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The Gulag system had 84 camps by 1921, when it was first established in 1919. However, it was not until Stalin's reign that the prison population grew significantly. The Gulag experienced a period of rapid expansion from 1929 to Stalin's death. Stalin saw the camps as a cost-effective way to speed up the Soviet Union's industrialization and gain access to precious natural resources like wood and other minerals. -
Beginning in the late 1920s, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics' five-year plans for the growth of the national economy consisted of a series of nationally centralized economic plans in the Soviet Union. -
Benito Mussolini's Blackshirts famously marched on Rome on October 28, 1922, seizing total control of the Italian government. The March on Rome signaled the start of Fascist rule in Italy, putting an end to all previous social-liberal parliamentary regimes. The government was ready to be taken over. -
Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, published Mein Kampf in 1925 as an autobiography. The work outlines Hitler's political ideology and future plans for Germany, as well as the process by which he became antisemitic. Mein Kampf was edited in two volumes, the first in 1925 and the second in 1926. -
He was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and Chairman of the Soviet Union's Council of Ministers from 1941 to 1953. He began governing the country as part of a collective leadership, but by the 1930s, he had consolidated power and had become the Soviet Union's de facto dictator. -
The Holodomor, also known as the Terror-Famine and sometimes referred to as the Great Famine
Since 1983, Soviet sources have cited drought as a significant cause of the Holodomor. Dr. Mark Tauger, a Western historian, changed this explanation by concluding that the famine was not essentially "man-made." He claims that the famine was caused by rustic plant disease rather than drought. -
Hitler came to power in March 1933, after the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933, which gave him more power. After a series of parliamentary elections and backroom intrigues, President Paul von Hindenburg nominated Hitler as Chancellor on January 30, 1933. -
Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 without making any declarations of war, violating League of Nations rules. Japan had a well-developed industry, but natural resources were scarce on the land. To compensate for a lack of resources in Japan, Japan turned to Manchuria for oil, rubber, and lumber. -
On June 30, 1934, Adolf Hitler carried out the Night of the Long Knives, a purge of Nazi leaders. Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to assassinate the SA's leaders, including Ernst Röhm, because the paramilitary organization had grown too powerful. -
The Nuremberg Laws were antisemitic and racist laws passed by Nazi Germany on September 15, 1935, during a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the Nazi Party's annual Nuremberg Rally. -
The Italians invaded Ethiopia on October 3, 1935, after rejecting all arbitration offers. The League of Nations condemned the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 in response to Ethiopian protests and voted to impose economic sanctions on the aggressor. Because of a general lack of support, the sanctions remained ineffective. -
Many factors contributed to the Spanish Civil War, but the failure of Spanish democracy was one of the main causes. The failure of the Spanish political parties and groups was due to their refusal to compromise and uphold democratic standards. -
The Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male "war prisoners," massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process, in what became known as the "Rape of Nanking." -
The November Pogrom, also known as Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary troops and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on November 9–10, 1938. The German police stood by and did nothing. -
The September campaign, also known as the 1939 defensive war or the Poland campaign, was a Nazi Germany and Soviet Union assault on the Second Polish Republic that marked the start of World War II. -
The Pearl Harbor Attack was a surprise military attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service on the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, just before 08:00.
Because war was unavoidable, Japan's only hope was to catch America off guard and destroy its navy as quickly as possible. Japan desired to invade the Dutch East Indies and Malaya in order to seize areas rich in natural resources such as oil and rubber.