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Philosophes
A group of social thinkers in France during the enlightenment.
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Diderot
Philosophe who created a large set of Encyclopedias, beginning in 1751.
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Montesquieu
French writer who devoted himself to the study of political liberty, believed in the separation of powers, and wrote On the Spirit of Laws in 1748.
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Voltaire
Philosophe who published over 70 books of political essays, philosophy, and drama, who was jailed for criticizing powerful figures.
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Locke
Positive philosopher who believed that people could learn from experience and improve themselves, and he favored self-government.
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Adam Smith
A professor at the University of Glasgow, Scotland who defended the idea of free economy and published The Wealth of Nations in 1776.
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Rousseau
Philosophe who was committed to individual freedom and wrote The Social Contract in 1762: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”.
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Louis XVI
Weak king of France who contributed to a high debt.
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Marie Antoinette
Louis XVI’s wife who was nicknamed “Madame Deficit”.
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Robespierre
Jacobin leader who gained power in 1793, and set out to build a “republic of virtue” by wiping out every trace of France’s past.
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Jacobins
A radical political organization in France.
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Napoleon Bonaparte
French general and emperor in 1804 who established the Napoleonic Code which eliminated many injustices, but limited liberty.
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Edmund Cartwright
Inventor of the water-run power loom in 1787.
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James Watt
Mathematical instrument maker who improved the steam engine in 1765.
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Charles Darwin
English naturalist who challenged the idea of special creation, believed in evolution, and wrote On the Origin of the Species by Natural Selection.
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Sigmund Freud
Austrian physician who believed that the unconscious mind drives how people think and act.
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Charles Dickens
English author at the time of the French Revolution.
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Louis Pasteur
French chemist who developed the germ theory of disease and pasteurization.
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Karl Marx
German journalist who introduced a radical type of socialism called Marxism—the original form of Communism.
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Rudyard Kipling
British author and poet who wrote “White Man’s Burden”.
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Francis Ferdinand
Heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne who was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo.
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Vittorio Orlando
Representative of Italy at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 (Big Four).
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Georges Clemenceau
French representative at the Paris peace Conference in 1919 (Big Four).
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David Lloyd George
Representative from Great Britain at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 (Big Four).
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Woodrow Wilson
U.S. president during WWI, who wrote a series of peace proposals known as the Fourteen Points, and U.S. representative of the Big Four.
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Nicholas II
Czar of Russia in 1894.
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Lenin
Bolshevik leader who plotted to overthrow the czar with success, and became the Communist leader of the U.S.S.R. after leading a revolution.
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Leon Trotsky
Revolutionary leader in Russia who commanded the Bolshevik Red Army during the civil war.
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Jospeh Stalin
Bolshevik leader in command of the Communist Party who gained power by outmaneuvering Leon Trotsky.
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Beinto Mussolini
Fascist dictator of Italy who promised to rescue Italy by reviving its economy and rebuilding its armed forces.
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Adolf Hitler
Germany’s dictator and leader of the Nazi Party.
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Francisco Franco
Fascist general who led a revolt in Spain.
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Hideki Tojo
Prime minister of Japan during WWII and a general in the Imperial Japanese Army.
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
American general who led Operation Torch, and became president in 1953.
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Bernard Montgomery
British General who defeated the Germans and Italians at the Battle of El Alamein to stop the advance in North Africa.
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Erwin Rommel
Nicknamed “Desert Fox”—German General of the Afrika Korps who was defeated at El Alamein by Bernard Montgomery.
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Harry S. Truman
American president following Roosevelt’s death during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
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Douglas MacArthur
Commander of the Allied land forces in the Pacific, who led forces at the Battle of Guadalcanal and developed the strategy of “island-hopping”.
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Fidel Castro
Cuba’s harsh dictator in 1959, who brought social reforms and nationalized the economy.
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John F. Kennedy
American president from 1960 to 1963.
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Nikita Krushchev
Soviet leader who ordered the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
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Mikhail Gorbachev
General secretary of the Politburo (ruling committee of the Communist Party) who promoted openness and economic restructuring in the U.S.S.R.
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Boris Yeltsin
A member of parliament, the former mayor of Moscow, and the Russian Federations president in 1991.
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Vladimir Putin
Russian Federations president in 1999 after Yeltsin resigned as war raged in Chechnya.
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"Mahatma" Gandhi
“Great Soul”—Indian leader who led a disobedience campaign against the British in 1920 and led the Salt March.
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Jawaharlal Nehru
India’s first prime minister.
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Indira Gandhi
Jawarharlal Nehru’s daughter who was chosen to be prime minister in 1966.
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Chiang Kai-shek
China’s Nationalist forces commander in Southwestern China.
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Mao Zedong
Communist leader in Northwestern China, in control of the Red Army.
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Commodore Matthew Perry
American who took four ships to Tokyo Harbor in 1853 to deliver a treaty to the Japanese so the U.S. could take on supplies in two ports.
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Gamal Abdel Nasser
Egyptian president who fought with Britain, France, and Israel to gain control of the Suez Canal and was successful.
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Golda Meir
Israel’s prime minister.
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David Ben-Gurion
Leader of the Jews residing in Palestine who announced the creation of an independent Israel on May 14, 1948.
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Anwar Sadat
Egyptian president following Nasser, who planned a joint Arab attack on Yom Kipper—the holiest of Jewish holidays—to gain the land of Palestine.
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Menachem Begin
Israeli prime minister who signed the Camp David Accords in 1978 with Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat.
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Yasir Arafat
Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
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Ayatollah Khomeini
Muslim leader in Iran after the shah fled in 1979, who opposed western influences.
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Muammar Qadhafi
Prime minister of Libya in 1969.
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Sadam Hussein
Muslim military leader who governed Iraq as a secular state.
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Slobodan Milosevic
Serbian leader who asserted leadership over Yugoslavia after Josip Tito’s death in 1980, and ordered ethnic cleansing.
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Lech Walesa
Solidarity union leader who became Polish president in 1990 and slowly improved the economy by converting to a free economic system.
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