-
Period: to
WWI
World War One began in 1914. It involved the major powers of the time. It included France, Great Britain, Japan, and America against Germany, Austria and the Ottoman Empire. It was the first "non-honorable" war as it introduced trench warfare, machine guns, artillery, and chemical weaponry. It had one of the highest death tolls of a war in history in just 4 years. Economically it left the majority of the nations involved in deep debt, especially Germany who was made to pay outrageous repayments. -
Period: to
Rise of Communism
In 1917 there was a series of communist revolutions in Russia. The revolutionaries, who called themselves The Bolsheviks successfully took power in the same year. Vladimir Lenin was the first to hold power under the Bolsheviks. In 1922 the USSR was formed. This was economically significant because it was the first successful communist revolution and first communist state. Communism is an ideology that advocates for a classless society, where all property and wealth hare communally owned. -
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was a important peace treaty signed after WWI. It was signed between the Allied Powers, and Germany, who agreed to end all conflict, and end WWI, although hostilities had ended months before. Germany, having lost the war, was forced to agree to terrible terms. The treaty stated that Germany must pay a massive amount of reparations, lose territory, and give up all oversea colonies. This set up German as one of the worst off countries economically going into the 1920s -
Period: to
The Great Depression
The Great Depression began when the US stock market crashed. The crash was caused by the economic boom that came before it in America. During the 20's there was a rise in consumerism and mass produced products. But soon there was more product then demand and investors lost confidence in some companies, leading to the crash. The effects of the crash spread to the rest of the world because the US asked for repayment for the loans it gave out in WWI. In Canada it was worsened by droughts. -
Period: to
Stalin's Rule
Stalin took power in 1929 after some turmoil between him and Trotsky caused by the death of Lenin. Under the Stalin the USSR went through an intense period of industrialization. Peasants were forced to work in factories so Stalin could reach his goal of 25% growth every year. His plans worked for the most part but led to consequences on the people of the USSR, including a genocide. Stalin set up the USSR as a economic powerhouse and a rival to democracies in the west. -
Period: to
Hitlers rule
Hitler took power during a time of great economic turmoil in Germany. the country was struggling from immense debt from WWI as well as reparation payments. Recently the great depression had also impacted the. Hitler used this as well as creating fear of a communist revolution to take power. After taking power he dissolved parliament and made himself dictator. He did successfully turn around Germany's economy, but at the cost of many. He committed genocide on the Jewish Germans who he blamed. -
Period: to
WWII
As Hitlers ambitions grew he began trying to take other countries into his empire. He successfully took Austria and checkoslovakia without international backlash, but when he declared war on Poland it triggered WWII. France and Britain allied with Poland to try and fight Germany. eventually the Soviet Union and US joined the UK while Italy and Japan opposed. This war had an even higher death count than WWI and the highest in history. It left many nations in debt but also helped workers rights. -
Bretton Woods Conference
The Bretton Woods Conference was a conference with representatives from forty four contrives. It was held in 1944. Eve though the war had not ended ye the countries were formulating ideas to prevent another world war from occurring. There solutions were the founding of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These two combined would help countries stabilize after World War Two. They also agreed on how countries should deal with monetary affairs. -
World Bank
In 1944 The World Bank was created to regulate the worlds money and provide loans to war-torn nations to rebuild, speed up industrialization and development. It is headquartered in Washington and originally had 29 member countries, but now had 185 members. It is controlled by the UN, but the leader is appointed by the US. It now focuses on increasing growth in developing countries. Economically it was the first organized bank on a global scale with regulated loans. -
International Monetary Fund
Created in 1944 at the Bretton Woods conference the International Monetary Fund was made to stabilize the worlds economy. Its main purposes were to set dependable exchange rates for world currencies and establish stability while promoting foreign trade. It is funded by its member nations base on the nations wealth. It is also headquartered in Washington, but head is nominated by the European Union. It has the same members as the World Bank. Both of them work together to govern trade and finance -
General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs
The General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs was an agreement signed between many countries in order to promote international trades by gradually getting rid of tariffs and trade barriers between countries. This also gave them the power to return tariffs by removing a country from the agreement. Eventually the WTO emerged from GATT. -
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. It emerged from GATT and has many of the same policies.