The Orbis Encyclopedia

Event · 1973–1974

1973 Oil Embargo

The 1973 oil embargo was a ban on oil shipments to the United States by Arab producers, paired with production cuts that quadrupled the price of oil.

Event · 1995–1996

1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis

The 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis was China's attempt to frighten Taiwan's voters with missile tests before the island's first direct presidential election.

Event · 1947-1987

228 Incident and the White Terror

The 228 Incident was the 1947 massacre of Taiwanese civilians by the Nationalist government, followed by 38 years of martial law called the White Terror.

Place · 1945–present

38th Parallel

The 38th parallel is the line of latitude that divided Korea in 1945, chosen by two American officers in thirty minutes.

Treaty · 1972–2002

ABM Treaty

The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was a 1972 US-Soviet agreement banning nationwide missile defense, in force until the United States withdrew in 2002.

Person · 1809–1865

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president, led the country through the Civil War and abolished slavery.

Person · c. 573–634

Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr was Muhammad's closest companion and the first caliph, who held Islam together after Muhammad's death and launched its expansion.

Doctrine · 1920s–present

Active Measures

Active measures was the Soviet system of political warfare below open conflict, using forgeries, planted stories, and front groups to deceive and divide.

Person · 1723-1790

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish philosopher who wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, the most influential book on economics ever published.

Treaty · 1994-2002

Agreed Framework

The 1994 deal between the United States and North Korea that froze North Korea's plutonium program for eight years before collapsing in 2002.

Person · 1542–1605

Akbar

Akbar was the third Mughal emperor, who conquered most of northern India and governed it by including Hindus as partners in power.

Place · 711–1492

Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus was the name for Muslim-ruled Iberia, lasting from 711 to 1492, with Cordoba as its greatest city.

Organization · 970–present

Al-Azhar

Al-Azhar is the mosque and university in Cairo that has been Sunni Islam's most influential religious institution for centuries.

Person · c. 780–850

Al-Khwarizmi

Al-Khwarizmi was a Baghdad mathematician whose book gave algebra its name and whose own name became the word algorithm.

Person · 1879–1955

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist whose theories of relativity and equation E=mc² reshaped the modern understanding of space, time, and energy.

Person · 356-323 BC

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great was a Macedonian king who conquered the Persian Empire and spread Greek culture from Egypt to India before dying at 32.

Person · 1840–1914

Alfred Thayer Mahan

Alfred Thayer Mahan was an American naval officer whose 1890 book argued that control of the sea was the key to national power.

War · 1954-1962

Algerian War

The Algerian War (1954-1962) was an independence war against France that killed hundreds of thousands and brought Charles de Gaulle to power.

Place · 1238–1492

Alhambra and Granada

The Alhambra is a fortified palace in Granada, Spain, built by the Nasrid sultans of the last Muslim kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula.

Event · 1919

Amritsar Massacre

The Amritsar massacre was the 1919 killing of hundreds of unarmed Indians by British troops in a walled garden in Amritsar, Punjab.

Person · 1767-1845

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was the seventh U.S. president, a frontier general who built the Democratic Party and forced southeastern Native nations from their land.

Organization · 1909–1954

Anglo-Persian Oil Company

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was a British firm that controlled Iran's oil from 1909 to 1951 and is the ancestor of BP.

Event · 2014

Annexation of Crimea

Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in under a month in 2014, the first forcible annexation of European territory since 1945.

Event · 165–180 AD

Antonine Plague

The Antonine Plague was a pandemic that killed millions in the Roman Empire from 165 to 180 AD, when the empire was at its most powerful.

Doctrine · 1948–1994

Apartheid

Apartheid was South Africa's system of racial segregation and white-minority rule, enforced by law from 1948 until the first free election in 1994.

Doctrine · 1930s

Appeasement

Appeasement was the British and French policy of granting Hitler's demands to avoid war, tried most famously at Munich in 1938.

Event · 2010–2012

Arab Spring

The Arab Spring was a wave of uprisings across the Arab world in 2010–2012 that toppled four rulers and set off years of war.

Person · 1863–1914

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne whose assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 triggered World War I.

Person · 384–322 BC

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who founded formal logic and studied everything from biology to politics by observing the world directly.

Event · 1915-1917

Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman government's systematic killing of its Armenian population from 1915 to 1917, in which up to 1.5 million people died.

Concept · 1949–2019

Article 370

Article 370 was the provision in India's constitution that gave Jammu and Kashmir special autonomy from 1949 until India revoked it in 2019.

Person · c. 304–232 BC

Ashoka the Great

Ashoka was a third-century BC Indian emperor who ruled most of the subcontinent, then renounced war and governed by Buddhist moral law.

Event · 1941

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, killed 2,403 Americans and brought the United States into World War II.

Person · 63 BCE–14 CE

Augustus

Augustus was Rome's first emperor, who ended a century of civil war and built a monarchy while keeping the appearance of a republic.

Person · 980–1037

Avicenna (Ibn Sina)

Avicenna was a Persian physician and philosopher whose Canon of Medicine was used as a textbook in Europe and the Islamic world for centuries.

Concept · 20th century–present

Ayatollah

Ayatollah is the senior rank in Shia Islam, earned by scholarly reputation rather than appointment by any central authority.

Person · 1902–1989

Ayatollah Khomeini

Ruhollah Khomeini was the Shia cleric who led Iran's 1979 revolution and ruled the Islamic Republic as its first Supreme Leader.

Organization · 1947–present

Baath Party

The Baath Party was an Arab nationalist movement founded in 1947 to unify the Arab world that instead produced rival police states in Iraq and Syria.

Concept · 1500s-present

Balance of Power

The balance of power is the idea that when one country grows strong enough to dominate the rest, other countries form a coalition to stop it.

Event · 1917

Balfour Declaration

The Balfour Declaration was a 1917 British statement supporting a Jewish national home in Palestine, issued during World War I.

War · 1912–1913

Balkan Wars

The Balkan Wars were two wars in 1912 and 1913 that ended almost all Ottoman rule in Europe and reshaped southeastern Europe before World War I.

Event · 1955

Bandung Conference

The Bandung Conference was a 1955 meeting of 29 Asian and African nations that established the developing world as a political force.

Organization · 1694–present

Bank of England

The Bank of England is the United Kingdom's central bank, founded in 1694 to fund a war and now responsible for setting interest rates.

Event · 31 BC

Battle of Actium

The Battle of Actium was the 31 BC naval battle where Octavian defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra, ending the Roman Republic.

Event · 216 BC

Battle of Cannae

The 216 BC battle where Hannibal's outnumbered Carthaginian army encircled and destroyed the largest force Rome had ever fielded.

Event · 26–30 August 1914

Battle of Tannenberg

The Battle of Tannenberg was a German victory in East Prussia in August 1914 that destroyed a Russian army and made Hindenburg a national hero.

Event · 1905

Battleship Potemkin Mutiny

The 1905 mutiny aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin, sparked by rotten meat and put down after eleven days.

Event · 1961

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed 1961 CIA operation in which Cuban exiles tried to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Concept · 2013-present

Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative is China's global infrastructure program, launched in 2013, funding ports, railways, and power grids in about 150 countries.

Person · 1883–1945

Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini founded fascism and ruled Italy as dictator from 1922 until 1943, when his own government voted him out.

Event · 1948–1949

Berlin Airlift

The Berlin Airlift was the 1948–1949 operation in which the United States, Britain, and France supplied blockaded West Berlin entirely by air.

Event · 1884-1885

Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference was a meeting of fourteen nations in 1884-1885 that set the rules European powers used to claim territory in Africa.

Concept · 1791

Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, ratified in 1791 to protect individual liberties.

Event · 1347–1351

Black Death

The Black Death was a plague pandemic from 1347 to 1351 that killed a third to half of Europe's population.

Organization · 1783–present

Black Sea Fleet

The Black Sea Fleet is Russia's southern navy, based in Crimea since 1783 and badly damaged by Ukrainian strikes since 2022.

Doctrine · 1939–1945

Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg was Germany's method of fast combined-arms warfare that used massed tanks, dive-bombers, and radios to overrun Poland and France in weeks.

Organization · 1903–1952

Bolsheviks

The Bolsheviks were the faction of Russian Marxists led by Lenin who seized power in the October Revolution of 1917.

Event · 1899–1901

Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-foreign uprising in China in 1900 that besieged Beijing's foreign legations and drew an eight-nation army.

Concept · 1944–1971

Bretton Woods System

The Bretton Woods system pegged world currencies to a gold-backed US dollar from 1944 to 1971 and created the IMF and World Bank.

Event · 2016–2020

Brexit

Brexit was the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union after a 2016 referendum, the first reversal of European integration.

Doctrine · 1968–1989

Brezhnev Doctrine

The Brezhnev Doctrine was Moscow's declared right to invade any socialist country whose socialism it judged to be in danger.

Concept · 1858–1947

British Raj

The British Raj was direct British Crown rule over the Indian subcontinent, lasting from 1858 to 1947.

Treaty · 1994

Budapest Memorandum

The Budapest Memorandum was a 1994 agreement in which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons for security assurances from Russia, the US, and Britain.

Concept

Buffer State

A buffer state is a small country between two larger powers, kept independent so they do not share a direct border.

Concept · feudal–1945

Bushido

Bushido is the Japanese warrior code, largely assembled in modern times and used by militarist Japan to demand sacrifice in war.

Place · 330–1453

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Greek-speaking eastern half of the Roman Empire, centered on Constantinople from 330 to 1453.

Treaty · 1978–1979

Camp David Accords

The Camp David Accords were the 1978 agreements between Egypt and Israel that produced the first Arab-Israeli peace treaty.

Person · 1780–1831

Carl von Clausewitz

Carl von Clausewitz was a Prussian general whose book On War defined war as the continuation of politics by other means.

Place · 814–146 BCE

Carthage

Carthage was a Phoenician trading city in North Africa that dominated the western Mediterranean for centuries before Rome destroyed it in 146 BCE.

Concept · Ancient–present

Casus Belli

Casus belli is a Latin term for the event or justification a state points to as its reason for going to war.

Person · 1853–1902

Cecil Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes was a British mining magnate who built the De Beers diamond monopoly and served as prime minister of the Cape Colony.

Concept · 1839–1949

Century of Humiliation

The Century of Humiliation is China's name for the period from 1839 to 1949 when foreign powers defeated and carved up the country.

Organization · 1960s–present

Chaebol

The chaebol are South Korea's family-controlled conglomerates, including Samsung, Hyundai, and LG, that drove the country's rapid industrialization.

Person · 747–814

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was the Frankish king who united most of Western Europe and was crowned Emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day in 800.

Person · 1890–1970

Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle was a French general and president who led Free France in World War II and founded the Fifth Republic in 1958.

War · 1994-2009

Chechen Wars

The Chechen wars were two conflicts between Russia and Chechen separatists, fought from 1994 to 2009, that destroyed Grozny and brought Putin to power.

Person · 1887–1975

Chiang Kai-shek

Chiang Kai-shek was the Chinese Nationalist leader who fought Japan, lost a civil war to Mao Zedong, and ruled Taiwan until his death in 1975.

Doctrine · c. 200 BC–1900s

Chinese Tributary System

The tributary system was imperial China's way of managing foreign relations through a hierarchy centered on the emperor.

Organization · 1947–present

CIA

The Central Intelligence Agency is America's civilian foreign-intelligence service, created in 1947 to gather intelligence and carry out covert action.

Person · 106–43 BCE

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher whose speeches and writings shaped Western political thought.

Person · 69–30 BC

Cleopatra VII

Cleopatra VII was the last pharaoh of Egypt, a Macedonian Greek ruler who allied with Caesar and Antony to keep her kingdom independent of Rome.

Place · 80 AD

Colosseum

The Colosseum is the largest amphitheater ever built, opened in Rome in 80 AD for gladiator fights, beast hunts, and public executions.

Event · 1492–

Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange was the transfer of crops, animals, and diseases between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia after Columbus's 1492 voyage.

Concept · 1932–1945

Comfort Women

Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II.

Organization · 1919–1943

Comintern

The Comintern was the Soviet-led organization that built and directed communist parties worldwide from 1919 to 1943.

Concept · 1817-present

Comparative Advantage

Comparative advantage is the idea that countries gain from trade by specializing in what they produce at the lowest relative cost.

Person · 551–479 BC

Confucius

Confucius was a Chinese teacher whose ideas about virtue, ritual, and government shaped East Asian civilization for over two thousand years.

Place · 1885–1908

Congo Free State

The Congo Free State was a territory in central Africa personally owned by King Leopold II of Belgium from 1885 to 1908.

Event · 1878

Congress of Berlin

The Congress of Berlin was a meeting of Europe's great powers in 1878 that redrew the map of the Balkans.

Event · 1814–1815

Congress of Vienna

The Congress of Vienna was the 1814–1815 conference that redrew Europe after Napoleon and kept the continent from general war for a century.

Concept · 1492-1572

Conquistadors

The conquistadors were Spanish adventurers who conquered the Aztec and Inca empires in the early 1500s, funded by debt and licensed by the crown.

Concept · 1793–present

Conscription

Conscription is compulsory military service, first used in its modern form in France in 1793 and still practiced in dozens of countries today.

Person · 272–337 CE

Constantine the Great

Constantine the Great was the Roman emperor who ended the persecution of Christians and moved the capital east to Constantinople.

Concept · 1947–1991

Containment

Containment was the US Cold War strategy of blocking Soviet expansion until the Soviet system collapsed from within.

Event · 1815-1846

Corn Laws

The Corn Laws were British tariffs on imported grain that kept bread expensive from 1815 until their repeal in 1846.

Movement · 1400s–present

Cossacks

The Cossacks were communities of armed riders who governed themselves on the steppe borderland between Russia, Poland, and the Tatar khanates.

Concept · 1000s BC–1900s

Court Eunuchs

Castrated men who served rulers in China, the Ottoman Empire and Byzantium, often becoming the most powerful officials at court.

War · 1853-1856

Crimean War

The Crimean War (1853-1856) was fought by Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire against Russia, mostly on the Crimean peninsula.

Technology · 1944-present

Cruise Missile

A cruise missile is a small unmanned aircraft that carries a warhead and flies at low altitude to strike targets hundreds of kilometers away.

War · 1095–1291

Crusades

The Crusades were wars between European Christians and Muslim forces for control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from 1095 to 1291.

Event · 1962

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a thirteen-day standoff in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Technology · c. 3400 BC–100 AD

Cuneiform

Cuneiform is the oldest known writing system, developed by Sumerian temple administrators around 3400 BC to track grain and debts.

Person · c. 600–530 BC

Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the largest the world had seen, and governed it through tolerance rather than force.

Event · 6 June 1944

D-Day (Normandy Landings)

D-Day was the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the largest amphibious military operation in history.

Person · 1813–1873

David Livingstone

David Livingstone was a Scottish missionary and explorer who crossed a third of Africa on foot in the mid-1800s.

Technology · 1985–present

Dead Hand (Perimeter)

Dead Hand, or Perimeter, is a Soviet nuclear command system built to guarantee retaliation even if a first strike destroys the leadership.

Event · 1825

Decembrist Revolt

The Decembrist revolt was an 1825 uprising by Russian officers demanding a constitution, considered the start of Russia's revolutionary tradition.

Place · 1206–1526

Delhi Sultanate

The Delhi Sultanate ruled northern India from 1206 to 1526 under five Muslim dynasties before the Mughals.

Person · 1904–1997

Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping was the Chinese leader who opened China's economy to the world after Mao, while keeping the Communist Party in absolute control.

Concept · 14th–17th century

Devshirme

The devshirme was the Ottoman practice of taking Christian boys from the Balkans and training them as soldiers and officials.

Doctrine · antiquity–present

Divide and Rule

Divide and rule is the strategy of splitting a subject population into rival groups so they fight each other instead of the ruler.

Doctrine · 1954–1975

Domino Theory

The domino theory was the Cold War belief that if one country fell to communism, its neighbors would follow in sequence.

Person · 1880–1964

Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur was an American general who led the southwest Pacific campaign in World War II, governed occupied Japan, and was fired during the Korean War.

Technology · 1906–1922

Dreadnought

HMS Dreadnought was a British battleship launched in 1906 that made every other battleship in the world obsolete and started a naval arms race.

Organization · 1602–1799

Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company was chartered in 1602 and became the first company to sell public shares, using military force to control the spice trade.

Concept · 1600–1874

East India Company

The East India Company was a private British corporation, chartered in 1600, that conquered and governed most of India with its own army.

Concept · 1919-present

Economic Sanctions

Economic sanctions are restrictions on trade, finance, or technology used to pressure a government into changing its policies.

Technology · c. 3200 BC–400 AD

Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs are the writing system of ancient Egypt, used for 3,500 years, lost for 1,400 years, and decoded through the Rosetta Stone in 1822.

Place · 1892-1954

Ellis Island

Ellis Island was the immigration station in New York Harbor that processed over 12 million arrivals between 1892 and 1954.

Event · 1863

Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation was President Lincoln's 1863 executive order declaring enslaved people in Confederate states free.

Person · 1901–1989

Emperor Hirohito

Hirohito was Emperor of Japan from 1926 to 1989, the longest-reigning Japanese emperor and the sovereign in whose name the Pacific War was fought.

Person · 1835–1908

Empress Dowager Cixi

Empress Dowager Cixi ruled China for nearly fifty years, from 1861 until her death in 1908, during the Qing dynasty's final decades.

Technology · 1918-1945

Enigma and Bletchley Park

The Enigma was Germany's military cipher machine, considered unbreakable but broken by Polish and British codebreakers in World War II.

Movement · 1685–1815

Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was the 18th-century movement that argued human reason, not tradition or authority, should decide how societies are governed.

Person · 1901–1954

Enrico Fermi

Enrico Fermi was an Italian-American physicist who built the first nuclear reactor and achieved the first controlled chain reaction in 1942.

Concept · 1950s–present

Eurodollars

A eurodollar is a US dollar deposit held at a bank outside the United States, part of an offshore market that handles much of the world's dollar lending.

Event · 2013–2014

Euromaidan Revolution

The Euromaidan was a 2013–14 uprising in Kyiv that removed Ukraine's president and led to Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Technology · 2019–present

EUV Lithography

EUV lithography uses extreme ultraviolet light at 13.5 nanometers to print the circuits on the world's most advanced computer chips.

Organization · 1957–present

Fairchild Semiconductor

Fairchild Semiconductor was the 1957 startup whose engineers invented the mass-produced chip and went on to found Intel, AMD, and dozens of other firms.

War · 1982

Falklands War

The Falklands War was a 1982 conflict in which Britain sent a naval task force to retake the Falkland Islands after Argentina invaded.

Movement · 1919–1945

Fascism

Fascism was a political movement that Benito Mussolini founded in Italy in 1919, promising national rebirth through a single party and violence.

Concept · 1787–1788

Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers are 85 essays Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote to persuade New York to ratify the Constitution in 1787 and 1788.

Person · 1469–1516

Ferdinand and Isabella

Ferdinand and Isabella were the king and queen whose 1469 marriage joined Spain's two largest kingdoms and whose reign reshaped the country in 1492.

Concept · 9th–15th century

Feudalism

Feudalism was the political order of medieval Europe, where kings granted land to lords in exchange for military service and loyalty.

Concept · 1000s-present

Fiat Money

Fiat money is currency that has value because a government declares it legal tender, not because it can be exchanged for gold or silver.

Person · 1926–2016

Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro was a Cuban revolutionary who overthrew Batista in 1959 and ruled Cuba as a communist state for nearly fifty years.

Technology · 1981–present

FIM-92 Stinger

The FIM-92 Stinger is an American shoulder-fired missile that lets one soldier shoot down a helicopter or jet using the heat of its engine.

Concept · 1948-2023

Finlandization

Finlandization was Finland's Cold War arrangement with the Soviet Union, keeping its democracy while letting Moscow limit its foreign policy.

Organization · 1946–present

Five Eyes

Five Eyes is the intelligence alliance of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Concept · 1928-1991

Five-Year Plan

The Soviet Union's five-year plans set factory-level output targets to industrialize a peasant economy, at the cost of millions of lives.

Concept · 1987–present

Foundry Model

The foundry model splits the chip industry into companies that design chips and companies that manufacture them.

Doctrine · 1918

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson's fourteen principles for ending World War I, presented to Congress in January 1918.

War · 1870-1871

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 destroyed the French Second Empire, unified Germany, and created the rivalry that led to World War I.

Person · 1882–1945

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945.

Person · 1918–1970

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Gamal Abdel Nasser was the president of Egypt who nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956 and led the pan-Arab movement until his death in 1970.

Organization · 1966–1976

Gang of Four

The Gang of Four were four Chinese Communist Party officials who drove the Cultural Revolution and were arrested weeks after Mao Zedong died in 1976.

Organization · 1947–1994

GATT

GATT was a 1947 trade agreement among 23 countries that cut tariffs through negotiating rounds until the WTO replaced it in 1995.

Person · 1894–1918

Gavrilo Princip

Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, helping to start the First World War.

Person · c. 1162–1227

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire ever assembled, after uniting the nomadic tribes of the Mongolian steppe.

Person · 1732–1799

George Washington

George Washington commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolution and served as the first president of the United States.

Event · 1863

Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg Address is a 272-word speech by Abraham Lincoln, given at a Civil War cemetery in 1863, arguing that the war was a test of democracy.

Concept · 3rd century BC–5th century AD

Gladiators

Gladiators were trained fighters in ancient Rome, mostly enslaved, who fought in arenas as public entertainment and political spectacle.

Concept · 1870s–1971

Gold Standard

The gold standard fixed each country's currency to a set weight of gold so paper money could be exchanged for metal on demand.

Place · 1240s–1502

Golden Horde

The Golden Horde was the Mongol khanate that ruled the Russian lands from the 1240s until 1480.

Concept · 1320s–1922

Grand Vizier

The grand vizier was the chief minister of the Ottoman Empire, holding the sultan's seal and running the government from the 1320s to 1922.

Event · 1929–1939

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a global economic collapse from 1929 to 1939 that left a quarter of U.S. workers unemployed and reshaped governments worldwide.

Place · c. 2560 BC

Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza is a 2560 BC tomb for the pharaoh Khufu and the only surviving wonder of the ancient world.

Place · 7th century BC–1600s AD

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is roughly two thousand years of walls built along China's northern frontier, totaling over 21,000 kilometers.

Place · c. 1100–1450

Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe was a medieval stone city in southern Africa, capital of a Shona kingdom that traded gold across the Indian Ocean from about 1100 to 1450.

War · 499–449 BC

Greco-Persian Wars

The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between Greek city-states and the Persian Empire, fought from 499 to 449 BC.

Event · 1940s–1970s

Green Revolution

The Green Revolution was a mid-century research effort that developed high-yield wheat and rice, roughly doubling harvests across the developing world.

Person · 1869–1916

Grigori Rasputin

Grigori Rasputin was a Siberian peasant mystic whose influence over Russia's last empress helped discredit the Romanov monarchy before its fall.

Concept · 1808–present

Guerrilla Warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of fighting in which small, mobile forces use ambush and dispersal to wear down a larger conventional army.

Technology · 1792–1977

Guillotine

The guillotine is a beheading device used in France from 1792 to 1977, first proposed as a humane reform during the French Revolution.

Organization · 1930-1960

Gulag

The Gulag was the Soviet Union's forced-labor camp system, through which roughly eighteen million people passed between 1930 and 1953.

Technology · 9th century–

Gunpowder

Gunpowder is an explosive mixture invented in ninth-century China that transformed warfare and shifted political power to centralized states.

Technology · 1909-present

Haber-Bosch Process

An industrial process that turns nitrogen from the air into ammonia, the basis of synthetic fertilizer that feeds roughly half the world's population.

Organization · 1273–1918

Habsburg Dynasty

The Habsburg dynasty was a European royal family that ruled from 1273 to 1918, gaining thrones from Spain to Hungary largely through marriage.

Concept · 600s–present

Hadith

A hadith is a report of something the Prophet Muhammad said or did, and hadiths are the main source of detailed Islamic law.

Place · 537–present

Hagia Sophia

The cathedral Justinian built in Constantinople in 537, now a mosque in Istanbul after nearly 1,500 years as a cathedral, mosque, and museum.

Event · 1791–1804

Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was the only slave revolt in history to found a country, and it forced Napoleon to sell Louisiana to the United States.

Person · 1861–1947

Halford Mackinder

Halford Mackinder was a British geographer whose 1904 Heartland thesis argued that whoever controls the Eurasian interior controls the world.

Person · 247–183 BCE

Hannibal

Hannibal Barca was a Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps to invade Italy and defeated Rome repeatedly, most famously at the Battle of Cannae.

Person · 1904–1980

Hans Morgenthau

Hans Morgenthau was a German-born political scientist who founded modern American realism with his 1948 book Politics Among Nations.

Person · 1884–1972

Harry Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd U.S. president, who authorized the atomic bomb and built the alliances and institutions of the Cold War.

Treaty · 1975

Helsinki Accords

The Helsinki Accords confirmed Europe's postwar borders in 1975 and included human rights pledges that dissidents used to challenge the Soviet Union.

Person · 1923–2023

Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger was the US secretary of state who opened relations with China and shaped American foreign policy from 1969 to 1977.

Concept · 874–present

Hidden Imam

The Hidden Imam is the twelfth Shia imam, believed hidden by God since 874, whose absence shaped a thousand years of Shia politics.

Person · 1884–1948

Hideki Tojo

Hideki Tojo was Japan's prime minister during most of the Pacific War and was executed as a war criminal in 1948.

Technology · 2005-present

HIMARS

HIMARS is a truck-mounted rocket launcher that fires GPS-guided munitions at ranges up to about 500 km, known for its role in Ukraine's war against Russia.

Place · c. 1650–1180 BC

Hittites

The Hittites were a Bronze Age empire in Anatolia that fought Egypt to a draw and produced the earliest surviving written peace treaty.

Person · 1890–1969

Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh was the Vietnamese revolutionary who fought France and the United States for independence and founded North Vietnam's communist state.

Event · 1941–1945

Holocaust

The Holocaust was Nazi Germany's systematic murder of six million Jews between 1941 and 1945, about two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.

Event · 1932–1933

Holodomor

The Holodomor was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933 that killed an estimated 3.9 million people.

Organization · 800–1806

Holy Roman Empire

The elected empire that governed central Europe for a thousand years, from Charlemagne's coronation to Napoleon's conquest.

War · 1337-1453

Hundred Years' War

The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts between England and France from 1337 to 1453, fought over the French throne.

Concept

Hyperinflation

Hyperinflation is the point at which a currency stops working as money, defined as prices rising more than 50 percent in a single month.

Technology · 1957-present

ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile)

An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a rocket that can deliver nuclear warheads to any point on Earth in about thirty minutes.

Concept · 1983

Imagined Communities

Imagined Communities is Benedict Anderson's 1983 book arguing that nations are modern creations held together by shared belief, not ancient inheritances.

Concept · 605–1905

Imperial Examination (Keju)

The imperial examination, or keju, selected China's officials by written test for thirteen centuries, replacing aristocracy with scholars.

Event · 1857–1858

Indian Rebellion of 1857

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a massive uprising against the East India Company that ended Company rule and brought India under the British Crown.

Place · c. 3300–1300 BC

Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley Civilization built grid-planned cities with advanced drainage across what is now Pakistan and northwest India.

Treaty · 1987-2019

INF Treaty

The INF Treaty, signed in 1987, banned all US and Soviet ground-launched missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km.

Treaty · 1947

Instrument of Accession

The Instrument of Accession is the 1947 document that made Jammu and Kashmir part of India, sparking one of the world's longest territorial disputes.

Event · 1985–1987

Iran-Contra Affair

The Iran-Contra affair was a 1980s scandal in which the Reagan administration sold weapons to Iran and sent the profits to Nicaraguan rebels.

War · 1980–1988

Iran-Iraq War

The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) was an eight-year war between Iraq and Iran that killed roughly a million people and ended in a stalemate.

Person · 1904–1967

J. Robert Oppenheimer

J. Robert Oppenheimer was the American physicist who directed Los Alamos and led the building of the first atomic bomb.

Technology · 1958–1959

Jack Kilby

Jack Kilby built the first integrated circuit at Texas Instruments in 1958, putting an entire electronic circuit on a single chip.

Organization · 14th–19th century

Janissaries

The Janissaries were the Ottoman sultan's elite infantry, formed from Christian boys taken from Balkan villages.

Person · 1889–1964

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru was India's first prime minister, serving from 1947 to 1964 and shaping its democracy, economy and foreign policy.

Treaty · 2015–2025

JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal)

The JCPOA was a 2015 deal in which Iran capped its nuclear program for sanctions relief, undone by the US withdrawal in 2018 and dead by 2025.

Concept · 7th century–present

Jihad

Jihad is an Arabic word meaning striving or exertion, covering a spectrum from personal moral struggle to armed warfare.

Concept · 1877–1965

Jim Crow

Jim Crow was the system of laws and customs that enforced racial segregation across the American South from 1877 to 1965.

Concept · 630s–1800s

Jizya

Jizya was a tax that non-Muslims paid to Islamic states in exchange for protection, religious freedom, and exemption from military service.

Person · 1632–1704

John Locke

John Locke was an English philosopher who argued that government exists only by the consent of the governed and can be overthrown when it fails.

Person · 1883–1946

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes was a British economist who argued governments should spend during downturns and helped design the postwar financial order.

Person · 1878–1953

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was the Soviet dictator who industrialized the USSR through forced labor and famine and led it through World War II.

Person · 1892-1980

Josip Broz Tito

Josip Broz Tito was the communist leader of Yugoslavia who broke with Stalin in 1948 and held six republics together until his death in 1980.

Person · 100–44 BC

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar was a Roman general and dictator whose conquest of Gaul and seizure of power ended the Roman Republic.

Person · 1859–1941

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Kaiser Wilhelm II was Germany's last emperor, whose dismissal of Bismarck and naval rivalry with Britain helped lead Europe into World War I.

War · 1999

Kargil War

The Kargil War was a 1999 conflict between India and Pakistan fought on mountain peaks above 16,000 feet in Kashmir.

Person · 1818-1883

Karl Marx

Karl Marx was a German philosopher whose theory that economics drives history became the official doctrine of governments ruling a third of humanity.

Person · 1924–2013

Kenneth Waltz

Kenneth Waltz founded neorealism, the theory that the structure of the international system, not human nature, explains why states compete.

Organization · 1954–1991

KGB

The KGB was the Soviet Union's main security agency from 1954 to 1991, serving as both foreign spy service and domestic secret police.

Movement · 657–present

Kharijites

The Kharijites were an early Islamic faction that split from Caliph Ali in 657 and introduced takfir, the practice of declaring other Muslims unbelievers.

Movement · 1968–1999

Khmer Rouge

The Cambodian communist movement that ruled from 1975 to 1979, emptied the cities, and killed close to two million people.

Place · c. 880–1240

Kievan Rus

Kievan Rus was a medieval state ruled from Kyiv that Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus all claim as their origin.

Organization · 1948–present

Kim Dynasty

The Kim dynasty is the family that has ruled North Korea since 1948, passing power from grandfather to father to son.

Place · c. 100–940 AD

Kingdom of Aksum

Aksum was an empire in the Ethiopian highlands that grew wealthy from Red Sea trade and became one of the first Christian kingdoms.

Person · 1911–1988

Klaus Fuchs

German-born physicist who gave the Soviet Union the design of the plutonium bomb while working on the Manhattan Project.

Movement · 1997–present

Korean Wave (Hallyu)

Hallyu, the Korean Wave, is South Korea's global spread of pop culture, from K-pop and K-dramas to Parasite and Squid Game, backed by state investment.

Organization · 1912–present

Kuomintang (KMT)

The Kuomintang is China's Nationalist Party. It ruled the mainland, lost the Chinese Civil War, and retreated to Taiwan in 1949.

Person · 1909–1972

Kwame Nkrumah

Kwame Nkrumah was the first president of Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African country to win independence from colonial rule.

Organization · 1919–1945

Kwantung Army

Japan's army in Manchuria that repeatedly started wars on its own, dragging the government into conflicts it had not approved.

Event · c. 1200-1150 BC

Late Bronze Age Collapse

The Late Bronze Age Collapse was the destruction of the major connected civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean around 1200 BC.

Person · 1888–1935

Lawrence of Arabia

T.E. Lawrence was a British officer who fought alongside Arab forces against the Ottoman Empire in World War I and became known as Lawrence of Arabia.

Organization · 1920–1946

League of Nations

The League of Nations was the first international organization created to prevent war, active from 1920 to 1946.

Person · 1923–2020

Lee Teng-hui

Lee Teng-hui was the president who democratized Taiwan and won its first direct presidential election in 1996.

Doctrine · 4th–3rd century BC

Legalism

Legalism is a Chinese philosophy that says government should rely on strict law and centralized power, not the moral virtue of rulers.

Concept · 1941–1945

Lend-Lease

The US program that supplied Britain and the Soviet Union during World War II, moving $50 billion in war material from 1941 to 1945.

Person · 1879–1940

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky was a Russian revolutionary who organized the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 and built the Red Army before Stalin drove him into exile.

Person · 1785–1850

Lin Zexu

Lin Zexu was the Qing imperial commissioner whose 1839 destruction of British opium triggered the First Opium War.

Place · 1949–present

Line of Control

The Line of Control is the 740-kilometer military line dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan, drawn in 1949 and never accepted as a border.

Technology · 1945

Little Boy and Fat Man

Little Boy and Fat Man were the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Event · c. 1300-1850

Little Ice Age

The Little Ice Age was a period of unusual cold across the Northern Hemisphere from about 1300 to 1850.

Event · 1934–1935

Long March

The Long March was the Chinese Red Army's year-long fighting retreat across China in 1934–1935 that brought Mao Zedong to power.

Place · 1943–present

Los Alamos

Los Alamos is the secret New Mexico town where scientists built the first atomic bombs during World War II.

Person · 1869–1948

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Gandhi was an Indian lawyer who led India's independence from British rule through nonviolent resistance called satyagraha.

Place · 1932–1945

Manchukuo

Manchukuo was a Japanese puppet state in northeast China, ruled in name by the last Qing emperor but run by Japan's army from 1932 to 1945.

Doctrine · c. 1046 BC–1912

Mandate of Heaven

The Mandate of Heaven is an ancient Chinese idea that a ruler governs only as long as he rules justly.

Doctrine · 1840s

Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny was the 1840s belief that the United States was meant by God to expand from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Person · 1254–1324

Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant who spent seventeen years in Mongol China and wrote the book that shaped Europe's picture of Asia.

Person · 121–180 CE

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor, Stoic philosopher, and author of the Meditations, a private journal on how to live well.

Person · c. 83–30 BC

Mark Antony

Mark Antony was a Roman general who served under Julius Caesar, ruled the eastern Roman world, and lost a civil war to Octavian at the Battle of Actium.

Event · 1948–1952

Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan was the American aid program that sent about $13 billion to rebuild 16 Western European countries between 1948 and 1952.

Person · 1929–1968

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was the Baptist minister who led the nonviolent movement that ended legal segregation in the United States.

Person · 1794–1858

Matthew Perry and the Black Ships

Matthew Perry was a US Navy commodore who forced Japan to open to the West in 1853, ending over two centuries of isolation.

War · 1952–1960

Mau Mau Uprising

The Mau Mau uprising was a Kikuyu-led rebellion against British rule in Kenya from 1952 to 1960, met with mass detention and torture.

Person · 1758–1794

Maximilien Robespierre

Maximilien Robespierre was a French lawyer who led the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and was guillotined in 1794.

Person · 1432–1481

Mehmed II the Conqueror

Mehmed II was the Ottoman sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire and making the city his new capital.

Doctrine · c. 1500–1800

Mercantilism

Mercantilism was the belief that a country gets rich by exporting more than it imports and accumulating gold and silver.

Organization · 1909–present

MI6 (SIS)

MI6 is Britain's foreign intelligence service, officially the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), founded in 1909.

Person · 1931–2022

Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev was the last Soviet leader, whose glasnost and perestroika reforms ended the Cold War and led to the Soviet collapse in 1991.

Concept · 15th–20th century

Millet System

The millet system let each religious community in the Ottoman Empire govern its own courts, schools, and religious life in exchange for loyalty and taxes.

Person · 1882–1967

Mohammad Mosaddegh

Mohammad Mosaddegh was Iran's prime minister who nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951 and was overthrown by a CIA and MI6 coup in 1953.

Person · 1919–1980

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was the last shah of Iran, ruling from 1941 until the 1979 revolution ended his reign.

Treaty · 1939

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a 1939 non-aggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union with a secret protocol dividing Eastern Europe.

Concept · 1823

Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine is a US foreign policy principle from 1823 declaring the Western Hemisphere closed to European colonization.

Treaty · 1936

Montreux Convention

The Montreux Convention is the 1936 treaty that gives Turkey control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles and sets rules for warship passage.

Concept · 1965–present

Moore's Law

Moore's Law is the prediction that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles roughly every two years.

Person · 1931-present

Morris Chang

Morris Chang is the founder of TSMC, the company that manufactures most of the world's advanced computer chips.

Organization · 1949–present

Mossad

The Mossad is Israel's foreign intelligence service, responsible for espionage and covert operations abroad since 1949.

Place · 1526–1857

Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire ruled much of India between 1526 and 1857, built the Taj Mahal, and created a system of government the British kept.

Person · 1876–1948

Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a Bombay lawyer who founded Pakistan in 1947, creating the largest state ever built on religious identity.

Person · 1881-1938

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and remade its laws, alphabet, and religious institutions.

Doctrine · 1960s-present

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

Mutually assured destruction is the condition in which both sides of a nuclear standoff can destroy each other even after absorbing a first strike.

Person · 1769-1821

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military commander who became emperor, conquered most of Europe, and reshaped its laws and borders.

Concept · 1804

Napoleonic Code

The Napoleonic Code is the French civil code Napoleon enacted in 1804 to unify the country's laws, now the basis for legal systems in over 100 countries.

Place · 2000s–present

Natanz

Natanz is Iran's largest uranium enrichment facility, built underground in secret and targeted by cyberattacks and airstrikes for two decades.

Doctrine · 1789-present

Nationalism

Nationalism is the belief that humanity divides into nations and each nation deserves its own state. The idea emerged around 1800 and reshaped the world.

Person · 1918-2013

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison, then negotiated the end of apartheid and became South Africa's first Black president.

Person · 1469-1527

Niccolo Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat who wrote The Prince, a guide to how rulers actually gain and keep power.

Person · 1868–1918

Nicholas II

Nicholas II was the last emperor of Russia, ruling from 1894 until the 1917 revolution ended 304 years of Romanov rule.

Person · 1893–1943

Nicholas Spykman

Nicholas Spykman was a Dutch-American political scientist who argued that Eurasia's coastal Rimland, not its interior, was the key to world power.

Person · 1894–1971

Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, denounced Stalin, and brought the Cold War to the brink of nuclear war over Cuba.

Event · 1971

Nixon Shock

The Nixon Shock was President Richard Nixon's 1971 decision to end the dollar's convertibility into gold, ending the Bretton Woods system.

Concept · 1914–1918

No Man's Land

No man's land was the strip of cratered, wire-strewn ground between opposing trenches on the Western Front in World War I.

Event · 1945–1946

Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg trials of 1945-1946 prosecuted senior Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Person · 1599-1658

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell led Parliament's armies in the English Civil War, signed the king's death warrant, and ruled England as Lord Protector.

Doctrine · 1949–present

One China Policy

The formula that there is only one China, used by Beijing and Washington to mean different things, framing the Taiwan dispute.

Doctrine · 1984-present

One Country, Two Systems

One Country, Two Systems is China's formula for governing Hong Kong and Macau under their own legal and economic systems while under Chinese sovereignty.

Doctrine · 1979–2015

One-Child Policy

China's one-child policy limited most couples to one child from 1979 to 2015 and left the country with a shrinking, aging population.

War · 1839–1860

Opium Wars

Two wars in which Britain forced China to accept the opium trade, beginning what China calls the century of humiliation.

Concept · 1565–1572

Oprichnina

The oprichnina was Ivan the Terrible's campaign of state terror against Russia's aristocracy from 1565 to 1572.

Event · 2004–2005

Orange Revolution

The Orange Revolution was a wave of peaceful 2004 protests that overturned a rigged Ukrainian presidential election and made Viktor Yushchenko president.

Organization · 1090–1256

Order of Assassins

The Nizari Ismaili sect that used targeted killing from mountain fortresses across the medieval Middle East, giving the world the word assassin.

Person · 1815–1898

Otto von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck was the Prussian prime minister who unified Germany through three wars and served as its first chancellor from 1871 to 1890.

Place · 1953–present

Panmunjom

Panmunjom is the site in the Korean DMZ where the 1953 armistice was signed and where North and South Korea still meet.

Organization · 1st century–present

Papacy

The papacy is the office of the bishop of Rome, the oldest continuously functioning institution in the Western world.

Event · 1947

Partition of India

The 1947 division of British India into India and Pakistan, which triggered mass migration and communal violence that killed up to two million people.

Concept · 27 BC–180 AD

Pax Romana

The Pax Romana was roughly two centuries of peace and prosperity inside the Roman Empire, lasting from 27 BC to AD 180.

Treaty · 1713

Peace of Utrecht

The Peace of Utrecht, signed in 1713, ended the War of the Spanish Succession and first wrote the balance of power into European diplomacy.

Treaty · 1648

Peace of Westphalia

The 1648 treaties that ended the Thirty Years' War and established the principle that each state is sovereign within its own borders.

Event · 431–404 BC

Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War was a 27-year conflict between Athens and Sparta, from 431 to 404 BC, that ended Athens's empire.

Concept · 1985–1991

Perestroika and Glasnost

Perestroika and glasnost were Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms to restructure the economy and open public debate, introduced from 1985 to 1991.

Concept · 1795–present

Perpetual Peace

Perpetual Peace is Kant's 1795 essay arguing that republics would not fight each other, the intellectual root of democratic peace theory.

Place · c. 518–330 BC

Persepolis

Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, built by Darius the Great around 518 BC in modern Iran.

Concept · 1974–present

Petrodollar

The petrodollar is the system, built in 1974, by which most of the world's oil is priced and sold in US dollars.

Person · c. 428–348 BC

Plato

Plato was an Athenian philosopher who founded the Academy and wrote The Republic, arguing that states should be ruled by philosopher-kings.

Organization · 1964-present

PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization)

The PLO is the organization that represents the Palestinian people internationally, founded in 1964 and led by Yasser Arafat for 35 years.

Technology · 1915–1918

Poison Gas in WWI

Poison gas was a chemical weapon first used on a large scale in World War I, killing about 90,000 soldiers and wounding over a million.

Organization · 1917–present

Politburo

The Politburo was the small committee at the top of communist parties that made a country's real governing decisions.

Place · 79 AD

Pompeii

Pompeii was a Roman town buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, preserved under ash and now the best record of everyday Roman life.

Event · 17 July – 2 August 1945

Potsdam Conference

The Potsdam Conference was the last meeting of the Allied leaders of World War II, held in July 1945 to decide the future of defeated Germany.

Organization · 27 BC–312 AD

Praetorian Guard

The Praetorian Guard was Rome's imperial bodyguard, an elite force that protected emperors for three centuries and sometimes murdered them.

Event · 1968

Prague Spring

The Prague Spring was a 1968 reform movement in Czechoslovakia, crushed when the Soviet Union led a Warsaw Pact invasion.

Technology · 1440s–

Printing Press

The printing press is a machine Johannes Gutenberg developed around 1440, using movable metal type to print books cheaply for the first time in Europe.

Concept · 1945-present

Proxy War

A proxy war is a conflict in which major powers fight each other through local forces instead of directly.

War · 264–146 BCE

Punic Wars

The Punic Wars were three wars between Rome and Carthage, from 264 to 146 BCE, that made Rome the dominant power in the Mediterranean.

Person · 1906–1967

Puyi

Puyi was the last emperor of China, crowned at two years old, whose abdication at six ended more than two thousand years of imperial rule.

Person · 1957–2020

Qassem Soleimani

Qassem Soleimani commanded Iran's Quds Force and directed its wars across the Middle East for two decades until a US drone strike killed him in 2020.

Person · 259–210 BC

Qin Shi Huang

Qin Shi Huang was the king of Qin who conquered China's warring states in 221 BC and became its first emperor.

Person · 1819–1901

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria ruled the United Kingdom from 1837 to 1901 and became Empress of India, giving her name to the Victorian era.

Concept · 400s–1200s

Quraysh

The Quraysh were the Arab tribe that controlled Mecca, produced Muhammad, and supplied the rulers of the Muslim world for six centuries.

Organization · 1949–present

Radio Free Europe

Radio Free Europe is a US-funded broadcaster that sent uncensored news into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War and still operates today.

Event · 1517–1648

Reformation

The Reformation was the sixteenth-century split in Western Christianity, begun by Martin Luther in 1517, that divided Europe into Catholic and Protestant.

Movement · c. 1330-1600

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a movement from about 1330 to 1600 that began in Italy, recovered ancient ideas, and reshaped European art, scholarship, and politics.

Concept · 1944-present

Reserve Currency

A reserve currency is the currency that central banks worldwide hold as savings and the world uses to settle trade, today the US dollar.

Concept · 1977-present

Resource Curse

The resource curse is the pattern in which countries rich in oil or minerals tend to grow slower, govern worse, and fight more.

Organization · 1979–present

Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)

The IRGC is Iran's ideological military force, founded in 1979 to defend the revolution, now controlling missiles, proxy forces, and major businesses.

Concept · 1870s–1900s

Robber Barons

The robber barons were American industrialists who built monopolies in oil, steel, and railroads during the Gilded Age.

Person · 1725–1774

Robert Clive

Robert Clive was the British soldier who won Bengal for the East India Company at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, launching British rule in India.

Person · 1807-1870

Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee was a US Army officer who turned down Union command in 1861 and led the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia through most of the Civil War.

Technology · 312 BC–3rd century AD

Roman Aqueducts

Roman aqueducts were gravity-fed channels that carried fresh water from mountain springs to cities across the Roman Empire.

Technology · c. 400 BC–400 AD

Roman Legion

A Roman legion was a unit of about 5,000 professional soldiers that formed the core of Rome's army from the Republic through the Empire.

Organization · 509 BCE–476 CE

Roman Senate

The Roman Senate was the council of former magistrates that guided the Roman Republic and continued under the emperors for over a thousand years.

Organization · 1546-present

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is Britain's naval force, founded in 1546, which dominated the world's oceans for over a century and helped build the British Empire.

Person · 1207–1273

Rumi

Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic whose verses made him the best-selling poet in the United States.

Concept · 1600s–1861

Russian Serfdom

Serfdom was Russia's system of bonded labor that tied 23 million peasants to the land as property until Alexander II freed them in 1861.

War · 1904-1905

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was a 1904-1905 conflict in which Japan defeated Russia, the first modern victory of an Asian country over a European power.

Event · April–July 1994

Rwandan Genocide

The Rwandan genocide killed about 800,000 people, mostly Tutsi, in a hundred days in 1994.

Person · 1937–2006

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq from 1979 to 2003, starting two wars and using chemical weapons on his own citizens.

Place · 1501–1736

Safavid Empire

The Safavid Empire ruled Iran from 1501 to 1722 and converted it from a mostly Sunni land to the Shia state it remains today.

Person · c. 1137-1193

Saladin

Saladin was the Kurdish sultan who united Egypt and Syria, took Jerusalem from the crusaders in 1187, and fought Richard the Lionheart to a draw.

Concept · 12th–19th century

Samurai

The samurai were Japan's hereditary warrior class, governing the country in the emperor's name from 1185 to 1868.

Event · 19–26 April 1920

San Remo Conference

The San Remo Conference was a 1920 meeting where Allied leaders divided the former Ottoman Arab provinces into mandates under Britain and France.

Concept · 550 BC–300s AD

Satrapy

A satrapy was a province of the Persian Empire, run by a governor called a satrap who answered to the king.

War · 1877

Satsuma Rebellion

The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 was the last armed revolt by Japan's samurai, led by Saigo Takamori against the Meiji government that he helped create.

Organization · 1957–1979

SAVAK

SAVAK was the secret police of Iran's Shah, founded in 1957 with CIA and Mossad help and dissolved after the 1979 revolution.

Person · 1906–1966

Sayyid Qutb

Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian writer whose prison books became the intellectual foundation of modern jihadist movements.

Doctrine · 1905–1914

Schlieffen Plan

The Schlieffen Plan was Germany's strategy to defeat France in six weeks by invading through Belgium, then turn its army against Russia.

Event · 1884–1914

Scramble for Africa

The Scramble for Africa was the partition of nearly the entire continent by European powers between 1884 and 1914, redrawing its borders in a generation.

War · 1899–1902

Second Boer War

The Second Boer War (1899–1902) was fought between Britain and two Afrikaner republics over gold and control of southern Africa.

Concept · 1950-present

Security Dilemma

The security dilemma is the trap in which one country's defensive moves look like preparations for attack, making both sides less safe.

Doctrine · 1918–present

Self-Determination

Self-determination is the principle that peoples, not empires or conquerors, should choose who governs them.

Organization · 1987-2015

Sematech

Sematech was a 1987 consortium of fourteen US chip companies and DARPA that helped rebuild America's semiconductor manufacturing industry.

Organization · 1940s–1970s

Seven Sisters

The Seven Sisters were seven Western oil companies that controlled most of the world's oil from the 1940s to the 1970s.

War · 1756-1763

Seven Years' War

The Seven Years' War (1756-1763) was a global conflict fought on five continents that made Britain the world's leading colonial power.

Concept · 7th century–present

Sharia

Sharia is the moral and legal framework of Islam, derived from the Quran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad.

Concept · 10th century–1925

Sharif of Mecca

The Sharif of Mecca was the hereditary Hashemite guardian of Islam's holiest city, an office held for nearly a thousand years until 1925.

Technology · 1956-present

Shipping Container

The shipping container is a standard steel box introduced in 1956 that cut the cost of ocean freight and made global supply chains possible.

Place · 1984-present

Siachen Glacier

The glacier in the Karakoram where India and Pakistan have stationed troops above 20,000 feet since 1984, the world's highest battlefield.

Concept · 19th century

Sick Man of Europe

The "sick man of Europe" was a 19th-century label for the declining Ottoman Empire, coined by Russia's Tsar Nicholas I.

Event · 1258

Siege of Baghdad (1258)

The 1258 Mongol siege of Baghdad destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate and ended the city's reign as the Islamic world's capital.

Event · 1683

Siege of Vienna (1683)

The siege of Vienna in 1683 ended when a Polish-led relief army broke the Ottoman siege and permanently reversed Ottoman expansion into Europe.

Concept · c. 130 BC–1500s

Silk Road

The Silk Road was a network of overland trade routes that connected China to the Mediterranean for over 1,500 years.

Person · 1783–1830

Simon Bolivar

Simon Bolivar was a Venezuelan general who led the wars that freed six South American nations from Spanish rule in the early 1800s.

Event · 1915

Sinking of the Lusitania

A German U-boat torpedoed the Cunard liner Lusitania off Ireland on May 7, 1915, killing 1,197 people and turning American opinion against Germany.

Concept · 1930–1934

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was a 1930 US law that raised duties on about 890 kinds of goods, provoked worldwide retaliation, and reshaped American trade policy.

Person · c. 470–399 BC

Socrates

Socrates was an Athenian philosopher who never wrote anything, questioned people in the marketplace, and was executed by Athens in 399 BC.

Concept · 1990-present

Soft Power

Soft power is the ability of a country to influence others through attraction rather than force or payment, a term coined by Joseph Nye in 1990.

Movement · 1980–1989

Solidarity

Solidarity was a Polish trade union that grew to ten million members and won the 1989 elections that began the end of communist rule in Europe.

Concept · 1957-present

Songbun

Songbun is North Korea's hereditary classification system that sorts every citizen by political loyalty based on what their ancestors did up to 1953.

Concept · 1300s-present

Sovereign Default

A sovereign default is a government's failure to pay its debts, with no court to enforce repayment and consequences that are mostly political.

Concept · 1953-present

Sovereign Wealth Funds

A sovereign wealth fund is a government-owned investment pool, usually built on oil revenue, that buys assets abroad.

War · 1979–1989

Soviet-Afghan War

The Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) was the Soviet Union's failed ten-year war to defend a communist government in Afghanistan against guerrilla fighters.

War · 1936-1939

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) killed about 500,000 people and ended with Francisco Franco ruling Spain as a dictator until 1975.

War · 1898

Spanish-American War

The 1898 war between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish rule in Cuba and gave the US colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Place · c. 900–192 BC

Sparta

Sparta was a Greek city-state that organized its society around producing soldiers, sustained by the mass enslavement of its neighbors.

Person · d. 71 BC

Spartacus

Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who led Rome's largest slave revolt from 73 to 71 BC, defeating several Roman armies before being killed in battle.

Concept · 1980–present

Special Economic Zones

Special economic zones are areas where a country suspends its normal economic rules to attract foreign investment and test market reforms.

Concept · 1880s-present

Sphere of Influence

A sphere of influence is an area where a major power controls other countries' alliances and trade without formally governing them.

Concept · Antiquity-1800s

Spice Trade

The spice trade was the centuries-long commerce in nutmeg, cloves, and pepper that drove European exploration and colonial conquest.

Technology · 1957

Sputnik

Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, opening the Space Age.

Technology · 1960–present

SSBN (Ballistic-Missile Submarine)

An SSBN is a nuclear-powered submarine that carries ballistic missiles, forming the hardest-to-destroy part of a country's nuclear arsenal.

Organization · 1870-1911

Standard Oil

Standard Oil was John D. Rockefeller's oil company, which refined 90 percent of America's oil before the Supreme Court broke it up in 1911.

Person · 1939–2017

Stanislav Petrov

Stanislav Petrov was a Soviet officer who in 1983 judged a satellite warning of a US nuclear attack a false alarm, likely preventing nuclear war.

Organization · 1950–1990

Stasi

The Stasi was East Germany's secret police from 1950 to 1990, with about 91,000 staff and 189,000 informers.

Doctrine · 1979–present

Strategic Ambiguity

Strategic ambiguity is the US policy of deliberately not saying whether it would defend Taiwan militarily.

Technology · 2007-2010

Stuxnet

Stuxnet was a computer worm that destroyed uranium centrifuges at Iran's Natanz plant, the first cyberattack to damage physical equipment.

Organization · 16th century–1922

Sublime Porte

The Sublime Porte was the Ottoman Empire's central government, named after the gate to the grand vizier's compound in Istanbul.

Place · 1869–present

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal is a 120-mile waterway across Egypt that connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and normally carries about 12 percent of world trade.

Event · 1956

Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis was a 1956 war in which Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt over the Suez Canal and were forced to withdraw by the United States.

Person · 1494–1566

Suleiman the Magnificent

Suleiman the Magnificent was the Ottoman sultan whose 46-year reign marked the empire's golden age of conquest, law and art.

Person · c. 500 BC

Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu is the Chinese general credited with writing The Art of War, a 2,500-year-old text on military strategy.

Person · 1866–1925

Sun Yat-sen

Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese revolutionary who became the first provisional president of the Republic of China after the 1911 revolution.

Event · 632 AD–

Sunni-Shia Split

The Sunni-Shia split began in 632 as a dispute over who should lead Islam after Muhammad's death and became the religion's deepest division.

Concept · Ancient–present

Suzerainty

Suzerainty is an arrangement in which a powerful state controls a weaker state's foreign affairs while leaving it self-governing.

Organization · 1973–present

SWIFT

SWIFT is the Belgian cooperative whose messaging network carries the instructions behind most international banking.

Treaty · 1916

Sykes-Picot Agreement

The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a secret 1916 deal between Britain and France to divide the Ottoman Empire's Arab provinces.

Person · 1875–1965

Syngman Rhee

Syngman Rhee was the first president of South Korea, a US-educated anti-Communist whose authoritarian rule ended in the 1960 April Revolution.

War · 1850–1864

Taiping Rebellion

The Taiping Rebellion was a civil war in China from 1850 to 1864 that killed at least 20 million people.

Treaty · 1979–present

Taiwan Relations Act

The Taiwan Relations Act is the 1979 US law that governs America's relationship with Taiwan, requiring arms sales but not promising military defense.

Person · 1754–1838

Talleyrand

Talleyrand was a French diplomat who served six regimes and restored defeated France as a great power at the Congress of Vienna.

Concept · 1839–1876

Tanzimat Reforms

The Tanzimat was a series of Ottoman reforms from 1839 to 1876 that tried to modernize the empire by borrowing European legal and administrative models.

Concept · 1920s-present

Tax Havens and Offshore Finance

Tax havens are jurisdictions that charge non-residents little or no tax and keep company ownership secret.

Technology · 1840s-present

Telegraph

The electric telegraph, developed in the 1830s, sent messages across continents and oceans in minutes for the first time.

Event · 1968

Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive was a surprise North Vietnamese attack across South Vietnam in January 1968 that failed militarily but turned Americans against the war.

Concept · 1830–1907

The Great Game

The Great Game was the rivalry between Britain and Russia for influence over Central Asia, Afghanistan and Persia, from the 1830s to 1907.

Person · 1858–1919

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th and youngest president of the United States, known for trust-busting, conservation, and expanding American power.

Event · 1618–1648

Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) was a conflict in the Holy Roman Empire that started over religion, drew in most of Europe, and killed millions.

Person · c. 460-c. 400 BC

Thucydides

Thucydides was an Athenian general and historian who wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War.

Place · 1415–present

Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square is a large public plaza in Beijing, site of the 1989 pro-democracy protests and military crackdown.

Organization · 1603–1868

Tokugawa Shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate governed Japan for 265 years, keeping over two centuries of peace while closing the country to the outside world.

Technology · 1891-1916

Trans-Siberian Railway

The Trans-Siberian Railway runs 9,289 kilometers from Moscow to Vladivostok, the longest railway in the world, built from 1891 to 1916.

Event · 1500s–1800s

Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Atlantic slave trade was the forced transport of roughly 12.5 million Africans to the Americas between the early 1500s and 1866.

Technology · 1947–present

Transistor

The transistor is a solid-state electronic switch invented at Bell Labs in 1947 that replaced the vacuum tube and became the basis of modern electronics.

Treaty · 24 July 1923

Treaty of Lausanne

The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) replaced the Treaty of Sevres, set Turkey's borders, and ordered a compulsory population exchange of 1.5 million people.

Treaty · 1494

Treaty of Tordesillas

The Treaty of Tordesillas was a 1494 agreement in which Spain and Portugal divided the world outside Europe between them.

Treaty · 1919

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles ended the First World War in 1919 and imposed reparations, territorial losses, and military limits on Germany.

Concept · 1960–present

Triffin Dilemma

The Triffin dilemma is the problem Robert Triffin identified in 1960: supplying the world's reserve currency requires deficits that weaken it.

Concept · 1947

Truman Doctrine

The Truman Doctrine was President Truman's 1947 pledge to support free peoples resisting subjugation, making containment official US policy.

Concept · 451–450 BC

Twelve Tables

The Twelve Tables were Rome's first written law code, created in 451-450 BC and posted in the Forum for all citizens to read.

Event · 1960

U-2 Incident

The U-2 incident was the 1960 shootdown of an American spy plane over the Soviet Union that exposed CIA overflights and wrecked a superpower summit.

Technology · 1914–1918

U-boat

U-boats were German submarines that sank thousands of merchant ships in World War I, nearly starving Britain and bringing the United States into the war.

Concept · 700s–present

Ulama

The ulama are the scholars of Islamic law, whose authority comes from learning rather than ordination.

Person · 1822-1885

Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant commanded the Union armies in the Civil War and served two terms as the 18th president of the United States.

Technology · 1858-present

Undersea Cables

Undersea cables are the fiber-optic lines on the ocean floor that carry about 97% of the world's intercontinental internet traffic.

Concept · 1842–1915

Unequal Treaties

The unequal treaties were one-sided agreements imposed on China by Western powers and Japan from 1842 to 1915 that gave foreigners special legal privileges.

Organization · 1936–1945

Unit 731

Unit 731 was a secret Japanese army unit that conducted biological warfare experiments on prisoners in occupied Manchuria during World War II.

Person · c. 1460-1524

Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama was the Portuguese explorer who reached India by sea in 1498, opening a direct route for European trade with Asia.

Person · 1926–1998

Vasili Arkhipov

Soviet naval officer who refused to authorize a nuclear torpedo launch during the Cuban Missile Crisis, likely preventing nuclear war.

Event · 1989

Velvet Revolution

The Velvet Revolution was the peaceful overthrow of Czechoslovakia's communist government in late 1989, making playwright Václav Havel president.

Movement · 793-1066

Vikings

Vikings were Scandinavian raiders, traders, and settlers who from 793 to 1066 reached from Newfoundland to Baghdad and founded states across Europe.

Person · 1870–1924

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin was the Russian revolutionary who led the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 and founded the Soviet state.

Movement · 1744–present

Wahhabism

Wahhabism is a strict reform movement within Sunni Islam, founded in 1744 in Arabia, that became Saudi Arabia's official creed.

Concept · 1871–present

War Reparations

War reparations are payments a defeated country must make to the winners of a war, most famously after World War I.

War · 1455-1487

Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses were a series of English civil wars between 1455 and 1487 that destroyed the old nobility and put the Tudors on the throne.

Treaty · 1955–1991

Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Pact was the military alliance between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European countries, from 1955 to 1991.

Concept · 1989–2008

Washington Consensus

The Washington Consensus is a 1989 list of ten economic reforms for Latin America that became the default prescription for developing countries worldwide.

Event · 1972-1974

Watergate

Watergate was the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee and the cover-up that led to President Nixon's resignation.

Place · 1919–1933

Weimar Republic

Germany's first democracy, the Weimar Republic lasted from 1919 to 1933 and ended when Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor.

Person · 1874–1965

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was the British prime minister who led the country through World War II, a Nobel Prize-winning writer and a lifelong imperialist.

War · 1939-1940

Winter War

The Winter War was the 105-day Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939-1940 that cost Finland a tenth of its territory but not its independence.

Movement · 1848–1971

Women's Suffrage

Women's suffrage was the movement to win women the right to vote, from New Zealand in 1893 to most democracies by the mid-twentieth century.

Person · 1856-1924

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States, known for creating the Federal Reserve and championing the League of Nations.

Event · 1945

Yalta Conference

The Yalta Conference was a February 1945 meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin that divided postwar Europe into rival blocs.

Person · 1859–1916

Yuan Shikai

Yuan Shikai was a Chinese general who ended the Qing dynasty, became president of the republic, and tried to make himself emperor.

War · 1991–2001

Yugoslav Wars

The Yugoslav Wars were a series of conflicts from 1991 to 2001 that broke Yugoslavia apart and killed about 140,000 people.

Person · 1934–1968

Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut who became the first human in space on April 12, 1961, orbiting Earth once aboard Vostok 1.

Organization · 1868–1945

Zaibatsu

The zaibatsu were Japan's family-controlled industrial empires, dominant from the Meiji era through World War II.

Person · 1371–1433

Zheng He

Zheng He was a Ming dynasty admiral who led seven voyages across the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433, decades before Columbus.

Person · 1898–1976

Zhou Enlai

Zhou Enlai was the first premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from 1949 to 1976 as Mao Zedong's chief administrator and diplomat.

Event · 1917

Zimmermann Telegram

The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret 1917 German message proposing a military alliance with Mexico that helped bring the United States into World War I.

Movement · 1897–present

Zionism

Zionism is the movement to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine, founded by Theodor Herzl in the 1890s.

Place · c. 1816–1887

Zulu Kingdom

The Zulu Kingdom was a military state in southern Africa built by Shaka in the 1810s and destroyed by Britain after the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879.