When and where did the Arab Spring start?

WW1

What weapons were used in World War 1?

Rifles. All nations used more than one type of firearm during the First World War. The rifles most commonly used by the major combatants were, among the Allies, the Lee-Enfield .303 (Britain and Commonwealth), Lebel and Berthier 8mm (France), Mannlicher–Carcano M1891, 6.5mm (Italy), Mosin–Nagant M1891 7.62 (Russia), and Springfield 1903 .30–06 (USA). The Central Powers employed Steyr–Mannlicher M95 (Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria), Mauser M98G 7.92mm (Germany), and Mauser M1877 7.65mm (Turkey). The American Springfield used a bolt-action design that so closely copied Mauser’s M1989 that the US Government had to pay a licensing fee to Mauser, a practice that continued until America entered the war.

Machine guns. Most machine guns of World War 1 were based on Hiram Maxim’s 1884 design. They had a sustained fire of 450–600 rounds per minute, allowing defenders to cut down attacking waves of enemy troops like a scythe cutting wheat. There was some speculation that the machine gun would completely replace the rifle. Contrary to popular belief, machine guns were not the most lethal weapon of the Great War. That dubious distinction goes to the artillery.

Flamethrowers. Reports of infantry using some sort of flame-throwing device can be found as far back as ancient China. During America’s Civil War some Southern newspapers claimed Abraham Lincoln had observed a test of such a weapon. But the first recorded use of hand-held flamethrowers in combat was on February 26, 1915, when the Germans deployed the weapon at Malancourt, near Verdun. Tanks carried on a man’s back used nitrogen pressure to spray fuel oil, which was ignited as it left the muzzle of a small, hand-directed pipe. Over the course of the war, Germany utilized 3,000 Flammenwerfer troops; over 650 flamethrower attacks were made. The British and French both developed flame-throwing weapons but did not make such extensive use of them.

Mortars. Mortars of World War I were far advanced beyond their earlier counterparts. The British introduced the Stokes mortar design in 1915, which had no moving parts and could fire up to 22 three-inch shells per minute, with a range of 1,200 yards. The Germans developed a mortar (minenwerfer, or “mine thrower”) that had a 10-inch barrel and fired shells loaded with metal balls.

Artillery. The 20th century’s most significant leap in traditional weapons technology was the increased lethality of artillery due to improvements in gun design, range and ammunition‚—a fact that was all too clear in the Great War, when artillery killed more people than any other weapon did. Some giant guns could hurl projectiles so far that crews had to take into account the rotation of the earth when plotting their fire. Among smaller field guns, the French 75mm cannon developed a reputation among their German opponents as the “Devil Gun.” French commanders claimed it won the war. French 75 mm field guns also saw action in the Second World War, during which some were modified by the Germans into anti-tank guns with limited success.

Poison gas. On April 22, 1915, German artillery fired cylinders containing chlorine gas in the Ypres area, the beginning of gas attacks in the First World War. Other nations raced to create their own battlefield gases, and both sides found ways to increase the severity and duration of the gases they fired on enemy troop concentrations. Chlorine gas attacked the eyes and respiratory system; mustard gas did the same but also caused blistering on any exposed skin. Comparatively few men died from gas. Most returned to active service after treatment, but the weapon incapacitated large numbers of troops temporarily and spread terror wherever it was used. The use of poison gas was outlawed by international law following the war, but it has been used in some later conflicts, such as the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88).

Tanks. Ideas for “land battleships” go back at least as far as the Medieval Era; plans for one are included among the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. The long-sought weapon became reality during the First World War. “Tank” was the name the British used as they secretly developed the weapon, and it stuck, even though the French simultaneously developed the Renault FT light armored vehicle, which had a traversable turret, unlike the British designs. (Various reasons have been given for choosing the name “tank,” from shells that were shaped like water-carriers to the British concealing construction of their secret weapon under the guise of making irrigation tanks for sale to Russia.) The first British tank (“Little Willie”) weighed approximately 14 tons, had a top speed of three mph, and broke down frequently. Improved tanks were deployed during the war, but breakdowns remained a significant problem that led many commanders to believe the tank would never play a major role in warfare. The Germans developed an armored fighting vehicle only in response to the British and French deploying tanks. The only German design of the war, A7V, was an awe-inspiring but cumbersome beast that resembled a one-story building on treads.

Aircraft. The air war of World War I continues to fascinate as much as it did at the time. This amazing new technology proved far more useful than most military and political leaders anticipated. Initially used only for reconnaissance, before long planes were armed with machine guns. Once Anthony Fokker developed a method to synchronize a machine gun’s fire with the rotation of the propeller, the airplane became a true weapon.

Early aircraft were flimsy, kite-like designs of lightweight wood, fabric and wires. The 80–120 horsepower engines used in 1914 produced top speeds of 100 mph or less; four years later speed had nearly doubled. Protection for pilots remained elusive, but most pilots disdained carrying parachutes regardless. Over the course of the war multi-engine bombers were developed, the largest being Germany’s “Giant,” the Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI, with a wingspan of 138 feet and four engines. It had a range of about 500 miles and a bomb-load capacity of 4,400 lbs., although in long-range operations, such as bombing London, Giants carried only about half that much.

Submarines. Britain, France, Russia and the United States of America had all developed submarine forces before Germany began development of its Unterzeeboats (Undersea boats, or U-boats) in 1906, but during World War I submarines came to be particularly associated with the Imperial German Navy, which used them to try to bridge the gap in naval strength it suffered compared to Britain’s Royal Navy. Longer-range U-boats were developed and torpedo quality improved during the war. Submarines could strike unseen from beneath the waves with torpedoes but also surfaced to use their deck gun. One tactic was for the low-riding subs to slip in among a convoy of ships while surfaced, attack and dive. An unsuccessful post-war effort was made to ban submarine warfare, as was done with poison gas.

Whose assassination on 28 June 1914 sparked the war?

World War I, or The Great War, began when a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.

Which British Prime Minister led Britain into war in 1914? After the Battle of the Somme, he was blamed for military failures and replaced.

When King George V, the Queen’s grandad, declared war on August 4 1914 Herbert Asquith was in Number 10. Asquith, leader of the Liberal Party, led the nation until 1916 when he was forced out of office following a series of crises including lack of artillery shells and the humiliating defeat to the Turks at Gallipoli. He was replaced by David Lloyd George, also a Liberal, who had served as a minister in his War Cabinet. Lloyd George would go on to lead Britain to victory in 1918 and remain PM until 1922. He would be the last Liberal Prime Minister of Britain.

What were Zeppelins?

A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (German pronunciation: [ˈt͡sɛpəliːn]) who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874[1] and developed in detail in 1893.[2] They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the United States in 1899.[3] After the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the word zeppelin came to be commonly used to refer to all rigid airships. Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), the world's first airline in revenue service. By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 10,000 fare-paying passengers on over 1,500 flights. During World War I, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and scouts, killing over 500 people in bombing raids in Britain. The principal feature of Zeppelin's design was a fabric-covered rigid metal framework made up from transverse rings and longitudinal girders containing a number of individual gasbags.[6] The advantage of this design was that the aircraft could be much larger than non-rigid airships, which relied on a slight overpressure within the single pressure envelope to maintain their shape. The framework of most Zeppelins was made of duralumin (a combination of aluminum and copper as well as two or three other metals—its exact content was kept a secret for years). Early Zeppelins used rubberised cotton for the gasbags, but most later craft used goldbeater's skin, made from the intestines of cattle.[7] The first Zeppelins had long cylindrical hulls with tapered ends and complex multi-plane fins. During World War I, following the lead of their rivals Schütte-Lanz Luftschiffbau, the design changed to the more familiar streamlined shape with cruciform tail surfaces, as used by almost all later airships. They were propelled by several engines, mounted in gondolas or engine cars, which were attached to the outside of the structural framework. Some of these could provide reverse thrust for manoeuvring while mooring. Early models had a comparatively small externally mounted gondola for passengers and crew which was attached to the bottom of the frame. This space was never heated (fire outside of the kitchen was considered too risky) so passengers during trips across the North Atlantic or Siberia were forced to bundle themselves in blankets and furs to keep warm and were often miserable with the cold. By the time of the Hindenburg, several important changes had taken place: the passenger space had been relocated to the interior of the overall vessel, passenger rooms were insulated from the exterior by the dining area, and forced-warm air could be circulated from the water that cooled the forward engines, all of which made traveling much more comfortable; though it did deprive passengers of the views from the windows of their berths which had been a major attraction on the Graf Zeppelin. On both the older and newer vessels, the external viewing windows were often opened during flight. The flight ceiling was so low that no pressurization of the cabins was necessary, though the Hindenburg did maintain a pressurized air-locked smoking room (no flame allowed, however—a single electric lighter was provided, and could not be removed from the room).[8] Access to Zeppelins was achieved in a number of ways. The Graf Zeppelin's gondola was accessed while the vessel was on the ground, via gangways. The Hindenburg also had passenger gangways leading from the ground directly into its hull, which could be withdrawn entirely, ground access to the gondola, and an exterior access hatch via its electrical room; this latter was intended for crew use on

When was the Treaty of Versailles?

The Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919, put an end to the war. The “Big Four” leaders of the victorious Western nations—Wilson of the United States, David Lloyd George of Great Britain, Clemenceau of France and, to a lesser extent, Vittorio Orlando of Italy—dominated the peace negotiations in Paris. Germany and the other defeated powers, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, were not represented at the conference; nor was Russia, which had fought as one of the Allied powers until 1917, when the country’s new Bolshevik government concluded a separate peace with Germany and withdrew from the conflict. In the end, the European Allies imposed harsh peace terms on Germany, forcing the nation to surrender around 10 percent of its territory and all of its overseas possessions. The treaty also called for the demilitarization and occupation of the Rhineland, limited Germany’s army and navy, forbade it to maintain an air force, and required it to conduct war crimes trials against Kaiser Wilhelm II and other leaders for their aggression. Most importantly, Article 231 of the treaty, better known as the “war guilt clause,” forced Germany to accept full responsibility for starting World War I and pay enormous reparations for Allied war losses.

What happened to the four empires as a result of WW1? Please, name the republics formed after WW1.

Four empires collapsed: the Russian Empire in 1917, the German and the Austro-Hungarian in 1918, and the Ottoman in 1922. 3. Independent republics were formed in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Turkey.

· Establishment of the Republic of German Austria and the Hungarian Democratic Republic, disavowing any continuity with the empire and exiling the Habsburg family in perpetuity.

· Borders of newly independent Hungary did not include two-thirds of the lands of the former Kingdom of Hungary, including areas where the ethnic Magyars were in a majority. The new republic of Austria maintained control over most of the predominantly German-controlled areas, but lost various other German majority lands in what was the Austrian Empire.

Division of Austria-Hungary after World War I

· Bohemia, Moravia, Opava Silesia and the western part of the Duchy of Cieszyn, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia formed the new Czechoslovakia.

· Galicia, the eastern part of the Duchy of Cieszyn, northern County of Orava and northern Spisz were transferred to Poland.

· the Southern half of the County of Tyrol and Trieste were granted to Italy.

· Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, Slovenia, Syrmia Banat, Bačka and Baranja were joined with Serbia to form the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia.

· Transylvania and Bukovina became parts of Romania.

· The Austro-Hungarian concession in Tianjin was ceded to the Republic of China.

Which secret plan dividing the Ottoman lands between the British and French was revealed to the world by Russia's new Bolshevik government, causing huge embarrassment to the two countries?

Sykes-Picot Agreement, also called Asia Minor Agreement, (May 1916), secret convention made during World War I between Great Britain and France, with the assent of imperial Russia, for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.
Which infamous communication finally brought the USA into the war?

The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note or Zimmerman Cable) was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico.

Zimmermann sent the telegram in anticipation of resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, an act the German government expected would likely lead to war with the U.S. Zimmermann hoped tensions with Mexico would slow shipments of supplies, munitions, and troops to the Allies if the U.S. was tied down on its southern
What was the grim nickname applied to the battle of Verdun?

battle of attrition/ war of attrition, the MEAT-GRINDER
Where did the only large-scale clash of the British and German fleets take place?

Battle of Jutland, also called Battle of the Skagerrak, (May 31–June 1, 1916), the only major encounter between the main British and German battle fleets in World War I, fought near the Skagerrak, an arm of the North Sea, about 60 miles (97 km) off the west coast of Jutland (Denmark).

WW2

Which country did Stalin’s Soviet Union invade on 17 September 1939?

The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, sixteen days after Germany invaded Poland from the west.
Please, describe the Dunkirk Evacuation in 1940.

Dunkirk evacuation, (1940) in World War II, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and other Allied troops from the French seaport of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) to England. Naval vessels and hundreds of civilian boats were used in the evacuation, which began on May 26. When it ended on June 4, about 198,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian troops had been saved.

Blitzkrieg And The Allied CollapseThe immediate context of the Dunkirk evacuation was Germany’s invasion of the Low Countries and northern France in May 1940. On May 10 the German blitzkrieg attack on the Netherlands began with the capture by parachutists of key bridges deep within the country, with the aim of opening the way for mobile ground forces. The Dutch defenders fell back westward, and by noon on May 12 German tanks were on the outskirts of Rotterdam. Queen Wilhelmina and her government left the country for England on May 13, and the next day the Dutch army surrendered to the Germans.

The invasion of Belgium also began on May 10, when German airborne troops landed on the fortress of Eben Emael, immediately opposite Maastricht, and on bridges over the Albert Canal. On May 11 the Belgian front was broken, and German tanks ran on westward while Belgian, French, and British divisions fell back to a line between Antwerp and Namur.

The German invasion of France hinged on Gen. Paul Ludwig von Kleist’s surprise advance through the hilly and dense Ardennes Forest. On May 10 German tanks crossed Luxembourg to the southeastern border of Belgium, and by the evening of May 12 the Germans were across the Franco-Belgian frontier and overlooking the Meuse River. The next day they crossed the Meuse, and on May 15 they broke through the French defenses into open country, turning westward in the direction of the English Channel. That same day, Gen. Henri Giraud assumed command of the French Ninth Army and drew up a plan for a counteroffensive on a line 25 miles (40 km) west of the Meuse. On May 16 Giraud found that the forces for such an undertaking were not available, while the Germans had advanced in strength far beyond that line. He now decided to withdraw to the line of the Oise, 30 miles (48 km) farther back, and to block the Germans there. Once again he was too late, for the German panzer divisions outran his retreating troops and were across that barrier on May 17.Even if the French had been able to mount a counteroffensive, they would not have found it easy to crush the invader. Kleist’s southern flank was progressively lined by his motorized divisions, which in turn were relieved by the infantry corps that were marching on as fast as possible. This lining of the Aisne had an important indirect effect of playing on the most instinctive fear of the French. When, on May 15, French commander-in-chief Maurice Gamelin received an alarming report that the Germans were crossing the Aisne between Rethel and Laon, he told the government that he had no reserves between that sector and Paris and could not guarantee the security of the capital for more than a day. After Gamelin’s startling message, French Premier Paul Reynaud hastily decided to move the seat of government from Paris to Tours. By evening more reassuring reports had come from the Aisne, and Reynaud broadcast a denial of “the most absurd rumours that the government is preparing to leave Paris.” At the same time, he seized the opportunity to replace Gamelin and for that purpose summoned Gen. Maxime Weygand from Syria. Weygand did not arrive until May 19, and thus for three critical days the Supreme Command was without direction. While Allied leaders were still hoping for an attack that would cut off the expanding “bulge,” German armoured forces raced to the Channel and cut off the Allied forces in Belgium. The remaining obstacles that could have blocked the advance were not manned in time. After crossing the Oise on May 17, German Gen. Heinz Guderian’s advance troops reached Amiens two days later. On May 20 they swept on and reached Abbeville, thus blocking all communications between north and south. By the next day motorized divisions had taken over the line of the Somme from Péronne to Abbeville, forming a strong defensive flank. Guderian’s corps then turned north up the coast in a drive for Calais and Dunkirk on May 22. Gen. Georg-Hans Reinhardt swung south of the British rear position at Arras, headed for the same objective—the last escape port that remained open for the British.

The Miracle Of Dunkirk Even before the Belgian capitulation, the British government had decided to launch Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the BEF by sea from Dunkirk. The admiralty had been collecting every kind of small craft to help in bringing away the troops, and the retreat to the coast now became a race to re-embark before the German pincers closed. Adm. Bertram Ramsay had overall command of the operation, and he tasked Capt. William Tennant with tactical oversight of the evacuation. Tennant, who was designated “beachmaster,” arrived at Dunkirk on May 27 to discover that Luftwaffe raids had knocked out the port facilities. Quickly determining that lifting troops directly from the beaches would be too time-consuming, he turned his attention to the breakwaters at the harbour entrance. The western breakwater proved to be unsuitable for his purposes, but the eastern breakwater was some 1,400 yards (1.3 km) long, topped with a wooden boardwalk, and wide enough for a column of troops to traverse it four abreast. Tennant directed the bulk of the evacuation efforts to the eastern breakwater, and some 200,000 troops were able to use it as an ersatz dock to board rescue ships. The remaining Allied forces had to be taken directly off the beaches, making the evacuation a slow and difficult process, extending from May 26 to June 4. At 10:50 PM on June 2, Tennant radioed Ramsay at Operation Dynamo’s Dover command post with the triumphant messsage “BEF evacuated.” Tennant and British I Corps commander Gen. Harold Alexander then toured the beach and harbour area in a motor launch, calling out with a megaphone to ensure that no BEF evacuees had been missed. In the end about 198,000 British troops were taken away, as well as 140,000 Allied troops, mainly French, though most of the equipment had to be left behind. The evacuation could not have been achieved but for the air cover provided by fighter aircraft from the English coast, the indomitable efforts of the seacraft, and the good discipline of the troops. It was Adolf Hitler, however, who did most to make their escape possible. German panzer groups had reached and crossed the canal defense line close to Dunkirk as early as May 23, when the bulk of the BEF was still far distant from the port, but they were stopped by Hitler’s order on May 24 and actually pulled back to the canal line just as Guderian was expecting to drive into Dunkirk.That “miraculous” intervention, which brought salvation to the British, was prompted by several factors. German Generals Kleist and Günther von Kluge contributed to it by expressing anxiety about the British tank counterattack at Arras and by overestimating its scale. Gen. Gerd von Rundstedt contributed by impressing on Hitler the need to conserve the armoured divisions for the next stage of the offensive. Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring contributed by insisting that his air forces could deliver the coup de grace at Dunkirk and prevent any escape by sea. Hitler himself was greatly influenced by his memories of marshy Flanders in World War I and thus became needlessly fearful of his tanks becoming bogged if they drove any farther north. Some of his generals who talked with him, however, felt that his halt order was also the result of a belief that Great Britain would be more willing to make peace if its pride was not wounded by seeing its army surrender. Three days passed before Walther von Brauchitsch, the German army’s commander in chief, persuaded Hitler to withdraw his veto and to allow the armoured forces to advance. They now met stronger opposition, however, and almost immediately Hitler stopped them again, ordering them to move south in advance of attack on the Somme-Aisne line. Reichenau’s army followed, leaving Gen. Georg von Küchler’s Eighteenth Army to pacify the north, where more than 1,000,000 prisoners had been taken in the three weeks’ campaign, at a cost of 60,000 German casualties.

AssessmentWith Dunkirk, the disastrous defense of the Low Countries ended in a brief flash of glory for the Allies. Yet the brilliance of the evacuation could not hide the fact that the British had suffered a terrible defeat and that Britain itself was in dire peril. The BEF had been saved, but almost all of its heavy equipment, tanks, artillery, and motorized transport had been left behind. In addition, more than 50,000 British troops were unable to escape the Continent; of these, 11,000 were killed and the bulk of the remainder were made prisoners of war (a handful were able to evade capture and eventually made their way back to Allied or neutral territory). Especially notable among the losses was the 51st Highland Division, which had been placed under French command in an effort to prop up France’s flagging defenses. Some 10,000 troops of the division were captured when German troops overran Saint-Valéry-en-Caux on June 12. Britain was helpless in the face of a seemingly all-conquering foe that stood just a few miles away, across the open water of the English Channel.Nevertheless, the British were undaunted by their departure from the Continent, and they began planning for their return almost immediately. In a bizarre quirk of history, Tennant would once again use a breakwater off the Channel coast to influence the course of the war. Almost exactly four years after the evacuation, he supervised the construction and operation of Mulberries, artificial harbours that would prove vital to the success of the Normandy Invasion. Tennant had personally recommended the construction of “Gooseberries”—artificial breakwaters built with scuttled ships—to protect the vulnerable structures. The Americans deviated from Tennant’s plan, and Mulberry A at Omaha Beach was destroyed in a storm just days after it became operational. Mulberry B, located at Gold Beach and protected by a Gooseberry breakwater built according to Tennant’s specifications, would remain operational for 10 months, receiving some 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and four million tons of supplies. For his service at both Dunkirk and Normandy, Tennant was made a Knight Commander of the Order of Bath and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

What country did Hitler take over first in his effort to gain more living space?

Poland To Hitler, the conquest of Poland would bring Lebensraum, or “living space,” for the German people. After heavy shelling and bombing, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 27, 1939. Britain and France, standing by their guarantee of Poland's border, had declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. The Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland on September 17, 1939
What two countries declared war on Germany when the German army invaded Poland?

France and the UK declared war on Germany on 3 September, but failed to provide any meaningful support. The German-French border saw only a few minor skirmishes, although the majority of German forces, including 85% of their armoured forces, were engaged in Poland. Despite some Polish successes in minor border battles, German technical, operational and numerical superiority forced the Polish armies to retreat from the borders towards Warsaw and Lwów.
What was the name of the battle where the Allies attacked the western front on the coast of France on June 6, 1944?

Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region

Normandy The Western Allies of World War II launched the largest amphibious invasion in history when they attacked German positions at Normandy, located on the northern coast of France, on 6 June 1944.
What was the code name given to Germany’s plan to invade the USSR?

Operation Barbarossa, original name Operation Fritz, during World War II, code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which was launched on June 22, 1941.

With which country did the Soviet Union have a non-aggression pact at the outbreak of war?

Germany

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially known as the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a neutrality pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939, by foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, respectively …

Can you name any other countries which were allies of Germany during the war?

The Axis powers also known as the "Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis" (also acronymized as "Roberto"),

States that adhered to the Tripartite Pact:

· Hungary

· Romania

· Slovakia

· Bulgaria

· Croatia[note 2]

What was the name of the line of defences built by France along its border with Germany?

The Maginot Line (French: Ligne Maginot, IPA: [liɲ maʒino]), named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force them to move around the fortifications.

Cold War

The Cold War began after what major conflict?

The Cold War began after the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, when the uneasy alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other started to fall apart.

What weapon was first deployed by the United States at the end of World War Two, and became a centerpiece of Cold War strategy?

Atomic bombs

Scientists first developed nuclear weapons technology during World War II. Atomic bombs have been used only twice in war—both times by the United States against Japan at the end of World War II, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic bomb during World War II. The Manhattan Project was started in response to fears that German scientists had been working on a weapon using nuclear technology since the 1930s.

On December 28, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project to bring together various scientists and military officials working on nuclear research.

Much of the work in the Manhattan Project was performed in Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the direction of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb.” On July 16, 1945, in a remote desert location near Alamogordo, New Mexico, the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated—the Trinity Test. It created an enormous mushroom cloud some 40,000 feet high and ushered in the Atomic Age. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb from a B-29 bomber plane called the Enola Gay over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The “Little Boy” exploded with about 13 kilotons of force, leveling five square miles of the city and killing 80,000 people instantly. Tens of thousands more would later die from radiation exposure. When the Japanese did not immediately surrender, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb three days later on the city of Nagasaki. The “Fat Man” killed an estimated 40,000 people on impact.

What was the name of the strategy theorized by George Kennan that guided American Cold War policy?

Kennan and Containment, 1947. George F. Kennan , a career Foreign Service Officer, formulated the policy of “containment,” the basic United States strategy for fighting the cold war (1947–1989) with the Soviet Union.

George F. Kennan, a career Foreign Service Officer, formulated the policy of “containment,” the basic United States strategy for fighting the cold war (1947–1989) with the Soviet Union.

Kennan’s ideas, which became the basis of the Truman administration’s foreign policy, first came to public attention in 1947 in the form of an anonymous contribution to the journal Foreign Affairs, the so-called “X-Article.” “The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union,” Kennan wrote, “must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” To that end, he called for countering “Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world” through the “adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy.” Such a policy, Kennan predicted, would “promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power.”

Kennan’s policy was controversial from the very beginning. Columnist Walter Lippmann attacked the X-Article for failing to differentiate between vital and peripheral interests. The United States, Kennan’s article implied, should face down the Soviet Union and its Communist allies whenever and wherever they posed a risk of gaining influence. In fact, Kennan advocated defending above all else the world’s major centers of industrial power against Soviet expansion: Western Europe, Japan, and the United States. Others criticized Kennan’s policy for being too defensive. Most notably, John Foster Dulles declared during the 1952 election campaign that the United States’ policy should not be containment, but the “rollback” of Soviet power and the eventual “liberation” of Eastern Europe. Even within the Truman administration there was a rift over containment between Kennan and Paul Nitze, Kennan’s successor as director of the Policy Planning Staff. Nitze, who saw the Soviet threat primarily in military terms, interpreted Kennan’s call for “the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force” to mean the use of military power. In contrast, Kennan, who considered the Soviet threat to be primarily political, advocated above all else economic assistance (e.g., the Marshall Plan) and “psychological warfare” (overt propaganda and covert operations) to counter the spread of Soviet influence. In 1950, Nitze’s conception of containment won out over Kennan’s. NSC 68, a policy document prepared by the National Security Council and signed by Truman, called for a drastic expansion of the U.S. military budget. The paper also expanded containment’s scope beyond the defense of major centers of industrial power to encompass the entire world. “In the context of the present polarization of power,” it read, “a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere.”Despite all the criticisms and the various policy defeats that Kennan suffered in the early 1950’s, containment in the more general sense of blocking the expansion of Soviet influence remained the basic strategy of the United States throughout the cold war. On the one hand, the United States did not withdraw into isolationism; on the other, it did not move to “roll back” Soviet power, as John Foster Dulles briefly advocated. It is possible to say that each succeeding administration after Truman’s, until the collapse of communism in 1989, adopted a variation of Kennan’s containment policy and made it their own.

Which president proclaimed a doctrine that the United States would come to the aid of any country threatened by Soviet communism?

The Truman Doctrine, 1947

With the Truman Doctrine, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces.

What country became a communist-ruled nation in 1949?

The Chinese Revolution of 1949. On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

What were the alliances that unified the eastern and western blocs against each other?

In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955.

In the Western Bloc, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance—abbreviated WAPA, Warpac and WP. Elsewhere, in the former member states, the Warsaw Treaty is known as:

· Albanian: Pakti i miqësisë, bashkëpunimit dhe i ndihmës së përbashkët

· Armenian: Բարեկամության, համագործակցության եւ փոխադարձ օգնության պայմանագիր

o Romanized Armenian: Barekamut’yan, hamagortsakts’ut’yan yev p’vokhadardz ognut’yan paymanagir

· Azerbaijani: Dostluq, Əməkdaşlıq və qarşılıqlı yardım müqaviləsi

· Belarusian: Дагавор аб дружбе, супрацоўніцтве і ўзаемнай дапамозе

o Romanized Belarusian: Dagavor ab druzhe, supratsoŭnitstve i ŭzaemnaŭ dapamoze

· Bulgarian: Договор за дружба, сътрудничество и взаимопомощ

o Romanized Bulgarian: Dogovor za druzhba, satrudnichestvo i vzaimopomosht

· Czech: Smlouva o přátelství, spolupráci a vzájemné pomoci

· Slovak: Zmluva o priateľstve, spolupráci a vzájomnej pomoci

· Estonian: Sõprus, koostöö ja vastastikune abi

· Georgian: მეგობრობის, თანამშრომლობისა და ურთიერთდახმარების ხელშეკრულება

o Romanized Georgian: megobrobis, tanamshromlobisa da urtiertdakhmarebis khelshek’ruleba

· German: Vertrag über Freundschaft, Zusammenarbeit und gegenseitigen Beistand

· Hungarian: Barátsági, együttműködési és kölcsönös segítségnyújtási szerződés

· Kazakh: Достық, ынтымақтастық және өзара көмек туралы келісім

o Romanized Kazakh: Dostıq, ıntımaqtastıq jäne özara kömek twralı kelisim

· Kyrgyz: Достук, кызматташтык жана өз ара жардам көрсөтүү жөнүндө келишим

o Romanized Kyrgyz: Dostuk, kızmattaştık jana öz ara jardam körsötüü jönündö kelişim

· Latvian: Līgums par draudzību, sadarbību un savstarpēju palīdzību

· Lithuanian: Draugystės, bendradarbiavimo ir savitarpio pagalbos sutartis

· Polish: Układ o przyjaźni, współpracy i pomocy wzajemnej

· Romanian: Tratatul de prietenie, cooperare și asistență mutuală

· Russian: Договор о дружбе, сотрудничестве и взаимной помощи

o Romanized Russian: Dogovor o druzhbe, sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoy pomoshchi

· Tajik: Шартномаи дӯстӣ, ҳамкорӣ ва кӯмаки мутахассис

o Romanized Tajik: Şartnomai dūstī, hamkorī va kūmaki mutaxassis

· Ukrainian: Договір про дружбу, співробітництво і взаємну допомогу

o Romanized Ukrainian: Dogovir pro druzhbu, spivrobitnitstvo i vzaêmnu dopomogu

· Uzbek: Do'stlik, hamkorlik va o'zaro yordam shartnomasi

In 1956, this country endured a three-week revolution against Soviet power which ended in the crushing of the rebellion. Which was it?

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom), or the Hungarian Uprising,[5] was a nationwide revolution against the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. Leaderless at the beginning, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the Red Army drove Nazi Germany from its territory at the End of World War II in Europe.

The revolt began as a student protest, which attracted thousands as they marched through central Budapest to the Hungarian Parliament building, calling out on the streets using a van with loudspeakers. A student delegation, entering the radio building to try to broadcast the students' demands, was detained. When the delegation's release was demanded by the protesters outside, they were fired upon from within the building by the State Security Police, known as the ÁVH (acronym for Államvédelmi Hatóság, literally "State Protection Authority"). One student died and was wrapped in a flag and held above the crowd. This was the start of the next phase of the revolution. As the news spread, disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital.

What was constructed in 1961, signaling a hardening of Cold War tensions?

Berlin crisis of 1961, Cold War conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States concerning the status of the divided German city of Berlin. It culminated in the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961.

The Cold War was about 'Brink Events', incidents which took the world to the brink of nuclear war. The East-West confrontation over Berlin and Cuba were both brink events which could have resulted in

The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis of 1962 (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre), the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, tr. Karibsky krizis, IPA: [kɐˈrʲipskʲɪj ˈkrʲizʲɪs]), or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day (October 16–28, 1962) confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union initiated by the American discovery of Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.[2]

In response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961 and the presence of American Jupiter ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to Cuba's request to place nuclear missiles on the island to deter a future invasion. An agreement was reached during a secret meeting between Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, and construction of a number of missile launch facilities started later that summer.

When all offensive missiles and Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers had been withdrawn from Cuba, the blockade was formally ended on November 21, 1962. The negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union pointed out the necessity of a quick, clear, and direct communication line between Washington and Moscow. As a result, the Moscow–Washington hotline was established. A series of agreements later reduced US–Soviet tensions for several years until both parties began to build their nuclear arsenal even further.

When the Soviets blockaded Berlin, what was the response of the United States?

When the Soviets blockaded Berlin, the United states responded by an airlift. The third option in the given question is the correct option. The Berlin Blockade was done by the Soviets between the period of 24th June of the year 1948 and 12th May of the year 1949.

Why did the United States and U.S.S.R. engage in proxy wars during the Cold War?

During the Cold War, proxy warfare was motivated by fears that a conventional war between the United States and Soviet Union would result in nuclear holocaust, rendering the use of ideological proxies a safer way of exercising hostilities.A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors which act on the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities.[1] In order for a conflict to be considered a proxy war, there must be a direct, long-term relationship between external actors and the belligerents involved.[2] The aforementioned relationship usually takes the form of funding, military training, arms, or other forms of material assistance which assist a belligerent party in sustaining its war effort.Examples of proxy wars include the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Yom Kippur War, and the Soviet Afghanistan War. The United States and the Soviet Union also tried to fight the Cold War by demonstrating their power and technology.

What event symbolized for the world the fall of Soviet communism?

The collapse of the Berlin Wall was the culminating point of the revolutionary changes sweeping East Central Europe in 1989. Throughout the Soviet bloc, reformers assumed power and ended over 40 years of dictatorial Communist rule. The reform movement that ended communism in East Central Europe began in Poland

How was the Cold War different from other wars?

The Cold War is different from other wars because there was no physical fighting like in World War II or any other war. The Cold War was the struggle between two world superpowers, the Soviet Union and the U.S became rivals. They didn't want either to gain to much power over the other.

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and their respective allies, the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc, after World War II. The period is generally considered to span the 1947 Truman Doctrine to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by the two powers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany in 1945. Whilst the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc generally espoused the economic theories of capitalism and socialism, respectively, the conflict was mostly geopolitical in nature.[1][2] Each power had a nuclear strategy that discouraged a pre-emptive attack by the other side, on the basis that such an attack would lead to the total destruction of the attacker—the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via psychological warfare, massive propaganda campaigns and espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

Arab Spring

What is the Arab Spring?

The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي‎) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Islamic world in the early 2010s. It began in response to oppressive regimes and a low standard of living, starting with protests in Tunisia (Noueihed, 2011; Maleki, 2011).[1][2] The protests then spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, where either the regime was toppled or major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Iranian Khuzestan,[citation needed] Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests occurred in Djibouti, Mauritania, the Palestinian National Authority, Saudi Arabia, and the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.[3] A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām ("the people want to bring down the regime")Tunisia experienced a series of conflicts during the three years leading up to the Arab Spring, the most notable occurring in the mining area of Gafsa in 2008, where protests continued for many months. These protests included rallies, sit-ins, and strikes, during which there were two fatalities, an unspecified number of wounded, and dozens of arrests.[74][75]

In Egypt, the labor movement had been strong for years, with more than 3,000 labor actions since 2004, and provided an important venue for organizing protests and collective action.[76] One important demonstration was an attempted workers' strike on 6 April 2008 at the state-run textile factories of al-Mahalla al-Kubra, just outside Cairo. The idea for this type of demonstration spread throughout the country, promoted by computer-literate working-class youths and their supporters among middle-class college students.[76] A Facebook page, set up to promote the strike, attracted tens of thousands of followers and provided the platform for sustained political action in pursuit of the "long revolution".[45] The government mobilized to break the strike through infiltration and riot police, and while the regime was somewhat successful in forestalling a strike, dissidents formed the "6 April Committee" of youths and labor activists, which became one of the major forces calling for the anti-Mubarak demonstration on 25 January in Tahrir Square.[76]

In Algeria, discontent had been building for years over a number of issues. In February 2008, United States Ambassador Robert Ford wrote in a leaked diplomatic cable that Algeria is 'unhappy' with long-standing political alienation; that social discontent persisted throughout the country, with food strikes occurring almost every week; that there were demonstrations every day somewhere in the country; and that the Algerian government was corrupt and fragile.[77] Some claimed that during 2010 there were as many as '9,700 riots and unrests' throughout the country.[78] Many protests focused on issues such as education and health care, while others cited rampant corruption.[79]

In Western Sahara, the Gdeim Izik protest camp was erected 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south-east of El Aaiún by a group of young Sahrawis on 9 October 2010. Their intention was to demonstrate against labor discrimination, unemployment, looting of resources, and human rights abuses.[80] The camp contained between 12,000 and 20,000 inhabitants, but on 8 November 2010 it was destroyed and its inhabitants evicted by Moroccan security forces. The security forces faced strong opposition from some young Sahrawi civilians, and rioting soon spread to El Aaiún and other towns within the territory, resulting in an unknown number of injuries and deaths. Violence against Sahrawis in the aftermath of the protests was cited as a reason for renewed protests months later, after the start of the Arab Spring.[81]

The catalyst for the escalation of protests was the self-immolation of Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi. Unable to find work and selling fruit at a roadside stand, Bouazizi had his wares confiscated by a municipal inspector on 17 December 2010. An hour later he doused himself with gasoline and set himself afire. His death on 4 January 2011[82] brought together various groups dissatisfied with the existing system, including many unemployed, political and human rights activists, labor, trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, and others to begin the Tunisian Revolution.[74]