A Note from Me

I've heard rumors that someone wrote a note on the last test about how awful our teacher is and that when they signed up for a college course, they hoped to learn something and have a chance of passing the exam at the end of the year. Apparently, they posted this note on a social media site. I looked it up and read the note, and apparently they mentioned that I am a better teacher than our actual, in-class teacher.

I don't support a note like this, and I definitely do not want our teacher compared to me. Part of my mind is telling me that this is outright bullying, which shouldn't happen to anyone, teachers included. 

I'm just posting this to let you know that I do not, in any way, support the idea that our teacher is a bad person or the idea that they should be shamed or bullied, especially on social media sites. Really, that shouldn't have been posted, and there was no need to write it on a test. Any concerns that you have should be taken directly to the teacher, not posted on the Internet. I am running this site because I think we need a supplement to our in-class education, and that it would be a helpful tool to help us pass the exam - NOT because we aren't learning anything. 

I am aware that I may get some sort of backlash for posting this, but I really think that we shouldn't be writing notes like these or posting them on the Internet. If I have offended anyone because of my opinion, I'm sorry. But I don't think that the matter should have been handled this way.   

 - Jessica

Please don't kill me! Here is a kitten for putting up with my rant here.

WWII, Stalin & the Soviets

Now that we're moving towards the 21st century, you will probably know a lot more about the events that we will be covering. This is good - less work for all of us to do & less to learn! For all that I haven't covered (because I'm both busy and lazy), please consult John Green's Crash Course.

Stalin & the Soviets

Stalin & his characteristic mustache

• Stalin wanted to turn the Soviet Union into an industrial nation, so he introduced Five Year Plans in 1928. The Plans set goals for industrial output and made the Soviet Union a major power before WWII.
• Property and farmland was taken by the government. A group of peasants called the kulaks began to dissent, and soldiers forced them to go to slave labor camps (called gulags).
• Famine was common among the Soviet peasantry.
• Stalin also persecuted members of the Communist party that he felt did not support his ideas. 

The Great Depression & the Road to War

• The 1929 US stock market crash caused businesses to fail, banks to close, and many people to lose their homes and jobs. Many moved West to find new employment. 
• The Depression was global, with Germany and Japan being affected strongly.
• Some countries turned to dictatorship to help their failing economies.
• Benito Mussolini took over Italy and created the Fascist Party, which would later join Hitler in the WWII Axis alliance. 
• Hitler took over Germany in 1933 and started carrying out policies against those he deemed "inferior".
• In 1935, Hitler built up his army and created an air force - violating the Treaty of Versailles.
• Both Germany and Italy took freedoms from their people, but when Hitler invaded Poland, his motives became clear to the world.

East Asia

Mao Zedong

• In 1931, Japan conquered the province of Manchuria in China, thinking that it would solve their economic problems.
• The Chinese Guomindang leader Chiang Kai-shek fought the Japanese and the Communists (led by Mao Zedong). The Communists fled to the northwest in the Long March.
• In 1937, Japan conquered most of china's coastline, but they gained few advantages in the resulting war.(Spoiler: they lost)

World War II

• WWII used new technologies and covered entire oceans and continents. Hitler's method of blitzkrieg ("lightning war" - invading a country and assaulting it with all sorts of bombs and other weapons so quickly that they barely knew what had happened until they were taken over) was especially effective. 
• In 1941, Germany turned on it's once-ally, the Soviet Union, and tried to invade. The winter of 1941/2 and the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad severely weakened the Nazis. 
• The US got involved in the war after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. Japan attacked because the US had stopped sending them supplies vital to the war. The Americans began to push Japan out of the countries it had conquered by mid-1942.



The D-day invasion of Normandy



An atomic bomb blast (from a test on Bikini Atoll)

• In 1944, the Allied powers landed in Normandy (France) on D-day, and then fought their way to Germany.                           

• The August 1945 bombings of Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced Japan to surrender. 
• After Japan was defeated, Mao Zedong took over China when Chiang Kai-shek's army failed to maintain control.
• The war caused 60 million deaths, many of them of civilians.
• In the Holocaust, the Nazis murdered nearly 11 million people, 6 million of them Jews. This comes out to 1 in 6 deaths in the war.
• Industrial economies, such as the US and Soviet Union, mobilized civilians to manufacture war materials. The booming US economy provided jobs for woman and minorities. 
• The war damaged environments in war zones, some of them changing forever (Hiroshima and Nagasaki)  

Chapter 20 - Something to do with Japan, China and Russia

I'm typing this at school, so you'll have to forgive the fact that I can't remember the title of the chapter. I should have written it down with my notes, but I didn't. Oh well.

Japan

• After the daimyo (Japanese warlords) civil war, Hideyosi became the supreme warlord and invaded Korea & China

• When Hideyoshi died, the Tokugawa Shogunate took over, moving the capitol to Edo

• Despite political unity and economic expansion, the Tokugawa failed to control commerce

• Regular trade with Europe but rising suspicion about their motives cause the Tokugawa to restrict trade

• New merchant class, but samurai deteriorated under economic pressure

• 47 Ronin - The story tells of a group of samurai who were left leaderless (becoming ronin) after their daimyo Asano Naganori had to commit seppuku (ritual suicide - it's an honor thing) for assaulting a court official named Kira Yoshinaka. The ronin avenged their master by killing Kira, after plotting for almost two years. In turn, the ronin were themselves obliged to commit seppuku for committing murder. 

China

• After 1500, financial, environmental and administration problems weakened the Ming and they fell to the Manchu (aka the Qing) 

• The Qing ruler Kangxi expanded the borders, subdued rivals, and encouraged a flourishing culture and economy

• The Qing trading system mainly benefited the merchants of China. This prompted the Macartney mission (by England) and other diplomatic pressures, but all requests to fix the trading system were denied

• Decline in the later 1700's

Russia

• Muscovy became the center of Russian political power and started a movement against the Mongols

• Ivan IV expanded Muscovy & the Stroganovs sponsored the exploration of Siberia

• Time of Troubles - Swedes and Poles in Moscow ended Muscovite rule. The boyars (wealthy) put the Romanov faily in charge, which allowed for a central authority

• Peter the Great accelerated Russia's Westernization and expanded its power

• Catherine the Great continued expansion both Eastward and Westward 

Chapter 19 - Southwest Asia & the Indian Ocean, 1500-1750

These notes will be "notebook style" instead of a summary because I feel lazy (and because I have a few chapters of notes to catch up on). Sorry if they don't flow as well as the paragraph style notes. 

• Ottoman Empire - Islamic state in Anatolia formed in c. 1300; based in Istanbul/Constantinople from 1453 - 1922 & encompassed the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. Grew because of the control of the Dardanelles (major shipping port and choke point where, if blockaded, the movement of goods to different countries could be stopped altogether) and a traditional army equipped with new weapons. Conquered a Serbian kingdom at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, and most of E. Europe conquered by Sultans in 1402.

• Most powerful and best organized power by 1520

• Janissaries - elite of the Ottoman army of slave origin, armed with firearms, from the 1400's to 1826

• Devshirme - imposed regular levy of male children on Christian Balkan villages (recruiting kids for the army by force)

• Askeri military class - those who served in the military or bureaucracy and spoke Osmanli, the court language

• Anatolian revolts - 1590 to 1610

• Petrona Halil rebellion (1730) -  Urban groups protesting new taxes were joined by the poor and leading religious officials in a rebellion against Sultan Ahmet III. The sultan was deposed, and conservative groups exercised took more power. Patrona Halil was a small-scale merchant who was a street leader of the rebellion.

• Land grants for military service ended, tax farming began (specific amounts paid so merchants could charge more for their products)

• 2nd siege of Vienna - Janissaries hired substitutes for military service, failed second siege in 1683, empire weakened as a result

• capitulations - trade agreements on European taxes (lower than other trading taxes with the Middle East)

• Tulip Period - last years of the reign of Ahmed III during which European styles and attitudes were popular in Istanbul (1718-1730)

• Safavid Empire of Iran - 1502-1722, declared Iran as a Shi'ite state, evolved Persian culture. Women were forced to cover themselves (burquas), but they could retain property after marriage

• Silk and carpet trade were important, but most Safavids were herders or farmers

• High military costs, inflation and the decline of overland trade weakened the Safavid state, which fell to Afghanistan in 1722 

• The Mughal Empire grew under Akbar and his successors to encompass most of India

• Prosperous w/ European trade

• Akbar included minorities in the government and a hybrid culture flourished

• The empire declined due to foreign invasion and the rise of regional powers

• European trading companies' success shifted the balance of power