The World Wars

Front 1

Western Front

Back 1

A line of trenches and fortifications in World War I that stretched without a break from Switzerland to the North Sea. Scene of most of the fighting between Germany, on the one hand, and France and Britain, on the other.

Front 2

Faisal

Back 2

Arab prince, leader of the Arab Revolt in World War I. The British made him king of Iraq in 1921, and he reigned under British protection until 1933.

Front 3

Theodore Herzl

Back 3

Austrian journalist and founder of the Zionist movement urging the creation of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.

Front 4

Balfour Declaration

Back 4

Statement issued by Britain’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917 favoring the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.

Front 5

Bolsheviks

Back 5

Radical Marxist political party founded by Vladimir Lenin in 1903. Under Lenin’s leadership, the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917 during the Russian Revolution.

Front 6

Vladimir Lenin

Back 6

Leader of the Bolshevik (later Communist) Party. He lived in exile in Switzerland until 1917, then returned to Russia to lead the Bolsheviks to victory during the Russian Revolution and the civil war that followed.

Front 7

Woodrow Wilson

Back 7

President of the United States (1913-1921) and the leading figure at the Pars Peace Conference of 1919. He was unable to persuade the U.S. Congress to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League of Nations.

Front 8

Fourteen Points

Back 8

A peace program presented to the U.S. Congress by President Woodrow Wilson in January 1918. It called for the evacuation of German-occupied lands, the drawing of borders and the settling of territorial disputes by the self-determination of the affected populations, and the founding of an association of nations to preserve the peace and guarantee their territorial integrity. It was rejected by Germany, but it made Wilson the moral leader of the Allies in the last year of World War I.

Front 9

League of Nations

Back 9

International organization found in 1919 to promote world peace and cooperation but greatly weakened by the refusal of the United States to join. It proved ineffectual in stopping aggression by Italy, Japan, and Germany in the 1930s, and it was superseded by the United Nations in 1945.

Front 10

Treaty of Versailles

Back 10

The treaty imposed on Germany by France, Great Britain, the United States, and other Allied Powers after World War I, It demanded that Germany dismantle its military and give up some lands to Poland. It was resented by many Germans.

Front 11

New Economic Policy

Back 11

Policy proclaimed by Vladimir Lenin in 1923 to encourage the revival of the Soviet economy by allowing small private enterprises. Joseph Stalin ended the NEPin 1928 and replaced it with a series of Five-Year Plans.

Front 12

Sun Yat-sen

Back 12

Chinese nationalist revolutionary, founder and leader of the Guomindang until his death. He attempted to create a liberal democratic political movement in China but was thwarted by military leaders.

Front 13

Yuan Shika

Back 13

Chinese general and first president of the Chinese Republic (1912-1916). He stood in the way of the democratic movement led by Sun Yat-sen.

Front 14

Guomindang

Back 14

Nationalist political party found on democratic principles by Sun Yat-sen in 1912. After 1925, the party was headed by Chiang Kai-shek, who urned it into an increasingly authoritarian movement.

Front 15

Chiang Kai-shek

Back 15

Chinese military and political leader Succeeded Sun Yat-sen as head of the Guomindang in 1925; headed the Chinese government from 1928 to 1949; fought against the Chinese Communists and Japanese invaders. After 1949 he headed the Chinese Nationalist government in Taiwan.

Front 16

mandate system

Back 16

Allocation of former German colonies and Ottoman possessions to the victorious powers after World War I, to be administered under League of Nations supervision.

Front 17

Atatürk

Back 17

The founder of modern Turkey, He distinguished himself in the dense of Gallipoli in World War I and expelled a Greek expeditionary army from Anatolia in 1921-1922. He replaced the Ottoman Empire with the Turkish Republic in 1923. As president, he pushed through a radical Westernization and reform of Turkey.

Front 18

Margaret Sanger

Back 18

American nurse and author; pioneer in the movement for family planning; organized conferences and established birth control clinics.

Front 19

Max Planch

Back 19

German physicist who developed quantum theory and was award the Nobel Prize for physics in 1918.

Front 20

Albert Einstein

Back 20

German physicist who developed the theory of relativity, which states that time, space, and mass are relative to each other and not fixed.

Front 21

Sigmund Freud

Back 21

Austrian psychiatrist, found of psychoanalysis. He argued that psychological problems were caused by traumas, especially sexual experiences in early childhood, that were repressed in later life. His ideas cause considerable controversy among psychologists and in the general public. Although his views on repressed sexuality are no longer widely accepted, his psychoanalytic methods are still very influential.

Front 22

Wilbur and Orville Wright

Back 22

American bicycle mechanics; the first to build and fly an airplane, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, December 7, 1903.

Front 23

Joseph Stalin

Back 23

Bolshevik revolutionary, head of the Soviet Communist Party after 1924, dictator of the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1953. He led the Soviet Union with an iron fist, using Five-Year Plans to increase industrial production and terror to crush all opposition.

Front 24

Five-Year Plans

Back 24

Plans that Joseph Stalin introduced to industrialize the Soviet Union rapidly, beginning in 1928. They set goals for the output of steel, electricity, machinery, and most other products and were enforced b the police powers of the state. They succeeded in making the Soviet Union a major industrial power before World War II.

Front 25

Benito Mussolini

Back 25

Fascist dictator of Italy (1922-1943). He led Italy to conquer Ethiopia (1935), joined Germany in the Axis pact (1936), and allied Italy with Germany in World War II. He was overthrown in 1943 when the Allies invaded Italy.

Front 26

Fascist Party

Back 26

Italian political party created by Benito Mussolini during World War I. It emphasized aggressive nationalism and was Mussolini’s instrument for the creation of a dictatorship in Italy from 1922 to 1943.

Front 27

Adolf Hitler

Back 27

Born in Austria, Hitler became a radical German nationalist during World War I. He led the National Social German Workers’ Party—The Nazis—in the 1920s and became dictator of Germany in 1933. He led Europe into World War II.

Front 28

Nazis

Back 28

German political party led by Adolf Hitler, emphasizing nationalism, racism, and war. When Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Nazis became the only legal party and an instrument of Hitler’s absolute rule. The party’s formal name was National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

Front 29

Chiang Kai-shek

Back 29

Chinese military and political leader. Succeeded Sun Yat-sen as head of the Guomindang in 1925; headed the Chinese government from 1928 to 1948; fought against the Chinese Communists and Japanese invaders. After 1949 he headed the Chinese Nationalist government in Taiwan.

Front 30

Mao Zedong

Back 30

Leader of the Chinese Communist Party (1927-1976). He led the Communists on the Long March (1934-1935) and rebuilt the Communist Party and Red Army during the Japanese occupation of China (1937-1945). After World War II, he led the Communists to victory over the Guomindang. He ordered the Cultural Revolution in 1966.

Front 31

Long March

Back 31

The 6,000-mile flight of Chinese Communists from southeastern to northwestern China. The Communists, led by Mao Zedong, were pursued by the Chinese army under orders from Chiang Kai-shek. The four thousand survivors of the march formed the nucleus of a revived Communist movement that defeated the Guomindang after World War II.

Front 32

Stalingrad

Back 32

City in Russia, site of a Red Army victory over the German army in 1942-1943. The Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point in the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, Today Volgograd.

Front 33

El Alamein

Back 33

Town in Egypt, site of the victory by Britain’s Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery over German forces led by General Erwin Rommel (the “Desert Fox”) in 1942-1943.

Front 34

Pearl Harbor

Back 34

Naval base in Hawaii attacked by Japanese aircraft on December 7, 1941. The sinking of much of the U.S. Pacific Fleet brought the United States into World War II.

Front 35

Battle of Midway

Back 35

U.S. naval victory over the Japanese fleet in June 1942, in which the Japanese lost four of their best aircraft carriers. It marked a turning point in World War II.

Front 36

Hiroshima

Back 36

City in Japan, the first to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, on August 6, 1945. The bombing hastened the end of World War II.

Front 37

Auschwitz

Back 37

Nazi extermination camp in Poland, the largest center of mass murder during the Holocaust. Close to a million Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and others were killed there.

Front 38

Holocaust

Back 38

Nazis’ program during World War II to kill people they considered undesirable. Some 6 million Jews perished during the Holocaust, along with millions of Poles, Gypsies, Communists, Socialists, and others.