Study 19th‑Century Perspectives and Political Developments

Topic: AP European History

• cat: Nationalism & National Unification
• cat: Global Effects of Imperialism
• cat: Causation in 19th‑Century Developments
• cat: 19th‑Century Culture & Arts
• cat: Darwinism & Social Darwinism
• cat: Age of Progress & Modernity
• cat: New Imperialism: Motivations and Methods
• cat: Contextualizing 19th‑Century Perspectives
• Red Shirts: The guerrilla army of Giuseppe Garibaldi, who invaded Sicily in 1860 in an attempt to liberate it, winning the hearts of the Sicilian peasantry.
• Crimean War: (1853-1856) A conflict fought between 1853 and 1856 over Russian desires to expand into Ottoman territory; Russia was defeated by France, Britain, and the Ottomans, underscoring the need for reform in the Russian empire.
• Bloody Sunday: A massacre of peaceful protesters at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in 1905, triggering a revolution that overturned absolute tsarist rule and made Russia into a conservative constitutional monarchy.
• October Manifesto: The result of a paralyzing general strike in October 1905, a Russian decree that granted full civil rights and promised a popularly elected Duma (parliament) with real legislative power.
• Duma: The Russian parliament that opened in 1906, elected indirectly by universal male suffrage but controlled after 1907 by the tsar and the conservative classes
• Tanzimat: A set of reforms designed to remake the Ottoman Empire on a western European model.
• Young Turks: Fervent patriots who seized power in a 1908 coup in the Ottoman Empire, forcing the conservative sultan to implement reforms.
• Reichstag: The popularly elected lower house of government of the new German Empire after 1871
• Kulturkampf: Bismarck's attack on the Catholic Church within Germany from 1870 to 1878, resulting from Pius IX's declaration of papal infallibility.
• German Social Democratic Party (SPD): A German working-class political party founded in the 1870s, the SPD championed Marxism but in practice turned away from Marxist revolution and worked instead for social and workplace reforms in the German parliament.
• Dreyfus affair: A divisive case in which Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in the French army, was falsely accused and convicted of treason. The Catholic Church sided with the anti-Semites against Dreyfus; after Dreyfus was declared innocent, the French government severed all ties between the state and the church.
• Zionism: A movement dedicated to building a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, started by Theodor Herzl.
• revisionism: An effort by moderate socialists to update Marxist doctrines to reflect the realities of the time.
• Zollverein: Prussian economic union, removed tariff barriers between German states, in step toward political unity.
• Bismarck's "blood and iron" philosophy: Declaring that the government would rule without parliamentary consent, Bismarck lashed out at middle-class opposition: "The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and resolutions but by blood and iron."
• Russian Revolution of 1905: Imperialist ambitions brought defeat at the hands of Japan in 1905 and political upheaval at home. The Bloody Sunday massacre, when the tsar's troops fired on a crowd of protesting workers, produced a wave of indignation. By the summer of 1905, strikes, uprisings, revolts, and mutinies were sweeping the country. A general strike in October forced Nicholas II to issue the October Manifesto, which granted full civil liberties and promised a popularly elected parliament (Duma). However, Nicholas II eventually dismissed the Duma.
• Russian Duma: Russian parliament opened in 1906, elected indirectly by universal male suffrage but with absolute veto power from the tsar.
• British Third Reform Bill of 1884: The Third Reform Bill of 1884 gave the vote to almost every adult male. It made a giant leap for democracy in Britain.
• Socialist "revisionism": The belief that an equal society can be achieved through participation in politics rather than violent revolution. It led to minimum wage right and social reform, also convinced socialists to reject the Marxist faith that violent revolution was inevitable.
• Otto von Bismarck: Chancellor of Prussia from 1862 until 1871, when he became chancellor of Germany. A conservative nationalist, he led Prussia to victory against Austria (1866) and France (1870) and was responsible for the creation of the German Empire.
• Benjamin Disraeli: British statesman, who as Prime Minister, bought controlling interest in the Suez Canal and made Queen Victoria the empress of India and extended the vote to the rich middle class in order to broaden the political base of the conservative party
• Louis Napoleon Bonaparte: After the February Revolution in Paris in 1848, he was elected President in France, because he was the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, among the newly enfranchised voters. He soon declared himself Emperor Napoleon III. France prospered under him for two decades.
• Emmeline Pankhurst: British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement that helped women win the right to vote. She used tactics such as processions to the House of Parliaments, window smashing and bombs in letter boxes. When they were arrested and jailed, the women suffragists went on hunger strikes. The government let the women go when they were sick because of hunger but rearrested them when they recovered.
• Alexander II: (1855-1881) Emperor of Russia; advocated reforms for Russia; emancipated the serfs; he was assassinated.
• Camillo Benso di Cavour: He was a leading figure in the movement toward Italian unification. He was the founder of the original Liberal Party and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, a position he maintained throughout the Second Italian War of Independence and Garibaldi's campaigns to unite Italy. After the declaration of a united Kingdom of Italy, Cavour took office as Italy's first Prime Minister.
• Alfred Dreyfus: French army officer of Jewish descent whose false imprisonment for treason in 1894 raised issues of anti-semitism that dominated French politics until his release in 1906.
• William Gladstone: A Liberal British Prime Minister who gave concessions to various parties and introduced bills for Irish self-governance and elementary education. He competed with Disraeli throughout the 1800s for political power in England. He was elected and defeated 4 different times to the position of Prime Minister.
• Guiseppe Garibaldi: A nationalist soldier and leader, wanted to unite southern areas of Italy. He was the "action guy" behind Italian Revolution.
• William I of Germany: Became king of Prussia in 1861 & was convinced of the need for major army reforms. He wanted to double the size of the highly disciplined regular army. He also wanted to reduce the importance of the reserve militia, a semi-popular force created during the Napoleonic wars. Army reforms meant a bigger defense budget and higher taxes. It was because of him the Anti-Socialist Laws were passed.
• William II of Germany: In 1890 the new emperor, the young, idealistic, and unstable, he was opposed to Bismarck's attempt to renew the law outlawing the Social Democratic party. Eager to rule in his own right and to earn the support of workers, William II forced Bismarck to resign. After "dropping of the pilot," German foreign policy changed profoundly and mostly for the worse, but the government did pass new laws to aid workers and to legalize socialist political activity. Yet he was no more successful than Bismarck in getting workers to renounce socialism.
• Napoleon III'd coup d' etat: Took place after the National Assembly failed to change the constitution so that Louis Napoleon could run for a second term. He began to conspire with key army officers and on December 2, 1851, illegally dismissed the Assembly to seize power. He restored universal male suffrage and called on the French people to legalize his actions. The people then elected him as president for ten years, but a year later made him the hereditary emperor.
• Assasination of Tsar Alexander II: After a 3rd bomb exploded, Alexander was carried by sleigh to the Winter Palace to his study where he lay bleeding to death, with his legs torn away, his stomach ripped open, and his face mutilated.
• Austro-Hungarian monarchy: After being defeated by Prussia, Austria could no longer ignore the call for national autonomy coming from Hungary. The creation of a dual monarchy gave Hungary control over domestic affairs. Certain areas of governance, such as foreign affairs, were to be directed from Vienna.
• Paris Commune of 1871: A leftist revolt against the national government after France was defeated by Prussia in 1871. Supporters of the Paris Commune were known as Communards and were crushed by the conservatives.
• Home Rule: The nationalistic idea starting in the mid 1800s that Ireland should be independent of England. It gains momentum during the 1800s and eventually comes to fruition in the 1920s.
• Marie Curie: A Polish physicist who, with French husband Pierre, discovered radium emits subatomic particles
• Max Planck: Rejected belief that a heated body radiates energy in a steady stream but maintained instead that energy in radiated discontinuously in irregular packets called "quanta."
• Quanta: The basis of Planck's quantum theory which theorized that a heated body radiates energy in these irregular pockets.
• Friedrich Nietzche: Believed Western bourgeois society was decadent and incapable of any real cultural creativity, primarily because of its excessive emphasis on the rational faculty at the expense of emotions, passions, and instincts.
• Henri Bergeson: Accepted rational, scientific thought as a practical instrument for providing useful knowledge but maintained that it was incapable of arriving at truth or ultimate reality.
• Georges Sorel: Combines Nietzche and Bergsons ideas on the limits of rational thinking with his own interest in revolutionary socialism.
• Sigmund Freud: Published "The Interpretation of Dreams," which contained the foundation for psychoanalysis.
• Id, Ego, and Superego: Id was the center of the unconscious drives.This one is responsible for human desires and sinful lusts.
• Houston Stewart Chamberlain: one of the supporters of the Volkish Ideology which Believed Germans were the only pure successors of Aryans, and had to fight for Western civilization and save it from "lower races" (Jews, Negroes, and Orientals.)
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• distribution: 2024, 13.1, 33.3, 25.2, 20.7, 7.7, 83266, 3.23, 71.6
• weights:
• type: AP Exam
• summary: AP European History is a college-level course that examines the political, cultural, economic, and social developments in Europe from around 1450 to the present. Students explore major events and movements such as the Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, Industrialization, the World Wars, and the Cold War. The course emphasizes historical thinking skills—like analyzing sources, making historical arguments, and understanding change over time. Through primary documents, essays, and class discussions, students gain a deeper understanding of how Europe shaped—and was shaped by—the modern world. It prepares students to think critically about the past and its influence on today's global issues.
• category: Social Sciences
• icon: <i class="fa-solid fa-earth-europe" style="color: #ffba24;"></i>