Indian National Congress
A movement and political party founded in 1885 to demand greater Indian participation in gov't.
Bengal
Region of N.E India. It was the first part of India to be conquered by the British in the eighteenth century and remained the political and economic center of British India throughout the nineteenth century.
All-India Muslim League
Political organization founded in India in 1906 to defend the interests of India's Muslim minority. It was led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and attempted to negotiate with the Indian National Congress.
Mohandas K. Ghandi
Leader of the Indian independence movement and advocate of nonviolent resistance.
Jawaharlal Nehru
Indian statesman who succeeded Mohandas K. Ghandi as leader of the Indian National Congress. He negotiated the end of British colonial rule in India and became India's first prime minister.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Indian Muslim politician who founded the state of Pakistan.
Blaise Diagne
Senegalese political leader, he was the first African elected to the French National Assembly.
African National Congress
An organization dedicated to obtaining equal voting and civil rights for black inhabitants of South Africa. It eventually helped bring majority rule South Africa.
Haile Selassie
Emperor of Ethiopia and symbol of African independence. He ruled Ethiopia as a traditional autocracy until he was overthrown in 1974.
Emiliano Zapata
Revolutionary and leader of peasants in the Mexican Revolution. He mobilized landless peasants in south-central Mexico in an attempt to seize and divide the lands of the wealthy land owners.
Francisco "Pancho" Villa
A popular leader during the Mexican Revolution. He was assassinated 1923.
Lazaro Cardenas
President of Mexico (1934-1940). He brought major changes to Mexican life.
Hipolito Irigoyen
Argentine politician, president of Argentina. He was the first president elected by universal male suffrage, he began his presidency as a reformer but later became conservative.
Getulio Vargas
Dictator of Brazil. He created a dictatorship that emphasized industrialization and helped the urban poor but did little to alleviate the problems of the peasants.
Juan Peron
President of Argentina. He built up Argentinean industry, became very popular among the urban poor, but harmed the economy.
Eva Duarte Peron
Wife of Juan Peron and champion of the poor in Argentina.
Iron Curtain
Winston Churchill's term for the Cold War division between the Soviet-dominated East and the U.S.-dominated West.
Cold War
The ideological struggle between communism (Sov.Un) and capitalism (U.S) for world influence.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Organization formed in 1949 as a military alliance of western European and North Am. states against the Soviet Union and its east European allies.
Warsaw Pact
The 1955 treaty binding the Soviet Union and countries of eastern Europe in an alliance against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
United Nations
International organization founded in 1945 to promote world peace and cooperation. It replaced the League of Nations.
World Bank
A specialized agency of the United Nations that makes loans to countries for economic development, trade promotion, and debt consolidation.
Marshall Plan
U.S. program to support the reconstruction of western Europe after WWII.
European Economic Community (Common Market)
An organization promoting economic unity in Europe, formed in 1957 by consolidation of earlier, more limited, agreements.
Korean War
Conflict that began with North Korea's invasion of South Korea and that came to involve the United Nations allying with South Korea and the People's Republic of China allying with North Korea.
Vietnam War
Conflict pitting North Vietnam and South Vietnamese communist guerrillas against the South Vietnamese gov't, aided after 1961 by the United States.
Cuban missile crisis
Brink-of-war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the latter's placement of nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba.
Hilsinki Accords
Political and human rights agreement signed in Helsinki, Finland, by the Soviet Union and western European countries.
nonaligned nations
Developing countries that announced their neutrality in the Cold War
Third World
Term applied to a group of developing countries who professed nonaligned during the Cold War.
Cultural Revolution (China)
Campaign in China ordered by Mao Zedong to purge the Communist Party of his opponents and instill revolutionary values in the younger generation.
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
Organization formed in 1960 by oil-producing states to promote their collective interest in generating revenue from oil.