Political History - AP World History: Modern

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 1963 the Organisation of African Unity was created to protect African sovereignty. It was succeeded in 2002 by the African Union.

When trying to answer this question, it is first useful to know what a nation-state is. A state is a political entity, whereas a nation is a cultural or ethnic identity. So, Basque might be a nation in Spain, but Spain is the state that Basque is within. In Europe throughout the late Medieval period, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment, nation-states began to emerge. Nation-states are political bodies unified with a cultural or ethnic identity. They primarily emerged in countries like England, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden in the early Renaissance period, and this system of nation-states was then exported around the world as the Western European powers continued to expand their influence. It is now the dominant political entity in the world and its significance has not waned in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries.

The concept of Shari'a Law outlines a list of codes and laws drawn directly from the Qu'ran and the teachings of Mohammed. Because of their religious basis they are an example of a theocracy. Shari'a law still remains a governing force in most Islamic nations.

The Tsars' power largely rested on the support of the Orthodox Church and the military.

The sans-culottes were a social group in revolutionary France.

Certain nomadic groups, such as the Cossacks, were oftentimes allied with the Tsar but they were not indigenous to Central Asia.

Although throughout history, certain Muslim fighters from Chechnya and Dagestan may have fought for the Russian Tsar, they were the exception rather than the rule.

Throughout history merchants from all over the world have traded in Russia, but they were never a main pillar of support for the Russian Tsars.

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

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

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

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

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

Due to the fragmented nature of the Italian region at the time of the Renaissance, every single city-state (with the exceptions of the papal state of Rome and Venice) was governed under despotism. According to this system, the most powerful (aka the richest and most socially-connected) men in each city-state selected a despot to act as the city’s governing figure. This despot was charged with upholding the principle known as “podesta:” the maintenance of strict law and order, by any and all means (judicial, economic, military, political) necessary. Each city-state’s elite circles relied upon the despot’s iron social control so that they could conduct their trade and economic business unimpeded, with as little societal and governmental obstruction as possible. This system of government ensured that while, the elites and despots themselves were quite happy with their lofty positions, the majority of the citizens were resentful, if not openly hostile, and so political conflict became the norm. Before too long, many city-states became hotbeds of political intrigue, as various individuals, powerful or otherwise, vied to influence or remove despots, often through underhanded, even violent, means.

Martin Luther’s posting of his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church on October 31st, 1517 soon launched him into regional fame. As Luther’s prominence grew and his ideas spread, the popularity of the Protestant Reformation correspondingly increased. Naturally, this attracted the notice of high-level governmental and religious officials, many of whom considered Luther, not to mention the growing number of self-proclaimed Reformation adherents, as a potential threat to the reigning sociopolitical order. These concerns were not just confined to native German princes and rulers, but many other heads of state contemplated making moves against the Reformation as well – these included Pope Leo X, King Francis I of France, and many of the various Italian despots. Fortunately for the Reformation (and Luther himself), a dire political distraction soon occurred – namely, the death of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, in 1519. The Emperor’s death threw the various European heads of state into a mad scramble to appoint a successor, with opposing regional forces backing different candidates. The conflict appeared to be teetering right on the edge of open warfare, especially between France, Spain, and the Papal State, and in the ensuing chaos, no one had time to deal with the Reformation anymore. Consequently, Luther’s ideas were free to continue their spread throughout the German, Switzerland, and Western European cultures – essentially, the Reformation gained valuable time in which to grow unimpeded.

Fortunately, not every Western European ruler believed in the necessity of religious conflict – some genuinely believed that every person should be free to practice their chosen religion, while other monarchs endorsed religious toleration out of more pragmatic means (civil unrest was always a threat to a ruler’s continued reign). Monarchs who enforced religious toleration and kept their country out of religiously motivated conflicts were known as “politiques.” The most successful “politique” was Queen Elizabeth I of England. Elizabeth took over the country after the death of her half-sister, Mary I, whose violent hatred of Protestantism had led her to institute a brutal repression of all English Protestants. Mary had hundreds of Protestants imprisoned, tortured, and executed, despite the increasingly horrified opposition of her Catholic subjects. These policies earned her the nickname “Bloody Mary.” When Elizabeth came to power, she immediately knew that she had to heal the social strife and wounds that her sister’s repression had caused throughout England, especially since there were grumblings of a potential dynasty change or even a revolt. So, Elizabeth adopted the principles of “politique,” endorsing religious toleration for all English citizens, ending government-sanctioned persecution of Protestants, and thereby strengthening social and political unity.

When Elizabeth I became Queen of England in 1558, she assumed control over a country which, under her sister Mary I’s reign, had been torn apart by brutal anti-Protestant persecution. Elizabeth I knew that if she wanted to make her nation both politically and socially successful, she needed to devise some sort of compromise between England’s Catholic and Protestant citizens. In 1559, Elizabeth I and Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, which established the Queen as the ultimate arbiter of religious (as well as all other) matters and discarded all of Mary I’s anti-Protestant laws. Using the Act of Supremacy as her first step, Elizabeth established a climate of religious tolerance. Using her father King Henry VIII’s creation of his own national church, Elizabeth turned the Anglican Church – aka England’s official religion – into a sort of modified Catholic and Protestant mashup. Anglicanism combined Catholic rituals (such as rich church decorations and solemn processions) with more Protestant doctrines, such as those contained in the Common Book of Prayer (the national prayer book). Catholics and Protestants were thus free to worship, publically or privately, as they chose, so long as they didn’t engage in any sort of extremist speech or activity which threatened the nation’s religious balance.