PolledHistory: Voted Series - Modern History #4 (1815-2024)

 Hello!

Our episode today is very long - 209 years, and that is about 36% of the Modern Era and the most recent. This is the last episode of the modern history series.

Following the end of Napoleon's wars, Europe decided to restore territories from before the Napoleonic Wars in the Congress of Vienna and restore the Bourbon family, the family that previously ruled France. However,  a fire was lit in the world in the French Revolution of the late 1700s that triggered the Napoleonic Wars - that fire was nationalism and also non-monarchist government. 

In the Americas during the 19th century, the United States grew from several rebellious British colonies to a growing power, expanding westward. The French sold the territory of Louisiana, doubling the United States' size, and the United States began settling further west until the West Coast. This territorial growth was due to several land purchases (Louisiana Purchase from France, Florida Purchase from Spain, and Alaska Purchase from Russia) as well as a few conflicts and wars (such as the war with Mexico).

Shortly after the Mexican-American War, the United States would face a great problem, namely the Civil War of 1861 until 1865 - where several "slave states" (states that supported slavery) rebelled, forming the Confederate States, and the loyal northern "free states" waged a bloody war ending in the United States' victory and slavery being abolished there.

France and Britain, as well as a weakened Ottoman Empire, defeated Russia in the Crimean War. Russia was a backwater during the 19th century which fell behind of a rapidly modernizing Europe. So was the Ottomans, which used to be ahead of other nations in technology, but now was a shrinking empire that lost most European territories after the Balkan Wars, everything in Africa due to European Colonization initiated by the Berlin Conference, and lost countless wars to an also weaker Russia. 

Two more revolutions happened in France, and by the 1870s, Prussia, a state in modern day German and northern Poland, under their leader Otto Von Bismarck,  began to expand and unite, forming the German  Empire, which became a superpower of its own. This "German Unification" was done through diplomatic maneuevers, wars (such as the Franco-Prussian War that weakened France and solidified the German Empire) and ended with Wilhelm I becoming the king of the German Empire.

In the same time, the Italian Unification was underway, which completely unified Italy besides the Vatican City in Rome. The 20th Century began in 1900. By that time, Germany rivaled Britain's powerful navy, Africa as well as South and Southeast Asia, was colonized and the United States had became a superpower. In the 1800s, most of Latin America broke away from Spanish influence. 

The early 1900s included the many Balkan Wars, the sinking of the Titanic, and, ultimately,  the beginning of World War One when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, resulting in many European nations entering a war. This was a global war - there was an African theater ("theater" meaning location), a Pacific theater, and many other places where it happened. The Central Powers (at first Germany and Austria Hungary) were up against the Allies (originally Britain, France, and Russia). The Ottomans made a crucial mistake of siding with the Central Powers. The Central Powers did somewhat well, but struggled to take Paris as they expected. But when Germany tried to convince Mexico to join and declare war on America, the British intercepted the telegram, which let the United States join. In the end, the Central Powers lost. Austria Hungary and the Ottoman Empire completely disintegrated, and the German Empire became the shameful Weimar Republic.

The Interwar period between 1918 to 1939 was floppy. The late 1910s brought in the Russian Revolution, ending centuries of Russian monarchy and forming the Soviet Union. The Qing Dynasty collapsed - the last of the Chinese dynasties, and China would transform into multiple forms of rule over the 20th century until eventually being ruled by the PRC - which was communist.

The Interwar Period also included the Great Depression, an economic crisis, and German resentment for the heavy consequences against them form 1918's Treaty of Versailles. So in 1933, a Fascist man who everyone has heard of today, Adolf Hitler, became chancellor - then dictator - of Germany. In the late 1930's, the Prime Minister of Britain, Neville Chamberlain, gave some territories to the growing N*zi Germany under Adolf Hitler. It went a little bit like this:

The Germans want a land, and Neville Chamberlain gives it to them to try to prevent a war, then the Germans want another land, repeat. 

This is known as the Appeasement. Eventually, however, tensions grew. Hitler wanted to get Poland, and the Allies (Britain and France and their allies at first) did not agree, but Hitler attacked Poland anyway, quickly engulfing it in months. The same fate came to Denmark, Norway, and in 1939 and 1940, eventually France. WW2 Germany under Hitler had surpassed the Germans in WW1 by invading all of France. Italy and Japan was also allied to the Germans, forming the Axis. Japan had similar success, taking large swathes of China, Indochina, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. However, this was done through violent atrocities (especially in China). There were large scale massacres during the Sino-Japanese War. The same thing happened in Germany especially against the Jews, within the terrible Holocaust. 

It seemed as if Germany and the Axis could unite Europe. After all, they had most of the continent after a Balkan invasion. Britain, however, resisted Axis attacks. But then came Hitler's next big goal: an invasion of Russia under the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. The N*zis pushed far into Soviet territory. Leningrad (formerly St. Petersburg) was under siege, Stalingrad (now Volgograd) was attacked, and Moscow was threatened. A huge death toll was in this campaign towards Russia - but when winter came, the Axis advance came to a halt. Following the winter, Soviet reinforcements came, pushing back the Germans.

In the same time, Japan decided to bomb Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to temporarily weaken American naval capabillity and accomplish further gains in the Pacific. However, it was a blunder that incited American support in the Allies. Things were going downhill for the Axis. The Soviets were pushing the Germans back, the Allies had landed in Southern France and Southern Italy, Japan was slowly being reduced,  and there was a predicted Allies landing on the northern French coast. It came on June 6, 1944 - thousands of Canadians, Brits, and Americans landed in Normandy, France, quickly taking back Western Europe as the Soviets gained more ground in Eastern Europe. Soon after, Axis power in Europe collapsed. Months later, Japan surrendered after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the second World War in 1945 - which still remains the most recent global and direct conflict (if you don't count the Cold War as a "direct" conflict).

The War ended colonization for the most part. The European Powers tried to keep hold of the colonies, but lost them due to the affect of the war. Decolonization took place, and the United Nations formed. However, tensions were not over. Tensions between the Western European nations plus the United States against the Soviet Union and the Eastern Europe escalated into a nuclear arms race and rivalry which included many proxy, external wars. 

This was known as the Cold War. The Soviets and Americans came close to nuking each other, but fortunately, they didn't. Though East and West didn't directly fight, smaller nations affected by the tension between communism and capitalism such as Vietnam, the Koreas, and more, would have conflicts. 

The Cold War would cool down and end in 1991 after years of Soviet decline. A "democratic" Russia replaced it, thought it is fundamentally still one-sided. There was some peace and prosperity in the 1990s, but in 2001 the infamous September 11 attacks happened, which grew tensions for a while once again. The 2000s also was home to the Iraq War. And we are just near the present once again. Political tension is somewhat rising, and the Russian-Ukrainian War is ensuing, as well as the conflicts in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and the Middle East.

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