Rasputin and War 1914-1917
THE TSARINA Alexandra was a religious woman. That was why she was immediately interested in Rasputin, when he was introduced to her in 1905. Rasputin was neither a priest nor a monk. He was a starets, or Holy Man. There…
World History Volume
5000 Years of History. Wisdom. Heritage. Vision.
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Workingmen of All Countries, Unite! 1848 – 1900
The ideas that attracted these Russians came mostly from a man named Karl Marx. Marx was born in Germany in 1818, the son of Jewish parents who had become converted to Christianity. He began the study of law, but soon…
Stalemate in the West, Decision in the East 1914 -1917
Germany’s generals had for some time expected that they would have to fight both France and Russia, and Count Alfred von Schlieffen had devised a battle plan that took this into consideration. The Schlieffen Plan was a good one and…
The Storm Breaks 1914
JUNE 28, 1914, was the Feast of Saint Vitus, an important holiday in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. The city was decorated with flags displaying the two-headed eagle of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and a blazing sun shone down on the…
Storm Clouds over Europe 1882-1907
AS THE year 1899 drew to a close, Europeans and Americans began to wonder when, exactly, the nineteenth century would end and the twentieth century begin. Most people thought that this would take place at midnight of December 31, 1899,…
Parceling Out a Continent 1841-1910
Africa, the second largest continent in the world, extends south from the Mediterranean Sea four thousand miles. Along its north coast is a strip of land known to Europeans since ancient times. South of this strip lie mountains and deserts.…
Japan Meets the West 1853-1905
The date was July 8, 1853; the place, Yedo, a sprawling collection of wooden houses overlooking an arm of the Pacific Ocean. Yedo, later known as Tokyo, was the chief city of the Japanese islands, off the east coast of…
Problems of a Changing World 1870-1914
WHILE INDUSTRY was transforming the United States, the same thing was happening in Western Europe. The change was most noticeable in Germany, because Germany was not unified until 1870, it started to become industrial much later than Great Britain and…
Europe Divided 1825 -1881
IN EUROPE and North America, nationalism generally led to the creation of larger states and the centralization of power. In the Austrian Empire, however, nationalism had the opposite effect; it led to the break-up of the empire and the creation…