Scottish inventor, [BLANK-1], was largely responsible for creating the technology that powered the Industrial Revolution. While steam engines had existed as far back as the late seventeenth century, they were wildly inefficient. In 1763, this inventor discovered that adding a separate condenser to the steam engine dramatically improved its efficiency. His improvement made the steam engine a practical success and allowed British industrialists to harness the power of water and steam in order to build machines and factories with levels of productivity that were previously unthinkable.
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Giuseppe Garibaldi, Count di Cavour, and Victor Emmanuel all…
Giuseppe Garibaldi, Count di Cavour, and Victor Emmanuel all contributed in their own ways to [BLANK-1], or the process of Italian Unification that was completed in 1871. The northern Italian kingdoms were united under the rule of King Victor Emmanuel by 1860 (thanks to his conservative prime minister, Cavour) and Garibaldi used his Red Shirts and nationalist sentiment to unite southern Italy and Sicily by 1870. In 1871, Rome became capital of the newly united Italian state.
The fate of [BLANK-1], a Jewish captain who was wrongfully a…
The fate of [BLANK-1], a Jewish captain who was wrongfully accused of treason (he was a scapegoat to cover-up the treasonous actions of a higher-ranking officer), fundamentally divided France in two. On the one side, defenders of the innocent captain emphasized France’s role in the Enlightenment and the natural rights of man that arose from the French Revolution. These supporters tended to be from liberal areas in the north and in large cities like Paris. The other side thought this man was guilty and tended to be made up of conservatives from the west, the south, and rural areas. They were strongly influenced by nationalism and backed by the army and the Catholic Church. They felt “in their guts” that he had to be guilty because he was a Jew and that the other implicated officers had to be innocent (despite evidence against them) because they were French, Christian, and part of the military. The ill-fated Jewish captain was publicly degraded and exiled to Devil’s Island in French Guiana from 1894-1899. New evidence and Émile Zola’s famous letter to the president of France, J’accuse! (I accuse you!), helped exonerate this wrongfully convicted man. The real traitors were found out, arrested, and punished, and he was restored to his rank in the army and freed from Devil’s Island. At a ceremony honoring the late Émile Zola, the Jewish captain was shot and wounded by a right-wing extremist in front of tens of thousands of witnesses. In the last in a series of long-standing legal injustices against that man, his attacker was acquitted and never faced consequences for his attempted assassination. This whole affair inspired Zionists, like Theodor Herzl, to seek the creation of a Jewish homeland outside of Europe to escape from the anti-Semitic sentiment. It also inspired politicians like Karl Lueger (the mayor of Vienna) and Adolf Hitler (a young resident of Vienna under Lueger’s mayorship) to use anti-Semitism as a scapegoat for political gain.
One of the early contributing factors to World War I came at…
One of the early contributing factors to World War I came at [BLANK-1] in 1906. As western diplomats met to discuss French control of Morocco, aggressive diplomatic efforts by the Germans came off as bullying and crude. The result of this German fiasco led to an Anglo-French alliance and pushed Britain, France, Russia, and the United States to view Germany as a potential threat to their national security.
Great Britain and China fought [BLANK-1] from 1839-1842 over…
Great Britain and China fought [BLANK-1] from 1839-1842 over limitations on trade and Britain’s desire to get Chinese tea more cheaply by purchasing it with goods other than silver. This led to a drain of silver in China and the Qing government was forced to send Lin Zexu to Guangzhou (the former Port of Canton) and give him nearly limitless authority to address the crisis. Nevertheless, Britain continued importing goods to China against the government’s wishes. Britain sent 42 warships to China, established control of the seas, and shut down Chinese ports, forcing them to negotiate. Unhappy with the concessions of the negotiation, Britain sent a second, larger force, which occupied even more coastal ports, including the largest port in the world: Shanghai. China was forced to concede much of its autonomy with the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), which ended the conflict. The peace agreement left British citizens in China answerable only to British laws, forced China to pay an indemnity, ceded the port of Hong Kong to Britain, and gave Great Britain “most favored nation” trading status. This was a serious restriction of Chinese sovereignty and was one of a long list of issues that signaled the declining power of the Qing Dynasty during the nineteenth century.
In the early years of the Soviet Union and during the Russia…
In the early years of the Soviet Union and during the Russian Civil War, Lenin’s socialist policies had wreaked havoc on the Soviet economy. The country was facing economic disintegration, famine, riots, and rebellion. In 1921, Lenin changed course and established the [BLANK-1] which provided for a free market with state-run capitalism. He allowed peasant producers and artisanal workers to sell their surpluses at free markets (although heavy industry, railroads, and banks remained wholly nationalized). His program attempted to rebuild agriculture and industry. It was successful both financially and politically. It brought rapid recovery to the Soviet Union and by 1926, industrial output surpassed prewar levels, with agricultural production not far behind. Lenin died in 1924, and while the Communist Party continued his proposal for some years, it was cut short when Joseph Stalin came to supreme power in 1927 and replaced Lenin’s model with his own Five-Year Plans.
[BLANK-1] was tsar of Russia during a period of growing rese…
[BLANK-1] was tsar of Russia during a period of growing resentment against the monarchy and the ruling class. He was in power during the country’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 as well as the riots that led to Bloody Sunday, when the tsar’s troops shot and killed more than 100 peaceful protesting workers in St. Petersburg. That event led to the general strikes and mutinies known as the Russian Revolution of 1905. The tsar was forced to issue the October Manifesto, which promised a restriction of his powers and the creation of a Duma (a congressional body). He was described by contemporaries as dull or dim-witted and he was blamed for Russia’s early losses during WWI. He worsened the situation by going to the front lines to manage the war personally (thus linking every defeat to him personally and creating the narrative of a power vacuum in St. Petersburg. He was overthrown during the February Revolution in 1917 and he and his entire family would later be imprisoned and executed by the order of V. I. Lenin.
One of the very earliest direct causes of the French Revolut…
One of the very earliest direct causes of the French Revolution occurred when Louis XVI convened a congressional body called [BLANK-1] in 1789 in order to deal with the country’s financial crisis. This body had not been evoked in 175 years, and generated much interest across France. It was organized into three factions (the clergy or the church, the nobility, and everyone else). While commoners and untitled persons made up the vast majority of the people in France, voting in this congressional body was conducted by faction, so the clergy and nobility could always outvote ordinary people. When Abbé Sieyès and others criticized this issue and the representation crisis it created, the group of representatives supporting the commoners broke off from the rest and formed the National Assembly in June, 1789.
Part 3 Essay Question (40%): Your essay should have an intro…
Part 3 Essay Question (40%): Your essay should have an introduction with a clear and specific thesis, a body with evidence, and a conclusion that reinforces your central argument. Select the option you feel the most comfortable with and answer it to the best of your ability. You may find it helpful to write out a brief outline of the essay before you begin writing.Choose ONE (1):What technological, medical, or scientific innovations made New Imperialism in Africa possible? What allowed Europeans to colonize the entire interior of Africa between c. 1870 and 1914, an area that had previously been inaccessible to them? In what specific ways did Europeans justify the subjugation and colonization of African peoples?What was the “Spectacle City” and how did it develop in Europe and the United States during the late-nineteenth century? Why would Paris be characterized as a Spectacle City, particularly from the 1850s onward? How did the state come to use spectacle to exert power and defuse mass unrest?Trace the progression of European artwork (including literature and music) from nineteenth-century Realism and Romanticism to the radically-different movements of Impressionism, Surrealism, Expressionism, Futurism, Cubism, and Dadaism in the twentieth century? [You need to address several of these movements, but you are not expected to discuss each of them]. Do you believe they are a result of the Great War or do these changes stem from something else?
Part 2 Short Answer ID Terms (30%): A short answer ID should…
Part 2 Short Answer ID Terms (30%): A short answer ID should briefly address the basic journalistic questions: who or what, when, where, and why. Each answer should be at least 4-5 sentences long. Be sure to discuss the historical significance – this is the most important part of your ID term. Do not leave any portion of the five options you choose blank – it is best to write something, even if you must guess somewhat. Partial credit is better than nothing.Answer FIVE (5) of the following terms:The Brezhnev DoctrineJuan PerónNon-AlignmentOrdinary MenPetra KellyRobert MugabeThe Secret SpeechSolidaritySrebrenicaULTRA