Secondary 5 History

The military alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy formed in 1882, facing the Triple Entente.

The understanding among France, Russia and Britain completed by 1907, opposing the Triple Alliance.

The competition to build up armed forces, typified by the Anglo-German naval race, which deepened mutual suspicion.

The belief that one's own nation stands above all others, fostering confrontation, expansion and warlike sentiment.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife on 28 June 1914, the spark of World War I.

The 1919 peace treaty with Germany, imposing war guilt, reparations, territorial losses and disarmament.

Article 231, which placed responsibility for the war on Germany and her allies — the legal basis of reparations, seen by Germany as a national humiliation.

Wilson's peace principles of 1918, including open diplomacy, national self-determination and an international organisation.

The first worldwide peace organisation, founded in 1920 to preserve peace through collective security; the United States never joined.

The huge payments Germany owed the victors under the treaty, fixed in 1921 at 132 billion gold marks.

The years 1919–1939 between the two world wars, when peace efforts and mounting crises coexisted.

Germany's democratic regime after World War I, long weakened by the treaty burden and economic turmoil, ending in 1933.

The collapse of US share prices in October 1929, which triggered the worldwide Great Depression.

The global economic crisis of the 1930s: mass unemployment, bank failures and the collapse of international trade.

Restricting imports with high tariffs; many states adopted it during the Depression, shrinking trade further.

Rule in which the state controls politics, the economy and thought in their entirety, suppressing individual freedom.

Hitler's ideology of extreme nationalism: dictatorial leadership, racial superiority and external expansion.

Mussolini's authoritarian ideology rejecting democracy and exalting the nation and military expansion.

The incident of 18 September 1931 in which Japan's Kwantung Army bombed a railway and seized Manchuria in China.

The British–French policy of conceding to aggression to avoid war, symbolised by the 1938 Munich Agreement.

The military alliance led by Germany, Italy and Japan, opposed to the Allies during World War II.

The coalition opposing the Axis powers, including Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the United States and China.

Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union launched in June 1941, which opened the Eastern Front and brought the Soviet Union into the war.

Japan's surprise attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1941, which brought America into the war.

The decisive Soviet-German battle of late 1942 to early 1943; the destruction of the German Sixth Army marked the turning point in Europe.

The Allied landings on the Normandy coast of France in June 1944, which opened a second front against Germany.

A weapon releasing enormous energy through nuclear fission; the American bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 led to Japan's surrender.

The international organisation founded on 24 October 1945 under the United Nations Charter, with maintaining international peace and security as its foremost aim.

The principal United Nations organ responsible for international peace and security, whose resolutions are binding on all member states.

The privilege of the Council's five permanent members — China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States — whereby a single negative vote blocks any substantive resolution.

The post-1945 all-out rivalry between the US and Soviet blocs short of direct war — military, economic, diplomatic and propagandist.

Churchill's 1946 Fulton speech describing the division of Europe behind an 'iron curtain'.

The 1947 pledge to support nations threatened by communism, marking the start of containment.

America's core strategy of preventing further communist expansion.

The 1947 European Recovery Program using American aid to rebuild Western Europe.

The 1948–49 Soviet blockade of West Berlin, answered by the Anglo-American Airlift — the first Cold War crisis.

The 1949 collective-defence alliance of the United States, Canada and ten Western European nations.

The 1955 Soviet-led military alliance of Eastern European states, countering NATO.

The world order divided into two blocs led by the United States and the Soviet Union.

The US–Soviet competition in nuclear and conventional weapons, opened by the Soviet atomic test of 1949.

The 1950–53 war on the Korean Peninsula: the North invaded, US-led UN forces intervened and China joined; the 1953 armistice left the peninsula divided.

The line dividing the Korean Peninsula after 1945; the war began along it and the armistice line follows it closely.

The 1962 thirteen-day standoff over Soviet missiles in Cuba — the closest the Cold War came to nuclear war.

Kennedy's measure in the crisis: intercepting and inspecting ships bound for Cuba to stop more missiles arriving.

The 1955–75 war in which the US backed South Vietnam against the North, withdrew in 1973, and the North reunified the country in 1975.

The US Cold War belief that if one country fell to communism its neighbours would follow like dominoes.

The 1960s–70s policy of easing tension through talks, arms control and exchange; it ended after Afghanistan in 1979.

The direct US–Soviet communication link set up in 1963 after the crisis to reduce miscalculation.

Signed by Nixon and Brezhnev in 1972, capping US and Soviet strategic nuclear weapons — a landmark of détente.

The 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan; US sanctions and an Olympic boycott followed, ending détente.

Gorbachev's policy from 1985 of relaxing censorship and allowing open criticism of past mistakes.

Gorbachev's economic restructuring, injecting limited market elements into the planned economy with little success.

The sweeping changes of 1989, when communist regimes across Eastern Europe fell within a year.

On 9 November 1989 East German crowds breached the wall, symbolising the unravelling of Europe's Cold War division.

On 3 October 1990 East and West Germany ended their division and merged into one state.

In December 1991 the USSR ended and its fifteen republics became independent states, closing the Cold War.

A loose association of some former Soviet republics formed after the USSR dissolved, known as the CIS.

The post-Cold War structure in which the United States, as the sole superpower, dominated world affairs.

NATO's post-Cold War absorption of former Soviet-bloc members, which Russia saw as a security threat.

Violence aimed at creating fear for political ends; after the 11 September 2001 attacks it became a global security focus.