Notes for History

Allies -usually denotes the countries who fought together against the Central Powers in World War I.

D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated the best known D-Day is June 6, 1944 Ð'-- the day on which the Battle of Normandy began Ð'-- commencing the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.

The Holocaust is the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the Nazi regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.

Iron Curtain" was the boundary which symbolically, ideologically, and physically divided Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War, roughly 1945 to 1991. The first recorded use of the term was in 1920 by Ethel Snowden in her book 'Through Bolshevik Russia'. German politician Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk was the first to refer to an "

Iron Curtain" coming down across Europe after World War II, although he borrowed the expression from Joseph Goebbels.[1] The term was not widely used until March 5, 1946, when it was popularized by Winston Churchill in his 'Sinews of Peace' address.

United Nations (U.N.) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. It was founded in 1945 at the signing of the United Nations Charter by 50 countries, replacing the League of Nations, founded in 1919 The Marshall Plan, officially the European Recovery Program (ERP), was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of Europe and repelling communism after World War II. The initiative was named for United States Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan.The reconstruction plan was developed at a meeting of the participating European states on July 12 1947. The Marshall Plan offered the same aid to the Soviet Union and its allies, if they would make political reforms and accept certain outside controls. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in July 1947. During that period some $13 billion of economic and technical assistance was given to help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The Warsaw Pact or Warsaw Treaty Organization, officially named the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (Russian: Договор о дружбе, сотрудничестве и взаимной помощи), was an organization of Central and Eastern European communist states. It was established on May 1, 1955 in Warsaw, Poland to counter the alleged threat from the NATO alliance. The creation of the Warsaw Pact was prompted by the integration of a "re-militarized" West Germany into NATO on May 9, 1955 via ratification of the Paris Peace Treaties. The Pact lasted throughout the Cold War until certain member nations began withdrawing in 1991, following the collapse of the Eastern bloc and political changes in the Soviet Union. The treaty was signed in Warsaw, Poland on May 14, 1955 and official copies were made in Russian, Polish, Czech and German

The Non-Aligned Movement, or NAM, is an international organization of over 100 states which consider themselves not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. The purpose of the organization as stated in the Havana Declaration of 1979 is to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, Zionism, racism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics".[1] They represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations's members and comprise 55% of the world population

Mao Zedong (December 26, 1893 Ð'- September 9, 1976) (also Mao Tse-tung in Wade-Giles transliteration; pronunciation (helpÐ'*info)) was a Chinese Marxist military and political leader, who led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, and the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. In China, Mao is also recognized as a poet, calligrapher and writer

The Korean War, occurring between June 25, 1950 and a ceasefire on July 27, 1953, was a war fought in Korea that was divided by the post-World War II Soviet and American occupation zones, with large-scale participation by other countries. The war began with the invasion of capitalist South Korea by forces in communist North Korea in 1950 and ended as a stalemate between the two sides in 1953.

Apartheid (meaning separatism in Afrikaans cognate to English apart and -hood) was a system of racial segregation that was enforced in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. Apartheid was designed to form a legal framework for continued economic and political dominance by people of European descent.

Blitzkrieg (helpÐ'*info) (German, literally lightning war or flash war) is a popular name for an offensive operational-level military doctrine which involves an initial bombardment followed by the employment of mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from implementing a coherent defense. The founding principles of these types of operations were developed in the 20th Century by various nations, and adapted in the years after World War I, largely by the German Wehrmacht, to incorporate modern weapons and vehicles as a method to help avoid the stalemate of trench warfare and linear warfare in future conflicts. The first practical implementations of these concepts coupled with modern technology were instituted by the Wehrmacht in the opening theatres of World War II. The strategy was particularly effective in the invasions of France, The Netherlands and initial operations in the Soviet Union. These operations were dependent on surprise penetrations, general enemy unpreparedness and an inability to react swiftly enough to German