EVENTS THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY
- Gia
- Feb 3, 2017
- 16 min read
For decades a number of events has occurred that has caused shifts in history and has caused many nations to becomes allies because they had a common enemy or they had common goals.
Here are a few events that changed the course of history;
The Boxer Rebellion
A group called the Righteous and Harmonious Fist started the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1890. The group was known for its adherence to martial arts and physical exercise and were both Anti-Christian and Anti-Foreign.
They targeted both Chinese Christians and Foreign Emissaries who they believed were trying to colonize and take over China. By the end of the 19th century Japan and Western powers had forced China's Qing Dynasty to accept wide control over economic affairs, China had tried to resist but had no success due to its lack of a modernized military and there were millions of causalities.
Eventhough members of the Righteous Harmonious Fist came from all over China they were mostly from the Shandong Province who at the time suffered extreme poverty and very poor living conditions and blamed those conditions and nature disasters that they had encountered during that time on the foreign dominance in their country.
On June 20, 1901 the Boxers began a siege on Beijing's foreign legislative district ,on June 21, 1901 Qinq Empress Dowager Tzu' u Hzi declared war on all foreign nations with diplomatic ties in China. The siege lasted for weeks and several hundred Chinese Christians and Foreigners were killed and those who weren't killed had to endure hunger and degrading living condition.
On August 14, after fighting its way through northern China, an international force of approximately 20,000 troops from eight nations (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) arrived to take Beijing and rescue the foreigners and Chinese Christians. The Boxer Rebellion was officially ended on September 7, 1901 with the signing of the Boxer Protocol. The Chinese officials and Boxers who were involved in the uprising were punished, foreign soldiers were stationed in in Beijing for defense, China was prohibited from importing arms for two years and it agreed to pay more than $330 million in reparation.
The Boxer Rebellion lead to the end of the Qing Dynasty which was the last great Dynasty in China.
Russian Revolution 1917
The people of Russia had lost faith in the Leadership of Czar Nicolas II. Russia's economy remained backward due to rampant corruption in government. Growing Civil unrest and a chronic food shortage deemed waiting patiently for Nicolas II to fix the issues plaguing the nation unacceptable and these conditions ushered in the first part of the two part Russia Revolution of 1917 on March 18, 1917.
This revolution part of the revolution is known as the February Revolution because of Russia's use of the Julian Calendar until February of 1918 which recorded the original date as February 23rd.
The first part of the uprising began when moderates made the decision to join Russian radical element in an effort to overthrow Czar Nicolas II as the Russian economy was disrupted by the costly warfare of World War I. Russia had suffered a severe number of casualties as they were no match for Germany. It is said that their casualties were greater than those sustained by any other nation in any previous war.
Demonstrators poured onto the streets of the Russian capital of Petrograd now called St Petersburg in protest for food. A huge number of Industrial Workers had gone on strike and they all clashed with Police. By March 10th the strike had spread to Petrograd's workers and mobs destroyed police stations. The following day Petrograd troops were expelled to quell the uprise and eventhough regiments opened fire killing demonstrators the protesters were not deterred and the troops began to equivocate.In the coming days the troops defected to the cause of the demonstrators and the revolution was a victory. The soldiers subsequently formed committees that elected deputies to the Petrograd Soviet.
The Duma formed a provisional government that peacefully vied with the Petrograd Soviet for control of the revolution after the Imperial Government was forced to resign. On March 14, the Petrograd Soviet issued Order No. 1, which instructed Russian soldiers and sailors to obey only those orders that did not conflict with the directives of the Soviet. The next day, March 15, Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne in favor of his brother Michael (1878-1918), whose refusal of the crown brought an end to the czarist autocracy. It was later discovered that he was abducted and executed along with his wife and children.
Bolshevik Revolution 1917
On November 6 and 7 which is October 24 and 25 on the Julian Calendar hence the name October Revolution leftist revolutionaries led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin launched a nearly bloodless coup d’état against the provisional government. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in Petrograd, and soon formed a new government with Lenin as its head.
Lenin became the virtual dictator of the first Marxist state in the world. His government made peace with Germany, nationalized industry and distributed land, but beginning in 1918 had to fight a devastating civil war against anti-Bolshevik White Army forces. In 1920, the anti-Bolsheviks were defeated, and in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established.
Women's Suffrage
On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
And in the elections of 1920 women voted for the time. It had took activist and reformers almost 100 years to win that right.
The campaign for women's suffrage began a decade before the civil war. By 1830 all white men regardless of how much money or property they had, had been given the right to vote in most states. During this time a number of reform groups were growing in large numbers across the United States. Anti-Slavery organisations, religious groups, temperance clubs and moral reform societies were among these groups and women played a prominent role. Contrary to popular believe that women where suppose to be home makers, their only concerns were to be their families and their places were at home.
In 1848 a group of abolitionist-activist, mostly women gathered in Seneca Falls to discuss the issue of women rights. This would be the first recorded formal Women's Conference. The organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Motto. They highlighted the fact that all men and women were created equal, and all had the same rights, among those rights were their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and with that belief they said women should have the right to vote.
Unfortunately due to the commencing of the Civil War in the 1950's the Movement lost its momentum and after the Civil War ended 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution raised familiar questions about suffrage. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, extends the Constitution’s protection to all citizens–and defines “citizens” as “male”; the 15th, ratified in 1870, guarantees black men the right to vote.
In 1869 a group who had contested the 15th amendment which had given black males the right to vote formed the National Women's Suffrage Organization. The group had sided with Southern Racist groups and argued that giving white women the right to vote could neutralize votes by African-Americans this was just a attempt to get law makers to at-least consider giving women suffrage privileges. In that same year they started the fight for Universal Women's Suffrage to the Federal Constitution.
The pro-15th amendment group raised concerns that the National Women's Suffrage endangered black enfranchisement by tying it to the less popular campaign for women's suffrage. They formed a group called the American Women's Suffrage Organization and started fighting for women's suffrage state by state. By 1890 both groups placed their difference aside and came together to form the National America Women's Suffrage. They immediately started to arguing that women should be given the right to vote because they were different was from men contrary to their first argument that women deserved the right to vote because they were the same as men.Their domesticity could be made into a political virtue and franchise could be used to create a purer, more moral maternal commonwealth.
Many Political groups and middle class white people soaked up the idea again arguing that giving white women the right to vote could aid in their white supremacy agendas and Temperance Advocates argued that giving women the right to vote could mobilize an enormous voters bloc on behalf of their cause.
Starting in 1910 some states in the West starting giving women the right to vote and by the end of the 19th century Utah and Idaho had also done the same but well established Eastern and Southern States held on to their belief that women should not vote. War for the second time slowed down the Women's Suffrage campaign but Campaigners use the fact that women's work in War World I proved they were as Patriotic as men therefore entitled to the same citizenship benefits as their male counterparts . On August 26, 1920 the 19th Amendment to the Federal Constitution was ratified,all women citizens could now vote.
French Revolution
The end of the French Revolution in the 1790s marked the end of Monarchy and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The French Revolution began in 1789 and ended in the 1790s. France participation in the American Revolution had left the nation almost in bankruptcy. Two decades of drought , cattle diseases and high rising bread prices had influenced a need for change in poor urban population and many expressed their resentment and desperation due to heavy taxes imposed upon them by their leader King Louis XVI and his regime.
Almost twenty thousand people were tried and executed during that time, and an unknown amount of people imprisoned.
In the fall of 1786, Louis XVI's control general, Charles Alexandre de Calonne proposed a financial reform package that included a universal land tax that the upper class would no longer be exempted from and the aristocrats where not pleased and animosity was brewing. The population dynamics were unbalanced and regardless of the fact that non-aristocratic members represented 98 percent of people in the Third Estate they could still be outvoted by the other two bodies. The Third Estate began to support the equal representation and abolishment of the noble veto-in other words, they wanted voting by head and not by status. The nobles were not happy with giving up the privileges they enjoyed under the current system and did not want to conform to any new laws that were not in their best interest. Due to conflict between the the Generals of the third order when they convened the meetings original purpose could not be reached and on June 17 talks over procedure stalled, three days later the Third State met alone and formally adopted the title National Assembly. Three days after that they met in an indoor tennis court and took the so-called Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disperse until constitutional reform had been achieved. Over the next few days most of the clerical deputies and 47 liberal nobles had join them, and on June 27 Louis XVI grudgingly absorbed all three orders into new assembly. A few weeks before that the revolution had hit the streets, and on July 14 rioters stormed the Bastille Fortress in attempt to secure gunpowder and weapons and this day most people said was the official start of the French Revolution.
The revolution caused widespread hysteria over the countryside. Peasants looted and burned the homes of tax collectors, landlords and seigniorial elite. All these events hastened the National Constituent Assembly to abolish feudalism on August 4, 1789 signing what the historian George Lefebvre later called the "death certificate of the old order." On August 4, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (“Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen”) a statement of democratic principles grounded in the philosophical and political ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The document proclaimed the Assembly’s commitment to replace the ancien régime with a system based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty and representative government. Putting recommendation into law proved to be a more challenging task, and for month members wrestled with many questions about how power will be shared among the French Government and what roles the King would play.
In April 1972, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia, where it believed that French emigres were building counterrevolutionary alliances; it also help spread its revolutionary ideals across Europe through warfare.
On the domestic front, meanwhile, the political crisis took a radical turn when a group of insurgents led by the extremist Jacobins attacked the royal residence in Paris and arrested the king on August 10, 1792. The following month, amid a wave of violence in which Parisian insurrectionists massacred hundreds of accused counterrevolutionaries, the Legislative Assembly was replaced by the National Convention, which proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the French republic. On January 21, 1793, it sent King Louis XVI, condemned to death for high treason and crimes against the state, to the guillotine; his wife Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793) suffered the same fate nine months later.
The French Revolution took a most violent turn after the Kings execution, and in 1973 the Jacobins seized control of the National Convention from the more moderate Girondins and instituted a series of radical measures, including the establishment of a new calendar and the eradication of Christianity. They also unleashed the bloody Reign of Terror (“la Terreur”), a 10-month period in which suspected enemies of the revolution were guillotined by the thousands. Many of the killings were carried out under orders from Robespierre, who dominated the draconian Committee of Public Safety until his own execution on July 28, 1794. His death marked the beginning of the Thermidorian Reaction, a moderate phase in which the French people revolted against the Reign of Terror’s excesses.
Napoleon's rise to power marked the end of the French Revolution. On August 22, 1795 the National Convention which consisted of the people who had survived the Reign of Terror approved a new constitution that created France's first bicameral legislature. Royalists protested the new regime as it wasn't in their favor but they were quickly silenced by the army which was being lead by the young and successful general named Napoleon Bonaparte. And for the next four years the country relied mainly on the army for authority and had given most of the power to the Generals in the fields. The Directory's four years in power were plagued by financial crisis, popular discontent, inefficiency and clear political corruption and on November 9, 1799 Napoleon staged a coup d’état which ended the Directory's leadership and he appointed himself France's first Consul. The event marked the end of the French Revolution and the beginning of the Napoleonic era, in which France would come to dominate much of continental Europe.
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
June 28, 1914 is the day in history that recorded the events that lead to World War I.
Franz Ferdinand was born on December 18, 1963 and an Archduke of Austria, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia. When he was assassinated along with his wife Sophie he was 51 years old and an heir to Austro-Hungarian Throne. He had gone to Sarajevo to inspect the military there as they had expressed intent to become part of the newly independent and ambitious Serbian Nation. The date of of his visit coincided with the anniversary of the First Battle of Kosovo in 1389, in which medieval Serbia was defeated by the Turks. Despite the fact that Serbia did not truly lose its independence until the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448, June 28 was a day of great significance to Serbian nationalists, and one on which they could be expected to take exception to a demonstration of Austrian imperial strength in Bosnia. The Archduke was also celebrating his wedding Anniversary.
On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were touring Sarajevo in an open car, with surprisingly little security, when Serbian nationalist Nedjelko Cabrinovic threw a bomb at their car; it rolled off the back of the vehicle and wounded an officer and some bystanders. That same day, on their way to visit the injured officer, the archduke’s procession took a wrong turn at the junction of Appel quay and Franzjosefstrasse, where one of Cabrinovic’s cohorts, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, happened to be loitering. Princip took the opportunity and fired into their car and Ferdinand and Sophie were shot at point blank range he then turned the gun on himself but was prevented from ending his own life by a bystander who threw himself on him. An angry mob attacked the young assassin and he was eventually rescued by police. The Archduke and his wife died within the hour.
The great Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck, the man most responsible for the unification of Germany in 1871, was quoted as saying at the end of his life that “One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.” It went as he predicted. Ferdinand's assassination set off a rapid chain of event and on July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.
Wall Street Crash 1929
Eventhough the stock market crash of 1929 was not the only cause of the great depression it acted as the economic collapse which help to propel it. It would take World War II and a huge level of armament production to bring the country out of the depression after more then ten years of suffering.
Starting in the 1920's the U.S. stock market underwent massive expansion and it peaked in August 1929. By then unemployment had risen in the U.S. and production has also vastly declined. Wages were low and debts had increased rapidly and there were excess bank loans that couldn't be liquidated. Between mid-September and early October 1929 stock prices began to decline. In an effort to stabilize the market on October 24 market known as Black Thursday a record 12,894,650 shares were traded, there was a moderate rally on Friday. By October 29, 1929 stock prices rise and there was a considerable recovery during the week that followed. Overall prices continued to drop as the U.S entered the Great Depression and by 1932 stocks were worth 20 percent of their value in summer of 1929.
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world very close to a nuclear war. National Security Advisor McGreorge Bundy informed President John F Kennedy on the morning of October 16, 1962 that U.S. surveillance had discovered the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. This lead to a 13-day military standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States.
On October 22, 1962 President Kennedy in a TV address to America notified the American people of the missile presence and explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. This put the world in fear of a nuclear war. The crisis was one of the most important confrontations during the cold war.
A year earlier on April 17, 1961 U.S had attempted to overthrow Castro regime in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs Invasion which had failed. The CIA had financed and trained a group of exiled Cubans whom they hope would be able to remove Fidel Castro from government. Meanwhile in July of 1962 the U.S. administration was planning Operation Mongoose-a second invasion of Cuba the Soviet Union thought that they could capitalize on the wedge between the U.S. and Cuba and place missiles in Cuba.
On October 24th when a Soviet Union ship bound for Cuba was obstructed by the U.S. blockage at sea that marked an crucial moment in the Crisis. Instead of attempting to breach the blockade the Soviet Union ship stopped short of the blockage. This was a positive sign but the tense standoff continued through the week. During the standoff the Soviet Union and U.S came to an agreement and on October 26 Khrushchev sent a letter to Kennedy that he would withdraw his missiles from Cuba if the the United States promised to stop all efforts to invade Cuba and remove Castro from power. The following day the Soviet Leader sent a second letter to proposing that U.S. removed their missiles from Turkey. Kennedy decide to honor the conditions first letter and ignore the other but eventually decided to honor the second and removed the missiles from Turkey.
September 11 Attacks
One of the darkest days in the World History was September 11, 2011. It was the deadliest day in history for American firefighters also, 343 of them were killed. That Tuesday morning around 8:45 am American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The initial attack appeared to be an accident but 18 minutes after a second Boeing 767–United Airlines Flight 175–appeared out of the sky, turned sharply toward the World Trade Center and sliced into the south tower near the 60th floor the collision had killed hundreds and trapped hundreds more and the second collision showered burning debris onto near by streets and buildings. It was not quite clear that America was under attack.
The attacks had been initiated by Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. The attacks were allegedly finaced by the Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation. Some of the terrorist were living in America for years and others had sneaked into the country in the months before the attacks. Reports are that the terrorist had taken flight lessons at American flight schools. On the morning of the attack the terrorist smuggled box cutter, and knives through security and onto four flights destined four California it was later said that those flights were chosen because the planes had a huge amount of fuel for the long flight. Some time after take off the terrorist took control of the planes and turned them into guided missiles.
As news spread of the attack on the World Trade Center American Airlines Flight 77 circled over downtown Washington, D.C., and slammed into the west side of the Pentagon military headquarters at 9:45 a.m. Jet fuel from the Boeing 757 caused a devastating inferno that led to the structural collapse of a portion of the giant concrete building.
Within fifteen minutes of the attack in Washington the the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in a massive cloud of dust and smoke. Casualties has risen in an instant and at 10:30 the other trade center tower collapsed.Close to 3000 people died in the world trade center and its surroundings, all 19 hijackers died and 125 died in the Pentagon building more than 10 000 people were treated for injuries, many severe.
Another airplane United Flight 93 also destined for California was hijacked about 40 minuted later at the Newark International Airport in New Jersey. Because the flight had been delayed Passengers learned about the attack in New York and Washington and decided that they were going to do something that could possibly change the outcome and it was said after calling their families they attacked the hijackers and attacked the cockpit.The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upwards of 500 miles per hour, crashing in a rural field in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m. All 45 people aboard were killed. Its intended target is not known, but theories include the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland or one of several nuclear power plants along the eastern seaboard.
The President George W Bush returned to the White House at 7 pm that night after shuttling around the the country that day due to emergency concerns and at 9 pm he gave a television address in the Oval Office declaring “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.” and he stated to refer to how the military would move to deal with the attacks “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”
September 11, 2001 influenced America to Lead the International War On Terrorism with the goal to destroy Osama Bin Laden and the terrorist regime in Afghanistan. With two months the U.S Military and Coalition forces had effectively remove the Taliban from operational power and they fought to defeat an Taliban insurgency based in Pakistan. Osama Bin Laden was still at large but on May 2, 2011 he was tracked and killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In June 2011 President Barack Obama announced the beginning of a large withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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