietnam War-(195475) Protracted conflict between South Vietnam (with its principal ally, the U.S.) andNorth Vietnam, in which South Vietnam was fighting to prevent being united with North Vietnam under communist leadership. After the First Indochina War, Vietnam was partitioned to separate the warring parties until free elections could be held in 1956. Ho Chi Minh's popularand communist-sympathizingViet Minh party from the North was expected to win the elections, which the leader in the South, Ngo Dinh Diem, refused to hold. In the war that ensued, fighters trained by North Vietnam (the Viet Cong) fought a guerrilla war against U.S.-supported South Vietnamese forces; North Vietnamese

forces later joined the fighting. At the height of U.S. involvement, there were more than half a million U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive of 1968, in which the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese attacked 36 of 44 South Vietnamese provincial capitals and 64 district capitals, marked a turning point in the war. Many in the U.S. had come to oppose the war on moral and practical grounds, and Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson decided to shift to a policy of de-escalation. Peace talks were begun in Paris. Between 1969 and 1973 U.S. troops were withdrawn from Vietnam, but the war was expanded toCambodia and Laos in 1970. Peace talks, which had reached a stalemate in 1971, started again in 1973,producing a cease-fire agreement. Fighting continued, and there were numerous truce violations. In 1975 the North Vietnamese launched a full-scale invasion of the South. The South surrendered later that year, and in 1976 the country was reunited as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. More than 3,000,000 people (including 58,000 Americans) died over the course of the war, more than half of themcivilians.

Billy Graham-(born Nov. 7, 1918, Charlotte, N.C., U.S.) U.S. Christian evangelist. The son of a dairy farmer, he underwent a conversion experience at age 16 during a revival. After attending Bob Jones College and the Florida Bible Institute, he was ordained a Southern Baptist clergyman in 1940. He laterearned a degree in anthropology from Wheaton College. He won numerous converts with his tent revivals and radio broadcasts, and by 1950 he had become fundamentalism's leading spokesman. He led a series of widely televised international revival crusades through the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Minneapolis, Minn., and he enjoyed close associations with a series of U.S. presidents. Graham and his wife, Ruth, were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1996.

Scopes Trial-(July 1021, 1925) Widely publicized trial (called the Monkey Trial) in Dayton, Tenn. JohnT. Scopes (190070), a high-school teacher, was charged with teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which violated a state law prohibiting the teaching of any doctrine that denied the divine creation of humans. The trial was broadcast live on radio and attracted worldwide interest. The prosecutor was William Jennings Bryan; the defense attorney was Clarence Darrow. The judge limited arguments to the basic charge to avoid a test of the law's constitutionality and a discussion of Darwin's theory. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100; he was later acquitted on the technicality that he had been fined excessively. The law was repealed in 1967.

William Jennings Bryan-(born March 19, 1860, Salem, Ill., U.S.died July 26, 1925, Dayton, Tenn.) U.S. politician and orator. He practiced law at Jacksonville, Ill. (188387), before moving to Lincoln, Neb., where he was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1890. In the U.S. House of Representatives (189195), he became the national leader of the Free Silver Movement; he advocated its aims in his Cross of Gold speech, which won him the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1896. He was the party's nominee again in 1900 and 1908. In 1901 he founded a newspaper, The Commoner, and thereafter lectured widely to admiring audiences; he was called the Great Commoner. He helped secure

the presidential nomination for Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and served as his secretary of state (191315), contributing to world law by espousing arbitration to prevent war. A believer in a literal interpretation of the Bible, he was a prosecuting attorney in the Scopes trial (1925), in which he debated Clarence Darrow on the issue of evolution; the trial took a heavy toll on his health, and he died soon after it ended.

Yugoslav Wars-were ethnic conflicts fought from 1991 to 1999 on the territory of former Yugoslavia. The wars accompanied the breakup of the country, where its constituent republics declared independence, but the issues of ethnic minorities in the new countries (chiefly Serbs in central parts andAlbanians in the southeast) were left unresolved after those republics were recognized internationally. The wars are generally considered to be a series of largely separate but related military conflicts occurring and affecting most of the former Yugoslav republics:

Wilsonianism-are words used to describe a certain type of ideological perspectives on foreign policy. The term comes from the ideology of United States President Woodrow Wilson and his famous Fourteen Points that he believed would help create world peace if implemented.

Long essay question

-For this section I will ask you a question about 19th century America, 1803-1893The component parts of the question will include

-A brief background on America 1776-1803, what leads up to the 19th century?-A combination focus on Manifest Destiny, the Wars (1812, Mexican-American, Civil),

economics, culture, diplomacy. -Discuss post 1893 America, discuss the transition from frontier to imperialism. -Be familiar, and prepared to use, the following terms:

Louisiana Purchase, War of 1812, Monroe Doctrine, Jacksonian America, Texas—annexation and War, slavery vs., free soil, the secession crisis, Civil War, settlement of the West, Reconstruction, Frederick JacksonTurner’s frontier thesis.

***-This is a long essay question so I am expecting a minimum of 4 pages, aim around 6-7.